So, for the purpose of readability in this brief article, I will refrain from quoting philosophers, prominent marketing professionals, media gurus, notable PR-people and postmodern academics whos views, theories and joint knowledge I could have deliberately inserted in whatever I am about to present in an effort to further my own opinion. I’ll simply not do it this time and you’re going to have to trust me in not doing so.

Setting the scene

Last week a tragedy occured in central Stockholm. A young boy of a mere thirteen years plunged to his own death while “touristing” in one of the cities many underground canals. He had payed a small amount to another boy who, acting as guide, took the former on a stroll through the forbidden (and forbidding) grounds. In the process something went wrong, the young boy slipped to his death and the older, the guide – simply took off, presumably fearful of facing the consequences (a lead motife it will turn out, as it were in this moral tale). He still hasn’t surfaced to this date and the police have little hope of him ever doing so. The dead boy was somehow found and hauled out of the deep drop. I’m not familiar with the exact details of the scene, but there you go. These are the irreputable facts.

Now – media, being media, quickly caught up with the story and it was indeed front page news for a couple of days. Bereft parents were interviewed while concerned city officials and other major players presented their views on the tragic situation – police waving the forbidding stick and the men in charge of security shaking their heads, calling urban exploration a global problem. You get the idea.

Though, what at first glance looked like a freak accident quickly found another avenue for investigation. The setting, a closed off underground canal of some sort, also happened to be a hotspot for the many Urban Explorers that, as a pasttime and passion – visit places just like this particular site. A swift, but not necessarily fair – connecting of the dots all but blamed the UE-movement for inspiring the boy to head off on this fatal adventure.

Somehow, the reporter covering the story for one the tabloids, presumably after some online research, found an internet forum, 28dagarsenare.se (a reflection and play on the name of the english UE-site, 28dayslater.co.uk), where one of the Swedish authorities on Urban Exploration presides as moderator. Jan Jörnmark has written a number of excellent and hugely entertaining books on the subject and is more or less associated with the phenomenon of UE in Sweden.

Furthermore, his view are held in high regard by both readers and probably a great many practitioners of Urban Exploration. Mr. Jörnmark was interviewed in connection to the event and gave off a concerned and very correct and admirably presented statement. Kudos to him.

Pre-emptive strike opportunity lost

In spite of my many other more urgent interests, I’ve always kept a keen, boyish in truth – I suppose, interest on Urban Exploration and, so naturally, this piece of news immediately caught my eye. I concluded that if Mr. Jörnmark was interviewed, chances are that the forum, mentioned in the article – was more or less being raided by media and public alike.

Being a part of the all-pervasive communications industry, its my day-to-day job to navigate my clients through the murky and dangerous waters of public affairs, media exposure and press management – on and more often then not, offline.

In short, and against better judgement, I decided to openly write down a few suggestions to the management of the forum on how to deal with the media. Simple things like arranging a decent FAQ on how to practice UE safely, pulling together a special page for the press with edited details regarding UE and its practitioners, including some useful facts; and the like. The basic stuff for making the job of understanding easy for hard-pressed journalists. While in no way claiming that my advice is a panaceum for all media ills, or even the one rightful path, I did honestly believe that I pitched in an effort to help the forum out of an ill-boding situation.

Because as far as casual advice goes, it is a fact of our overexposed society that there is no better place to hide than in plain view. If you want to disappear your colors have to blend in. You need to inform the press properly if you want them off your back – and you have to do this in a prearranged pattern that they’re likely to understand the contents of without pressing you further for what might not even be a story. This is not selling out and it is not an invasion in any way. Its an informational hygiene that you either adapt to, or stand the risk of misinterpretation. It is the way the game is played if the game is to be played successfully. A pre-emptive strike, as it were.

The response

Not surprisingly, reactions to my suggestions were rather on the negative side. Some members acknowledged the need to communicate with the media and at least partly concurred, but the response from the majority quickly depreciated into less eloquent and at times even unpleasant personal attacks on me (and not my case) followed by a torrent of denials dismissing the  necessity of communication.

