The Power of Museums and the Internet

One of the biggest news for the past few days, in my opinion, is the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African and American History and Culture, and I feel so lucky that the whole thing happened while I am here, in Washington D.C. I’ve seen this dramatic building on my way to school every day and even had a chance to visit the under-construction site last year thanks to my professor Martha Morris and her awesome class-Building Museum. I have to admit I’ve been totally obsessed with this beautiful deep-brown building, which rises up by three inverted-pyramid tiers and is covered by hollowed-out metal panels. Moreover, as President Obama stated at the opening ceremony – “This place is more than a building. It is a dream come true,” the most exciting part of the museum is its content – its exhibition.

Me at the rooftop of the NMAAHC when it was under construction.

Thankfully, I went to the NMAAHC yesterday with my friend Joyska (who brought me the advanced ticket! Thank you!) and Matthew, and I have to warn you my friends, who haven’t visited yet, that these exhibits inside are not all as pretty as its container, the building. With more than 36,000 artifacts, various perspective stories, and unique space, the museum and its “unvarnished truth” may be too harsh and will  tear your heart apart (Yes I cried, more than once). I would not to share what it looks like here because I highly encourage you to visit there by yourself. But here’re some photos as a preview:

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Since I could only stay for a couple of hours, sadly I didn’t finish the whole museum. But as far as I visited, the three-ground history gallery, I think the museum really does a great job and all the exhibits I’ve been to were very impressive. From the anomalistic rooms to the dark narrow tunnel, the relentless wave sounds to the mourning quotes, and the rusted shackles to the protest signs, the museum provides audiences an all-round, multi-angle view to look back and experience the African American’s history. Also because the way that NMAAHC shows all the history in chronological order and kind of integrated, the whole exhibition becomes more complex with multiple feelings. Like, when we got to the early 20th, we felt so happy due to the jazz music and almost danced for a while, but right after that, these objects carrying the heavy history shown up again and it made me feel much more sad. These sharp turnings appeared for a lot of times and impressed me deeply.

(Inevitably, as a museum nerd and an exhibit-holic, I had several conversations with my friends about the exhibition design’s score points and drawbacks. Although the whole exhibition is definitely successful, one thing really bothered me – there was no “no flash” sign and these precious old paper books were completely exposed under the extremely bright lights. Also it was really hard to read from these crystal-like transparent panels in the middle of the room – you could find this photo from the former slide show.)

Also, I joined the Freedom Sounds music festival at the National Mall at the museum opening night which was really exciting as well! Not very surprisedly, one of my companies, who is not a “museum person”, was completely shocked by this big ceremony and its influence. I mean, yeah, thousands of people gathering under the Washington Monument and celebrating for a new museum’s opening is definitely not a everyday’s thing. But he also noticed me that it was not only about people who physically got there, there were more and more people on the internet to view, spread, and talk about this news. – It is very true!

Just like all the other aspects, the NMAAHC putted a lot of energy on social media and the results are good. As a brand new museum, it has a website, a Mobile APP, and official accounts for most of the major social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and a lot of related #hushtags. The NMAAHC APP could be found and downloaded from the APP store and it’s really easy to use for navigation and getting updated information, and it supports MULTIPLE LANGUAGES!

Also, till I started writing this blog, its Facebook page already has 218,944 likes and more than 333K people viewed the NMAAHC Grand Opening Dedication Ceremony there. Its Instagram account has 50.4K followers and there’re 20,119 posts #nmaahc and 10,362 posts #apeoplesjourney, and its Twitter account has 66.5K followers already!

All these numbers demonstrated the museum and all the advocates’ efforts, and also proved the influence of the Internet. We are living in an age that information could reach all over the world through internet at a fast speed ever. @40deuce used to do an analysis about How Fast the News Spreads Through Social Media and the result was astonishing! He took the news of Bin Laden’s death as the sample and it turned out over 40,000 blog postS, news articles, and 2.2 million tweets coming out talking about this news within 12 hours!

An unprecedented museum shows the unforgettable history, the exuberant culture, and brave human beings, and it engaged/engages millions of people – this is the power of the museum. But all these news, blogs, articles, all the FB, Insta, Twitter’s posts and followers, and all the consistent support and attention, show the power of the Internet. I think if museums could accurately and positively take advantage of the Internet, better results will always come out.