Student Tries To Take A Museum Selfie, <em>Breaks</em> A Classic Artwork Instead

Great, Selfies AreDestroying Classic Artworks Now

We understand. We really do. You get yourself all the way to a cultural institution and find an artwork that actually moves you or, at least, it's kinda funny. How could you not document the affair and subsequently share it on all your social media platforms?

But please, please, when you're taking your selfie, don't break the art.

Today's public service announcement, unfortunately, comes a little too late. On Monday, March 17, an uncoordinated fellow visiting Milan's Academy of Fine Arts of Brera tried to climb atop the sculpture "Drunken Satyr" to snap the perfect selfie, and ended up snapping off the poor satyr's leg.

Yup, according to witnesses, his selfie broke the artwork. You can see the tragic results here. Spoiler: It looks like the satyr below, minus an appendage.

faun
The original "Drunken Satyr," aka "Barberini Faun" (Wikimedia)

The Milan Chronicle first reported the events, suspecting a "foreign student" was responsible for the humiliating display. Unfortunately, due to a technical malfunction, there is no available security footage from the camera in the museum hallway at this time. Stay tuned for updates on the identity of this mysterious narcissist and whether or not he himself was drunk at the time.

In the meantime, Academy Director Franco Marrocco is treating the selfie fail as an "accident." The slight silver lining of the whole debacle is that the assailed satyr, now missing a leg, is a 19th century copy of the Hellenistic original, which dates back to around the second century.

If you weren't annoyed enough by selfie culture already, now selfies are literally destroying classic artworks. Let's go ahead and add this particular act of photography to our list of things you should never do at a museum, right next to allowing children to climb on million-dollar artworks.

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