Bad Yelp reviews of national parks turned into hilarious travel posters by NC artist
One of the many wonders of the internet is that even the Grand Canyon gets one-star reviews on Yelp, and the critics are deadly serious in calling it “overrated.”
Those criticisms are now being highlighted in a series of old-fashioned travel posters for all 62 national parks — with each poster focused on the park’s worst Yelp review.
Artist Amber Share of Raleigh, North Carolina, has finished 18 so far, with two due in the coming week.
The resulting tongue-in-cheek posters have become a hot commodity, thanks to social media shares by such groups as the Alt National Park & Forest Service, the Anza-Borrego Foundation in California and the history department at the University of Southern Mississippi.
An online discussion has also erupted, with thousands calling the ongoing series both amusing and a sad commentary on the state of the nation.
“It’s just hilarious that nature can make someone mad enough to immediately go on Yelp and write a review,” commented Nicole Bonfante Lowry on the Alt National Park & Forest Service Facebook page.
“Right?! Who yelps the planet Earth?” Amy Nutter wrote.
“I think park lovers are enjoying these because after hiking for miles to see something breathtaking, you’ll hear this type of comment back at the campground,” Lydia Maria Long posted on the Facebook page of Subpar Parks.
Share, who sells the posters online, told McClatchy News this week that she got the idea in the fall and considers the posters “a snarky love letter to the National Park System.”
“I wanted to find my unique spin on drawing the parks, and stumbled upon one-star reviews of some of the parks,” she said in an email.
“My gut reaction was just to laugh. There is a lot of absurd negativity about a variety of topics out there that’s easy to get triggered by, but in this case it just seemed so laughably absurd to be essentially criticizing the planet.”
Those bad reviews included people who complained Sequoia National Park was full of bugs that bite your face, Death Valley National Park was ugly, Isle Royale National Park had “no cell service” and the Grand Canyon was just “A hole. A very, very large hole.”
In fact, there were so many one-star reviews on beloved parks that Share says it was often tough to choose one for a poster. She ultimately settled on “a sentiment that was really frequent among one-star reviews,” while eliminating those that seemed more sarcastic than legitimate.
“I think people appreciate the attempt to weave some humor and beauty into the negativity that seems to be kind of pervading society right now,” she told McClatchy News.
“It resonates with people because we ALL have our grumpy impulses, or go into an experience with expectations that it can’t possibly meet. ... I think it’s about learning to laugh at that sort of dissatisfied human condition that exists in all of us.”
This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 9:21 AM with the headline "Bad Yelp reviews of national parks turned into hilarious travel posters by NC artist."