A heated debated followed shorty after, with members adding input in the neighbourhood of: “we’re not responsible for the actions of others, all you need is common sense”, “how can we be blamed for something that happens outside of the forum”, “we’re not an official club, we don’t need a spokesperson”, “let’s turn off the Google indexing so that visitors won’t find us again”, “lets close the forum to the public”, “go f*ck yourself and wave your credentials elsewhere”, “lets forget the whole thing, it will blow over, stay calm”, “this isn’t a problem, we all know how media works”, etc.

In all fairness there were moderating voices but these quickly drowned in the deluge of members sticking their heads in the sand or worse, shooting them off in ignorance.

What then, can be learned from this – aside from acknowledging the fact that dishing out unsolicited public relations-advice on the net is not the best pasttime for communication professionals on extended lunchhour breaks?

I began to think through the turns my simple and straightforwardly put suggestion had sparked and found, what I believe to be nothing less than a subculture on the skids.

Dragging subcultures into the open

Urban Explorers, as a demographic, are an industrious, creative, charmingly rebellious – and usually; utterly irresponsible lot. Incidentally, much like any denizens of just about any internet forum out there. But perhaps in this case, even more dangerously so.

Urban exploring is by no means a new phenomena, and while it is not this articles place to examine it in any scienfic manner (moreover, I promised in the beginning that I would refrain from quoting outside sources) – it can be useful to know that sometime during the industrial age man found enough time to reflect on his past, and indeed, become nostalgic of it. Nostalgia, in its purest form – is a ridiculous, cloying and unworthy pasttime for thinking individuals. It is often worsened yet and preceded by its irrational little sister: sentimentalism – the cheapest of human emotions.

Curiosly, Urban Exploring has dubious roots in para-urban exploring – but without said sentimentalism. Romantics have since the dawn of time reveled in the reminiscing of old ages by means of visiting ruins and other man-made relics – more often than not, situated outside settlements.

It is not until fairly recently that UE has exploded onto the scene as the number of relics have grown exponentially. Abandoned factories, sanatariums, powerplants and other colorful, rusty remnants of a rampant globalisation have for years littered both urban and rural landscapes as the ever-advancing armies of trade and capital changed the parameters of survival faster than society could adapt to them.

Over the years – rusty, decaying buildings have attracted both the casual onlooker as well as the amateur photographer. But there have been those that were not satisfied with a perpetual look on the subject matter: Urban Explorers often probe these old sites and buildings for motives of their own. Why? Well – for one, the sheer joy of it. In this shrinking world where borders fall in onto themselves and any place is reachable (in some manner) with a few clicks, it is refreshing to find a place where few set their foot. A simpler explanation would be that humans like to explore. For joy and for discovery alone. Or perhaps for the sheer, rebellious hell of it. After all, any place with restriced access is as much a provocation to trespass as it is a deterrant against trespassing. Great many of these places are, in spite of often being locked into legal battles, owned by someone or something and not legal grounds for anyone save any (mostly absent) caretakers.

No matter the motive and the pattern of discovery – with the arrival of the internet, urban exploring changed in nature. From a solo, almost boyish adventure, on occasion accompanied by a camera – to a form of sport where the actual discovery goes hand in hand with the documentation of it. A not so unimportant factor in the game of UE-credibility is the attitude and relationship of the discoverer to the object that has been discovered. A “virgin” site, hitherto undiscovered (or at least, documented) is worth a lot more attention from the UE crowd than one that has been visited on numerous occasions. Most practitioners of UE would probably deny the fact if you asked them, but there you go, that’s the game of attitudes. Oft visited sites tend to decay inasmuch as they bear evidence of recent trespasses and their popularity vanes over the time on display.

In time, an entire self-fuelling subculture has spawned around these abandoned, fascinating and often mysterious sites. A subculture like any other, save for one small detail. The whole thing hinges on the fact that publicity, while coveted by our modern explorers – just as fast kills the cat. The more prominent the sites, the faster they drop in popularity.

There are other problems, one of which I’ve already mentioned. Trespassing on these sites is often forbidden by law. While seemingly a small crime, I wonder what sort of complicated stories Urban Explorers tell their insurance companies when they fall through floors in places they should not have been in, incapacitating themselves in the process. One mans personal tragedy becomes anothers financial risk. Or perhaps there are insurances to cover this?

And so we’ve involuntarily arrived at the third factor: safety. Safety, as one can imagine is troublesome at best in these circumstances.

