It’s been nearly a week since the seven-minute daytime heist at the Musée du Louvre, and the jokes about it keep reaching new heights as the world grapples with the reality that the nation’s crown jewels, valued at roughly €88 million (~$102 million), were so easily swiped from under museum security’s nose.
The viral robbery has finally brought much-needed attention to the Louvre’s ongoing surveillance deficits and other longstanding issues. And it also illuminated the fact that the average person can’t help but root for the culprits for their simple, ingenious, and audacious success, despite the Louvre being the world’s most visited museum.
Could it be that too many visitors have been left disappointed with the Mona Lisa viewing experience and are holding that against the Louvre? Or that the yet-to-be-identified thieves are regarded as the Looney Tunes version of a poor vs. rich folk hero à la Luigi Mangione?
The truth might very well be that the cartoonish absurdity of this act is simply hysterical. It’s not inherently violent (depending on who you ask), so straightforward and clean, dependent on a comedy of infrastructural failures, and, for many, it punches up. To be clear, we do not endorse the heist, but aside from conjuring the mental image of an iced-out squad bickering over who looks better wearing Queen Marie-Amélie’s diadem while holed up in some hideout, many can’t bring themselves to care about what might happen to these historic gems. Even a sliver of their worth is beyond the scale of our understanding, more than most of us will ever make in a lifetime.
As one would expect, companies and brands have also taken advantage of the museum’s PR disaster (with varying success T_T), as they usually do when something crazy like this sweeps the internet. Even Böcker, the German company that manufactures the very basket lift used in the heist, capitalized on the incident in a marketing stunt at the expense of the museum.
Nothing is sacred. (screenshot Rhea Nayyar/Hyperallergic via @boeckermaschinenwerke on Instagram)
In a rare turn of events, I’ve been left speechless. (screenshot Rhea Nayyar/Hyperallergic via @ikeaswitzerland on Instagram)
Meanwhile, content creators have pointed their aim at the Louvre’s apparent TSA-quality security measures as the primary enablers of the crime:
Leading them to brainstorm ways they would have contributed to the heist …
And how the aforementioned plan would have actually worked:
Another element of the unseriousness of this theft is the actual documentary footage taken by tourists within and outside of the museum as the heist unfolded.
Turns out all it takes to get away with being anywhere one isn’t supposed to be is a ladder and a hi-vis jacket. And given how popular memery about the heist has become, contributing to the pile-on might also help the culprits blend in:
But here is how the post-pilfering conversations among the robbers probably went after the adrenaline rush finally wore off:
And we can’t forget to shout out the small but mighty partners in crime that probably pulled a few strings, shifted a few cameras, and verified that the coast was clear!
What I didn’t really expect from this heist was my sudden empathy for Ariel from The Little Mermaid (1989) when she had it all but couldn’t leave her home …. But now I kind of get her.
I am intrigued by the potential these historic heists have to not only impact our world history curricula, but also the coursework for future architects all over.
This hits harder when you’ve watched the first episode of Pose (2018–21):
And considering that there’s exactly one week left until October 31, we can only hope that there’s potential for this to enter the Gay Halloween canon as the easiest, low-budget group costume idea of the year.
Finally, while there’s an influx of AI-generated videos fantasizing about what went down at the Louvre on that fateful Sunday morning, digital commentator @ameliasom underscores how human capabilities will always remain superior in one short statement:
