Elvis Presley statue on Beale Street: An Elvis photo opportunity
Trying to discern the use and impressions of a statue or memorial in the public sphere has been made much easier by the advent of social media and the social web. Beale street has one such statue that people have shared photographs all over the social web, and people have some opinions on this tribute. TripAdvisor is one of the largest collections of reviews easily findable on the statue, but the statue seems to be photographed by anyone who passes by or even knows about it. Starting with reviews primarily on TripAdvisor, one already sees a trend.
TripAdvisor reviews range from terrible (1) to excellent (5), and most reviews of the memorial fall from average (3) to excellent (5); of the four hundred and fifty-four reviews, four hundred and thirty-eight fall in that positive range. This brings up one of the potential problems with the social web: are the lion-share of reviews positive because the statue is good, or because the positive commentators were the only ones who bothered posting a review? The positive commentators largely fall into …show more content…
Dozens and dozens of near-identical photos exist all over the internet of the statue being photographed from the front (interestingly, often leaving out the fence) (https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g55197-d559120-Reviews-Statue_of_Elvis-Memphis_Tennessee.html#photos;aggregationId=101&albumid=101&filter=7&ff=284293882). Especially on Instagram, sometimes the photos will be taken at night or with someone posing in front of the fence around the plinth, but for the most part, if you've seen a few, you've seen them all. Nonetheless, that hasn't kept people from continuing to take home a photograph of this ostensibly completely normal Elvis
Trying to discern the use and impressions of a statue or memorial in the public sphere has been made much easier by the advent of social media and the social web. Beale street has one such statue that people have shared photographs all over the social web, and people have some opinions on this tribute. TripAdvisor is one of the largest collections of reviews easily findable on the statue, but the statue seems to be photographed by anyone who passes by or even knows about it. Starting with reviews primarily on TripAdvisor, one already sees a trend.
TripAdvisor reviews range from terrible (1) to excellent (5), and most reviews of the memorial fall from average (3) to excellent (5); of the four hundred and fifty-four reviews, four hundred and thirty-eight fall in that positive range. This brings up one of the potential problems with the social web: are the lion-share of reviews positive because the statue is good, or because the positive commentators were the only ones who bothered posting a review? The positive commentators largely fall into …show more content…
Dozens and dozens of near-identical photos exist all over the internet of the statue being photographed from the front (interestingly, often leaving out the fence) (https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g55197-d559120-Reviews-Statue_of_Elvis-Memphis_Tennessee.html#photos;aggregationId=101&albumid=101&filter=7&ff=284293882). Especially on Instagram, sometimes the photos will be taken at night or with someone posing in front of the fence around the plinth, but for the most part, if you've seen a few, you've seen them all. Nonetheless, that hasn't kept people from continuing to take home a photograph of this ostensibly completely normal Elvis