Mystery Spot, and others like it

[CalBoy]

I'm sure that most places around the US have something similar to The Mystery Spot (it's essentially a "dizzy room" that you might find at a fair).

So how do you guys feel about these things?

I frankly find them to be legal con artistry, since they take advantage of people's love of the "unknown."

Why do people keep going to these places? What brings them back, especially if the "magic" is already known?

 

[Blue Velvet]

Put a largish mirror under your nose, reflecting upwards... and then try to walk around the room while looking down into the mirror. Same thing.

People like visual tricks and illusions. Logic may say one thing, but the brain is easily fooled. It's all good fun in the name of entertainment.

 

[CalBoy]

People like visual tricks and illusions. Logic may say one thing, but the brain is easily fooled. It's all good fun in the name of entertainment.

I suppose.

I guess I'm just jealous that I can't rake in $5 a pop for something so simple!

Or can I...

 

[Blue Velvet]

I suppose.

Sulky.

Some of us are too brainy to scam people.

 

[CalBoy]

Sulky.

Tis the season for term papers and finals.

So naturally I'm on MR not being productive.

Some of us are too brainy to scam people.

I'd never be able to pull off a scam; half way through I'd become fed up that the person hadn't found me out yet, call them a moron, and storm off.

 

[Phat_Pat]

Tis the season for term papers and finals.

So naturally I'm on MR not being productive.

indeed same here... 12 page term paper on "no child left behind"... trust me i hella wanna leave every last child behind after this crap.


the mystery spot isn't all bad... the tour guides are kinda entertaining and u get to mess around in the fun house... plus at the end they give you bumper stickers

besides.... $5 ain't that much

 

[IJ Reilly]

Roadside curiosities like this started popping up during the 1920s when Americans began to drive in substantial numbers, and really took off after World War II with the new national culture of long distance travel by car. The phenomenon was immortalized (sort of) by Tom Robbins in his novel "Another Roadside Attraction."

 

[Melrose]

This is kind of like going to Pisa and taking a photo of your hand 'holding up' the Leaning Tower. You know what I mean. There're a million of them out there and everyone still does it.

People just want to be there. And it's harmless enough.

 

[abijnk]

I surely wouldn't call it a scam. It pure entertainment, just like a movie or an amusement park.

 

[descartes]

seems like all in good fun to me. and $5 is a bargain.

 

[mactastic]

Ha! Growing up near there, that place was always a running joke about the people who would go there.

A sucker is born every minute, right?

Of course, the other running joke was about the tourists who would show up on the coast in the summer in their shorts with their umbrellas... and promptly be greeted by chilly coastal fog. You can almost see them saying to themselves "we paid HOW much to sit in the cold? Let's go back to our warm inland locations."