From one aspect, what is dangerous is also interesting and so an intrinsic part of the game, but often the risk just cannot be calculated justly and while there are no official statistics (to my knowledge at least) as to how many of our spirited adventurers actually injure themselves in this cumbersome task of documenting the past – it would be a safe bet to say that it would be quite a few more than had they chosen to cast a glance for afar. Of those personally known to me, all have some sort of painful story to tell in that respect.

The young boy that plunged to his death a few days ago certainly underscores the dangers of urban exploration. Moreover, his death might point to the fact that Urban Exploration has grown itself past the point of the favoured pasttime of a daring few, to the joint responsibility of many. I shall try to explain why.

The fall of  Urban Exploration by way of ignorance

Urban Exploration has become all but an institution. Numerous websites, discussion groups, books, magazine features and all the media coverage your run-of-the-mill cult can carry, coupled with overexploitation of digital technology kills trends quicker than you can say URL. And that is certainly the case with UE. It is no longer an elite wink between a select club but something that is overinformationalised, categorised and pegged down to the last Googled, iPhoned coordinate.

UE needs the limelight so that the members can display their findings, but at the same time, that very same light kills the sport as it is not only based on exclusivity (partly because some of the acts are criminal) but also on exposure of the sites that have been visited and documented. Put simply, when you drag a this said subculture into the light, it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

And a great deal of the responses I got when posting my advice on how to handle this unexpected limelight confirmed this. In fact, some of the responses were not only outrageous but even borderline juvenile. To debunk some of then: Stating that one bears no responsibility as group or individual for publishing information on a forum that could lead to the endangering of others is a blatant declaration of incapacity. Furthermore, referring to the “common sense” of a thirteen year old in the same sentence is a rather serious mistake, especially since it in this case lead to a young mans death. No adult can count on the “common sense” of a child. No one.

A note on the usage of the term “common sense” in debates. “Common sense” is not an indivisable, lucid term and it is only with some difficulty that a group of people can agree on what common sense actually means. While not claiming to have the absolute answer for this, I’ve noticed a sliding scale of the usage of said term in debates and in particular, online debates. Worse yet is the fact that whenever someone refers to “common sense” it is usually to cover up a rather muddy agenda, as if waving the wand of “common sense” would explain and do away with any unpleasant arguments. This, to me at least, represents a form of “magical thinking”, akin to that used by small children and people suffering serious illnesses. Thats why I always prick my ears a bit further whenever I hear the term being used.

As for the argument of waiting for the whole thing to blow over: again, irresponsibility. The problem of accepting that whenever you publish information about a site that could lead to others visiting it, and injuring themselves in the process – you have a moral and ethical (not yet legal, but this can and in most likely probability will change some time in the future) responsibility. It’s the devils prerogative; he can’t push you to commit the crime, but he sure can instill the desire in you to do so yourself. Afterwards, the devil will of course, rid himself of any lingering guilt. After all, it was you who tread those stairs, was it not?

The members of the forum claim, almost in unisom, that they do not need a spokesperson that the media could talk to (I also read that they don’t need help as they already “know” the media, which is not only untrue but shows an apalling lack of judgment. Just because someone is the recipient of media does not make him anything more that just that. A passive recipient. It is a bit like saying that you know how to pilot a plane based on the fact that you fly regularly – as passenger).

Yet again, a mistake and miscalculation. Media has already selected a spokesperson. The only thing that actually mitigates the whole sad, miserable, affair is that the spokesperson is unusually gifted and apt in handling media attention. For the time being it sufficed. Next time – and there most certainly will be a next time (there have already been other cases, but none involving deaths – again, to my knowledge – I have not duly researched this), the UE community might not be so lucky. Already borderline associated with thugs, graffiti-artists and shady activities of less savoury citizens, UE is nothing short of a media-disaster waiting to happen.

The press, being the press, have  jumbled any fringe cultures, subcultures, trends and groupings and made their own interpretation of UE. And a very unfavourable one as thing stand now. Pinning graffiti artists and Urban Explorers in the same group is just not good research – these are almost opposing factions – but in the public eye, they are one and the same.

