You’re on a school trip to a museum, and
to be honest, not taking the tour all that seriously, laughing at how stern that curator
guy is when describing the magnificence of centuries-old European paintings. At one point that curator tells your group
that you are now looking at one of the most remarkable and most expensive paintings that
exists in the world today, so naturally, as your group moves on, you decide to take a
selfie with it. This doesn’t end well, because as you turn
to take the shot you trip, fall backwards, and stick your free hand right through that
multimillion dollar piece of art. “Oops,” you say, wondering how you’ll
get the $68 million to pay for it. This kind of thing has actually happened,
and today you’ll hear more about the dumb and the clumsy destroying things. 10. Pink Grass
It’s not always about money, some things that get destroyed are more beautiful than
costly. As this story goes, in 2016 a city in China
decided it wanted to create an area of beauty. The plan was to import special pink grass
seeds from Australia and then plant those seeds in one of the city’s parks. The caretaker responsible for cultivating
the area said it took her 3 years to get the place looking how it should, and that meant
caring for the pink grass paradise each and every day. Then came the problems, notably hordes of
Chinese tourists that wanted to have themselves photographed in that pink paradise. The caretaker was screaming and shouting so
much to make them stop her voice finally went, and then she just had to give up. The hordes couldn’t be stopped. That photo in the pink grass was just soooo
important to them. This is what that caretaker later told the
media: “I've been caring for the growth of this
grass, but I never imagined they'd get demolished in just two to three days. To me, they are like my son and daughter. It's like witnessing my sons being beaten
by barbarians, but I can do nothing to help.” The moral to this story is never, ever, underestimate
what narcissistic selfie-takers will do to get a “like” on a social media platform. The caretaker said she still had some seeds
and will start the project again. We can’t put a cost on this damage, but
we can say in two days the tourist hordes destroyed three years of work. 9. The Curse Of The Soap Opera
One of Thailand’s most cherished ancient temples is called Wat Chaiwatthanaram (Chai-wat-an-aram). For the most part, people walk around that
magnificent structure and by no means would they ever start walking on top of the thing. But then in 2018 the temple suddenly started
seeing 10,000 tourists a day, many more people than had come in the past. The reason for the mass of tourists was because
it had been featured in a very popular soap opera called “Love Destiny.” This had been watched in translation all over
Asia. Tourists even turned up wearing Thai traditional
costume, because that soap opera depicted older times. That was fine, but these new tourists went
a bit too far and started climbing all over the temple, and in doing so, destroyed parts
of it. They weren’t exploring of course, and only
wanted to get that perfect shot for Instagram. The temple started looking like a scene out
of World War Z, albeit the zombies were armed with smartphones. Authorities didn’t put a cost on the damage,
but when you’ve ruined parts of a cultural treasure, it’s a cost to the country. The authorities eventually had to temporarily
close the temple off to tourists so they could begin putting the parts back together. 8. Hangover Part 4
Ok, so again, this wasn’t about the money…and we’ll get to money soon, but this story
is just too good not to tell. Two British tourists in 2012 were on vacation
in Australia and they decided that they’d visit Sea World. As anyone in their right mind would do, the
pair thought it best to drink an entire large bottle of vodka each before they went to see
the marine life. We don’t really know what happened next,
and neither do the drunk guys. What we do know is when they woke up the next
morning, hopping around their hotel room was a penguin. One guy said to the other, “Mate, why is
there a penguin in the room?” CCTV had all the answers, and that showed
that these two guys first set a fire extinguisher off in the shark enclosure. After that, they decided they wanted to take
a swim with some dolphins. Sometime later they were in the penguin enclosure
and that’s where they found a penguin named Dirk. They liked Dirk, and decided to sneak him
out of the place. Once in their hotel room they took some selfies
with Dirk and then the drunks collapsed. The pair were arrested and had to pay around
$1000 in fines. Dirk was returned, and Sea World’s main
concern was that those guys were pretty close to jumping into the polar bear enclosure. That would have been what you call a mortal
s elfie. 7. It Seemed Like A Good Fit
In 2017 a British family had taken their small child to see an exhibit that was an 800-year
sandstone coffin. It is believed that this coffin had once been
the resting place of a British monk. Obviously, you’re not supposed to touch
something that old, but the family wanted to take a pretty morbid photo of their child
lying in the thing. That didn’t end well and the coffin fell
over, breaking a part of it. That family is still at large, but the good
news is, the cost of fixing the coffin was only $130. 6. Parental Guidance
In 2014 a sculpture called “Angel in Waiting,” created by a famous Chinese artist was on
show at the Shanghai Museum of Glass. This thing had been painstakingly put together
with tiny fragments of glass and it took the artist 27 months to complete. What happened next is beyond belief. Two mothers of two boys took their little
angels to see the sculpture, but then asked the boys to go and play with it. The mothers actually videoed this. Not surprisingly, the kids brought the whole
thing down and it smashed into small pieces, rendering it completely unfixable. The kids actually yanked the precious artwork
from the wall, as the mothers kept their smartphones trained on them. The media didn’t say how much this sculpture
was worth, but given that the artist was well-known and the fact it took over two years to make,
we are thinking it was worth many thousands. 5. Bananagate
