Two days before a planned trip to visit the Grand Canyon, I remembered a curious phenomenon I’d read about some years back of people posting one-star reviews of national parks for inane reasons (disliking the weather, disapproving of staff, having built up the experience beforehand, etc.). I thought I’d look them up for a bit of a laugh—and got even more than I’d bargained for. 

There’s a bizarre trend on the Google reviews page for the Grand Canyon of posting one-star reviews in which the writers claim to have lost pants in the park. What the motivation for this may be I cannot imagine (and don’t care to try), but amid all this goofy nonsense the puerile nonsense persists too: “Chasm at best,” one grumbles. “When I got there, the whole canyon was covered in clouds and mist so you couldn’t see anything. I brought my dog who barked at everyone. The people at the canyon were rude as all people in the state of Arizona are. I found I couldn’t take my dog anywhere and it didn’t matter because I couldn’t see anything,” another whines. 

Imagine visiting a world wonder and writing a review criticizing the food. “I thought I was in a gas station food court. How many days old were the sandwiches? Cheese was gluey when I tried to pull it out. Thank goodness for the apple. Really poor for the price. The only meal worse was the breakfast burrito. Have you eaten your own food? I feel like the sausage was the fake sausage used on cheap pizza.” 

“Overrated location. Totally underwhelming experience. Nothing other than a huge ugly-looking gorge that stretches over miles. Don’t waste your money and time on this place.”

“Honestly, I don’t get it. Its [sic] just a big hole in the ground. I mean it does have a beautiful view, but people are over hyping about a big hole in the ground. Hours and hours of just walking around this hole. Sorry to sound harsh.”

“I went here 6 years ago with my family. Grand Canyon? More like Bland Canyon.”

A self-proclaimed speeding driver gripes about receiving a speeding ticket in the park—giving the Grand Canyon itself a single star review, as though an expansive, breathtaking visual display of millions of years of geologic history were to blame for his lawlessness. 

Given the pants oddity, it’s impossible to determine how many of these reviews are made in seriousness and how many in jest, but both phenomena suggest something of the current zeitgeist. The pants thing is par for the course when it comes to the internet, which is, after all, rife with “inside” jokes on the most public of forums—goofiness is a given. The other thing is…symptomatic of something rather more sinister, but also worryingly pervasive. 

The mind-boggling entitlement behind the expectation that the weather, and fellow visitors, and staff, and world wonder itself cater to your every whim simply because you’ve paid for the experience is incomprehensible—particularly to a Calvinist (who believes any good received is undeserved, and the greatest good is only ours by dint of unfathomable, unwarranted, extraordinarily costly—yet freely given—grace). The selfishness behind the sentiment is perhaps trivial when it comes to Google reviews of the world’s marvels, which cannot—after all—be fired, but devastatingly destructive when applied to educators, who certainly can (and do) lose their positions—seemingly at the whims of whiners. 

This is a far-reaching problem. If professors cannot expose students to concepts and ideas that stretch them, or even—imagine!—engender a little discomfort, without risking their professional careers, how can students be expected to learn anything of consequence? 

I’ve lately found myself excitedly recommending this article, whose author really, really gets it: “I wish there were a less blunt way to put this, but my students sometimes scare me. …. Not, like, in a person-by-person sense, but students in general. The student-teacher dynamic has been reenvisioned along a line that’s simultaneously consumerist and hyper-protective, giving each and every student the ability to claim Grievous Harm in nearly any circumstance, after any affront, and a teacher’s formal ability to respond to these claims is limited at best.” 

The dynamic is a fraught one—to the detriment of students and professors both, but also (on a much grander scale) society. Turning to the bright side, however, the Grand Canyon is truly stunning—and did not snatch my pants.

Natasha (Strydhorst) Unsworth

Natasha (Strydhorst) Unsworth (‘16) is a science communication researcher and practitioner working on her Ph.D. at Texas Tech University. Natasha hails from Calgary, Alberta. Some of her favo(u)rite authors are C. S. Lewis, Francis Collins, and Bill Bryson. Her favourite earthly place is the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and her favourite activities are reading and enjoying the great outdoors—preferably simultaneously.