In the long run, this unwanted and unmitigated attention, coupled with misinterpretations like the one above – might lead to a lobbying for the passing of certain laws (i’m sure you can imagine the nature of those laws), making the blatant displaying of borderline accepted activities a case for the courts, not admiration. Or worse. Any unwanted, unregulated attention calls for greater scrutiny, particularly in our modern society obsessed with the concept of “security”, “fear” and a systematic eradication of “the unknown”. UE as a concept, group or trend, not ready to accept the outcome of its presence in the limelight, and even already crippled by internal disorder amongst members of opposing factions – will suffer the penalty of any quarrelling group: splintering into fractures, each fracture conviced out their right to exist and promote (or not) their own views.

In short, the fall of public UE as they know it.

Lost opportunities

Which is, all in all – rather a shame, really. What makes Swedish UE so interesting (and about the only thing that makes it interesting – our sites are to say the least – not near as impressive as those over in the U.S.A or the European continent even), is its spokesperson: Mr. Jörnmark. He wasn’t the first Urban Explorer to document the decay. He was, however, the first to put them into a real and vivid context. Explaining the process in words (as it happens, by way of his area of expertise, economics) and captivating it in well-taken pictures turned out to be a public success, spawning three volumes of well-recieved books.

For the first time in a long while – modern history came alive in a way that had hitherto not been explored. In succint, wonderfully crafted text Mr. Jörnmark explains the Swedish, and indeed, global history in a captivating and unrelenting fashion.

Apart from being a terrific read, the works of Mr. Jörnmark are followed by a large group of more or less dedicated fans. And so, the phenomena has been outed in a fashion that in hindsight seems unfit considering its main characteristic: being clandestine.

My effort, to show the UE-practictioners of the forum then under pressure, was not aimed at making them more known or forcing them into institutionalisation (that part they’ve managed all too well themselves as I’m sure they are going to realise in the near future) – but was an effort to hide them in plain sight. We do not ask any deeper questions we can easily find the answers to, the modern, popular, mind is simply to… simple for that. This is in particular true of journalists (yes, that was a jibe). It is an unfavourable situation: Exceedingly few members of society have the power to play such sinister havoc with our passion, lives and indeed; secret groupings – as journalists do. Lately, the social media prophets have unsuccessfully tried to claim this crown-and-staff, but as of yet come off as nothing short of loudmouthed clowns. Much to the leering smiles of professional journalists.

The point – was to make sure that UE would attain the status it deserves and once and for all free itself of its murky past. UE can teach us a great deal of things about our recent past that we need to know in order to attain a decent future. Generalising the matter a bit, but only a bit; around the world, the UE culture is nothing more than a uninteresting and unending display of corrosion. Ironically tragic, when speaking of hiding in plain view – the words behind the very visible corrosion, the explanation behind the entropy is almost always much more interesting, crucial even – than most of the substandard Photoshop-damaged, formulaic photography. It almost makes you long for the times when photography and imaging were not a concern for the general public. That however, is a different gripe altogether.

In conclusion, refusing to take responsibility when in public view is both dangerous and naive. When picked up by the media radar you have a choice to play well or to play badly. Not playing is simply not an option. The idea of the format is visibility. And there are simple, almost selfexplanatory rules how to play this game well. Deluding oneself that one can display something, anything, on the public stage and then wash ones hands of any consequence is a failing strategy, and an attitude that the media loves to tear apart. In full view, of course.

The only other, logical, consequence would be to disappear from the public eye once media attention subsides. It will certainly not undo the bad press, but it will not provide such ample opportunities to make mistakes next time something like the aforementioned tragedy occurs (and it will happen, accidents are patient in nature – much more so than their prey). For all intents and purposes, there are those in the UE community that probably wouldn’t mind slipping back under the radar of media society. Perhaps, that would be for the best. That is however not my case to pass any further judgement upon.

And so, instead of taking a step forward and claiming a rightful place – UE has, as a movement, subculture, hobby – or whatever its dubious, capricious, practitioners would like to call it; proved itself naive, uncapable and to be quite honest, rather uninteresting in their ritualistic narcissicm. There is no standing on the stage and not performing to the rules of the house. Not with the media involved. Try as you might, there is no escaping the laws governing the value of visibility – a value much more liquid and volatile than can be spotted at a glance. Especially so by sticking the proverbial head in the sand.