At an exhibition in Miami in 2019 there was one piece of art that has boggled the minds
of many. That’s because the art work consisted of
a banana duct-taped to a wall. This piece of transcendent art was the brain-child
of an Italian artist named Maurizio Cattelan. Yep, you might be thinking that you could
have created that, but somehow a French collector actually bought the work for $120,000. One day a man was walking by this piece of
art when he decided to take the banana off the wall and eat it. Now only the wall was left, so did that mean
the thing was destroyed? Well, what is even more confounding is the
museum said it wasn’t a big problem because a new banana could replace the one in the
man’s stomach. The guy was pulled aside, but he was never
charged with a crime. The artist has since done another ‘banana
on wall’ work and that one was sold for $150,000. Let’s remember that the art consists of
a single, normal, garden variety banana and a bit of tape. Please don’t ask us why this is happening,
because frankly we have no idea. Here at the Infographics Show we have bananas
taped on all the office walls and so far we have no buyers. Now for some really expensive damage. 4. He Just Needed A Hug
In 2018, an American family took their child to an exhibition held at the Tomahawk Ridge
Community Center in Kansas. Everything was going well until their young
son saw a statue and decided to give it a hug. What happened next is the thing fell over
and broke into pieces, although thankfully the child wasn’t hurt. The bad news is that the statue, called “Aphrodite
di Kansas City”, was valued at $130,000. It was smashed so badly that it could not
be repaired. So, who was at fault? The parents said not them because something
that valuable should have had a guard rail around it. The city and the artist thought differently,
but we’re not sure if that family ever had to pay any money. This is what the mother said about the hug,
“Maybe my son hugged a torso because he’s a loving, sweet nice boy who just graduated
from preschool.” 3. The Souvenir Taker
We are going to call the cost of this... priceless. It happened in 2008 and a Finnish tourist
had travelled all the way to that place we call Easter Island. We are sure you’ll all know that this place
is famous for those giant head statues that are known as “Moai.” There are something like 900 of these statutes
on the island and they date back 1,000 years. To say the least, they are a monumental achievement
and are currently a UNESCO World Heritage site. We are quite sure that every single one of
our intelligent viewers would know that you don’t mess with these things, but that Finnish
tourist might have been a few fries short of a Happy Meal. The tourist went up to one of the statues
and decided he wanted to take a piece home with him as a souvenir. He yanked at the ear and indeed bits came
off, if not in small fragments. The guy was caught and he was looking at a
seven-year prison sentence, but it seems the authorities were lenient and fined him just
$18,000. If you think that’s a lot, keep watching. 2. The Painting Needed My Input
In 2012, a Polish man was visiting the Tate Modern Gallery in London. What the museum didn’t know is that this
guy had come to do some of his own handiwork. His plan was to “improve” a very famous
painting called “Black on Maroon.” The painting was created in 1958 by an American
artist named Mark Rothkoin, and while it might look rather dull to some observers, it’s
actually worth 15-20 million dollars. That Polish man walked up to it and scrawled
over the artwork his name, the number 12, and the words, “a potential piece of yellowism.” The gallery wasn’t exactly impressed with
this addition and the Polish guy was prosecuted. He ended up spending 18 months in a British
prison. After his release, the guy said, “I apologize
to the British people for what I did. I suppose I wanted to change the art world
but of course I did it in a very, very wrong way.” Restoration took almost two years and that
itself cost $200,000, but now Black on Maroon is in perfect condition once again. Graffiti can be removed, but large holes and
rips are problematic. 1. The Destroyers
A painting called “The Actor” by the renowned artist Pablo Picasso had hung peacefully in
New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1952, but then in 2010, The actor had
a hole ripped right through it. What you have to understand is that this piece
of art was part of Picasso’s valuable early works, and when a woman fell into the thing
and ripped it, it was worth over $100,000,000. The people who were tasked to repair it said
with time they could do a good job, but the outcome would be a noticeable line where the
7 inch tear had been. We looked at what art experts said about damaged
paintings and they said you can’t always say how much a piece of damaged art will lose
in value, but one expert said typically it might depreciate 10 or 20 percent, which for
a hundred million dollar painting means 10 or 20 million. Add on to that the restorations costs. We just can’t say how much that tear cost,
but it could be in the millions. Since this was a total accident the woman
who fell into the painting was not charged. We don’t think clumsiness is a crime these
days. In 2019, another Picasso was beat up, and
this time the work was sliced with a knife. The painting in question was called “Bust
of a Woman”, From what we can see that painting is still
undergoing surgery in England, but as the damage was quite severe we have to wonder
if it will ever get the $26 million it was said to be worth before a man decided to knife
it. We’d like to end this show with a public
service announcement. We have millions of viewers at the Infographics
Show and we are sure none of you would ever consider doing some of the things described
in this show. But just as a word of warning, don’t mess
with art, or natural wonders, and be careful where you take your selfies. Do you have a taste for destruction right
now? What about the prospect of the world being
destroyed? If you want to know how that might happen,
take a look at this frightening show, “What Is The Nuclear Football (The Briefcase That
Can Destroy The World)?” Or perhaps you’d enjoy this other video
here. Either way, click now now!
