Social media is killing locations. UE itself can't be killed!

I'm more of a "new kid on the block", so here is my take on it. I feel like people share way too much info about themselves and what they do these days, as much as I would love to find new locations, when they get "leaked" or mainstream, the magic is gone, building gets vandalized, or taken down. However, I wouldn't say it is killing Urbex, more just killing buildings and locations.

Posted by UrbanUrbanSuburban I'm more of a "new kid on the block", so here is my take on it. I feel like people share way too much info about themselves and what they do these days, as much as I would love to find new locations, when they get "leaked" or mainstream, the magic is gone, building gets vandalized, or taken down. However, I wouldn't say it is killing Urbex, more just killing buildings and locations.

I agree. I'm new myself too, but what I've noticed is it's kinda like a disease with a high mortality rate. Once a building gets infected by the power of social media, there isn't much hope for it anymore. But there still will be plenty of places that will stay safe from being "contaminated", plus new ones beyond born(new places being closed/abandoned/discovered). But I suppose a lot of explorers are just the carriers of this disease looking for views and how cool of stuff they found. And the taggers, arsonists, scrappers, and partiers are all the pathogens that just end up slowly killing the buildings until their demise(demolition, sealing, or securing beyond possible exploration). Once a place has been infected by the media, there's pretty much no cure except treating it for as long as possible. Also just telling the wrong person with word of mouth can get word around a city, school, university, whatever, bringing rowdy teenagers and kids to them.

Good or bad, urbex is affected by a lot of other things too. Property value plays a big role, as most of the time really good stuff is abandoned because it's too expensive to tear down or government, along with the average population of say hooligans.


I think the same thing about this as I think about hiking though. With hiking, I've never run into someone who was an idiot (music, trash, yelling, vandalism)
If i had to walk more than 6 miles into the site, and i think it goes the same way for urbex. Unfortunately, unlike hiking trails, you can tear down locations and that makes me sad. On the flip side though, difficult locations isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you can make it into somewhere like discovery island or six flags without being seen, that's a real achievement that takes a caliber of craft and luck that is without peer. Yes, it is sad to see good locations go, but the real takeaway i got from reading all those posts is just to be better than the grammers and the reddit trolls.

trashrat

It's not killing urbex at all, if anything it's getting more people interested in exploring abandoned places than ever. Most people don't just see these places on the side of the road and think anything of it. Once you're able to see what's actually inside, whether that be through Tiktok, YouTube, Facebook, or whatever, then you start thinking about it and looking more into these places, until you actually start exploring. On top of that, with apps such as Tiktok, it allows these videos to spread as quickly as possible and inherently get as many people interested as possible, which I would say is good.

I see people getting concerned for some reason that it allows locations to spread faster, and then they end up getting vandalized or destroyed in some way. Almost everyone that's interested in urbex and photography on these platforms know the same rules that you do, which includes respect the location, and don't share the location. I rarely see anyone, even on Tiktok and Instagram, sharing locations.

So I would say that social media is undoubtedly furthering urbex rather than killing it.

Posted by Euphoric I see people getting concerned for some reason that it allows locations to spread faster, and then they end up getting vandalized or destroyed in some way. Almost everyone that's interested in urbex and photography on these platforms know the same rules that you do, which includes respect the location, and don't share the location. I rarely see anyone, even on Tiktok and Instagram, sharing locations.

lol

Posted by Euphoric It's not killing urbex at all, if anything it's getting more people interested in exploring abandoned places than ever. Most people don't just see these places on the side of the road and think anything of it. Once you're able to see what's actually inside, whether that be through Tiktok, YouTube, Facebook, or whatever, then you start thinking about it and looking more into these places, until you actually start exploring. On top of that, with apps such as Tiktok, it allows these videos to spread as quickly as possible and inherently get as many people interested as possible, which I would say is good. I see people getting concerned for some reason that it allows locations to spread faster, and then they end up getting vandalized or destroyed in some way. Almost everyone that's interested in urbex and photography on these platforms know the same rules that you do, which includes respect the location, and don't share the location. I rarely see anyone, even on Tiktok and Instagram, sharing locations. So I would say that social media is undoubtedly furthering urbex rather than killing it.

Even if that's the case, looking into the comments there's almost oughta be someone who inevitably knows and gives the name out. In fact, I've found a couple places that way, and so could anyone else. Also, though I'm pretty new, from what I've understood is that Urbex is a hobby best kept "underground". I don't think it's about how big of a society we can get: quality over quantity. And social media attracts the low quality "explorers" who can't help but continue the hobby carelessly and give urbexers a bad rap, as the real high quality ones are the mainly the ones the public doesn't hear about, but the attention-seeking negligent explorer is what most people will picture when they hear the phrase Urban exploration due to it's increasing prevalence.

