Swarms of Instagrammers force a Canadian sunflower farm to ban all visitors

Swarms of Instagrammers force a Canadian sunflower farm to ban all visitors

If you’re on Instagram for long enough, you start to notice certain patterns emerge around types of photos: pictures in the same hot locations, framed in the same way, with the same vistas. One farm in Canada was unlucky enough to become a local Instagram obsession recently, and the increase in attention got totally out of control.

As The Globe and Mail reports, Bogle Seeds in Hamilton, Ontario had to close down its fields to all visitors following a viral image that lead to a massive increase in foot traffic of people shooting pictures of its sunflower fields. In late July, the farm was open to everyone, with the owners charging an entry fee of $7.50 to people who wanted to visit the brightly colored flowers. At first, the crowds were manageable, but by July 28th, everything had changed. After pictures of the farm went viral, an estimated 7,000 cars lined up on the roads leading to the farm.

I'm beginning to think the problem is more with people and not so much the technology. IY's much like the argument around guns: "It;'s not the guns which kill, it's the people". Sad that technology can also bring out the worst in people like the ex-Verge journalist being brutally trolled.

Thanks to some people on social media, incidents like this happen regularly: crowds taking pictures have killed wild animals (if not gotten killed by those wild animals), and previously unknown natural wonders are slowly getting overrun by people looking to impress on Instagram.

See https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/2/17644910/instagram-sunflower-farm-ban-photo