Guys, this is going to sound like the most champagne tears thing you've ever heard, but I hate the Louvre.

What?

You do?

That's insane.

Tell me why.

They basically have you pay for tickets for a time slot, but then, like, have the craziest longest lines. Like, they let too

many people into the Louvre. They should really limit the amount of tickets they sell every day,

but they can get away with it because they're the Louvre. I'm sick of big Louvre. And guess what?

I couldn't even really stop and tell you if I, like, the art was, like, worth the hype because I

couldn't even stop and look at it because- Kate, time of day did you go also? And what day? I went midday, but it was a Tuesday or a Wednesday. Like it was we picked that because we thought it would be, and it was the morning too. It didn't matter. That is weird to me because I was also there at this time of year on a weekday and it was not that busy. I felt like I was in a shopping mall.

I think that we should ban smartphones from museums and galleries.

I'm sorry to be a boomer on this, but I genuinely think that that would cut the amount of people there in half because...

You'll be in a museum and you'll see someone just walk up to something

and not even look at it with their eyes like walk up with their eyes on an iPad take the photo

and take this ugly you'll see the photo they're taking and this angling is so bad the composition's

terrible they just like snap it and walk away and it's like what are you posting that to

I was at a different gallery in Vienna and there was was a Monet painting, and these girls in front of me, like, they were annoying me so much because they were just there to take photos, but it was like a smaller gallery, so it was kind of, I don't know, I just felt very claustrophobic.

And this painting, I saw one of them take a photo, yeah, didn't look at it

and then kept moving. And it was clearly just because it was a Monet. And I don't know,

like I'm not trying to be snobby or gatekeeping about art, but I just think that we should,

if we banned phones, one, I think it would make the experience more special if you're just having to engage with art in person, but two, I think it would just mean like, there are less people in the gallery, which I would really like. I get really, it's really hard because I really love wearing at art galleries, but I get really overwhelmed by crowds. It's why I can't go to the mall. As a mantra of this podcast, like, we need to ban the word gatekeeping because that's not gatekeeping. Like, no, people being obnoxious in a public space that you spent a lot of money on is you're fair to be annoyed at that. And I hate the immediate assumption that you're in elitist because you want to like engage with art because why the fuck else are you there? Like, no, people are being obnoxious. I mean, I love the Louvre. I had an amazing experience there, but it was like so specific to the context. Like, I was just having a really prolonged bad mental health period. And I was traveling around Europe for like a month. And it was so bad that like every museum I went to felt like, you know, when things are so bad that like the smallest little

things like having moments of like rest from your anxiety feels so important and kind of special.

...