Though you're right, social media is birthing more urbexers, that doesn't mean it's better for it. I guess the feeling from what I've gotten from being here only a few months is the syncretism between us explorers, like some sort of guild, especially between the old-timers. Like people spend hours trying to help others with their questions and know they will get nothing in return. I have noticed how selfless people are even when it comes to someone who never stepped foot in an abandoned building before joining this site. Maybe that's where the feeling comes from. And the introduction of many new individuals probably naturally sparks distrust within a lot of the community. Sorry if this doesn't make sense, I can't really put the sentimental feeling into proper words to convey what I mean. Hopefully the first paragraph makes sense lol. Essentially, aside from the spots being ruined, I see social media as negative for the community we got here and out in the world. I also don't want to be thought of as a loser by those who know of my activities just because of people like that. But that's just my side of it.

Posted by Thecurious Though you're right, social media is birthing more urbexers, that doesn't mean it's better for it. I guess the feeling from what I've gotten from being here only a few months is the syncretism between us explorers, like some sort of guild, especially between the old-timers. Like people spend hours trying to help others with their questions and know they will get nothing in return. I have noticed how selfless people are even when it comes to someone who never stepped foot in an abandoned building before joining this site. Maybe that's where the feeling comes from. And the introduction of many new individuals probably naturally sparks distrust within a lot of the community. Sorry if this doesn't make sense, I can't really put the sentimental feeling into proper words to convey what I mean. Hopefully the first paragraph makes sense lol. Essentially, aside from the spots being ruined, I see social media as negative for the community we got here and out in the world. I also don't want to be thought of as a loser by those who know of my activities just because of people like that. But that's just my side of it.

I see what you're saying, it makes more sense thinking about it from that aspect. With a bunch of new people, in an already pretty close group, it would cause a few different issues in the community. I guess I just misinterpreted the original title and post. I also wanted to just see more peoples thoughts on social media and it's future for urbex, because it is undoubtedly getting more popular because of social media, especially right now. I think that it's unfortunately going to be inevitable that more people then ever find out about it through social media, including people that you typically wouldn't want doing urban exploration. It would be better to just have a close community that's smaller rather than a larger, more well known one, especially in regards to urban exploring. There was a nice hospital near me that was a great place to explore before the coordinates got leaked on some site and now it just looks like shit and is set to be demolished soon, which is a pretty good example of how social media can go and ruin certain spots. My original reply was more oriented on the fact that urban exploration is getting more popular than ever because of social media, but I also didn't think about how social media is killing the quality of the buildings and exploring as well, but it makes sense.

It depends. I dont like kids and adults doing way too reckless sh1yt. Some things shouldnt be filmed live. Theres a very fine line between from "it looks ok" to "risking own life for likes and 100 new subscribers".
I cannot blame social media killing locations because most of locations in my area are gone when a huge real estate company buys land just to build another shopping center, heeh.

Posted by TaRaShRat With hiking, I've never run into someone who was an idiot (music, trash, yelling, vandalism)

i see you've never been to the Adirondacks of New York or Green Mountains of Vermont... there are fucking idiots everywhere in the woods. Fucking trash everywhere. In all honesty, the majority of people out there don't give a fuck. You want an example? Sit in a supermarket parking lot for an hour or two and watch people... bring a snack and a drink. Watch how people behave in that lot by how they park their car, whether or not they put the cart back in the corral... shit like that. Most people are dickheads. They are dickheads on how they park, how the drive through the lot and most just leave their fucking carts right there. Don't even bother to attempt to return them. That is a barometer that should be used to measure a civilization.

with this whole UE thing on social media? It's all look at me and the cool place i found. Don't you want to be cool like me and check this place out? So four hundred other attention-starved cockheads start tromping through the place posting shit on any number of social media bullshit... next thing you know, the people that actually own the motherfucker start locking things up, placing booby traps and getting Johnny Law involved. OR, you get five or six totally psychotic motherfuckers that decide it would be a fine idea to torch the place and turn it to a pile of rubble... a drag race between those five fuckheads to see who gets there first.

this whole UE thng isn't golf. It's a mostly illegal activity used to document a moment frozen in time. Be it for aesthetics or history.

now, you're probably going, "what about all the dickheads that posted on UER for all those years?"

well, yeah, there's that, but there was always a security to this site. A knew B who knew C who knew D wasn't a dickhead, but E and F might be, so watch them. It was all based on trust and impression. And believe me, on a forum like this, your personality comes out in what you write superquick. It's not ultramoderated like a social media septic tank. In a place like this you say what you fucking mean and mean what you fucking say.

so yes, social media is furthering a hobby that shouldn't be furthered by social media.

now get off my fucking lawn or i'll sic Fifi on you!

Groups of 10 urban explorers probably get to know each other personally and trust each other.

Groups of 100 urban explorers are going to have a bad egg surface every once in a while, either a terrible person who enters their circle or a member whose life takes a turn for the worse.

Groups of 1000 have the same problem and can't effectively control it.

Groups of 10,000 don't even bother managing it.

Groups of 100,000 are boring and uniform, driven by trends and monetisation.