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Another piece in the overall strategy to reduce tourist flows to the city
Smashing a car or shouting into the sea can release pent-up frustration
No matter how one may feel about vaccinations, the fact is that rolling lockdowns and pandemic restrictions in the past two years have gotten on the nerves of just about everyone now. This has spawned a variety of protests and other civil disobedience actions across Europe.
Some entrepreneurial Dutch, however, saw a business opportunity where others only see endless doom and gloom. Read below to find out about two projects that give local citizens perfectly legal ways to vent their frustration with the curbing of personal freedoms.
The first of these is “CarSmash”, which is operated in a junkyard in Vijfhuizen, near Amsterdam. And the name kind of describes it succinctly. Once you sign up and go there you are given a hammer or a crowbar and you can let loose at an old car until you reduce it to smithereens.
Their operation, in fact, pre-dates the COVID pandemic but after the restrictions became commonplace, this only gave the company a chance to ride that wave (excuse the pun) and boost up its branding and appeal.
"The minute that they start wrecking the car, we ask them to close their eyes, to feel their feet on the floor, feel the power, every vein in your body, feel what you are doing, and in that way to try to get it out of your life."
This is how Merlijn Boshuizen, the manager of the project, describes the experience of the customers, as quoted by Reuters. He adds that people can first spray-paint the issue that bothers them the most on the car before they break it apart.
Another unorthodox psycho-therapeutical initiative is “Screech at the Beach” – this one also from the Netherlands, though in The Hague. That project is run by Julie Scott, a professional voice coach, who also organizes singing lessons and retreats, among other things.
The concept here is simple as well – shouting your frustration into the sea wind. It may feel unnatural at first, but this is where the help of the coach comes. Clients have described it as regaining a sense of freedom and “letting yourself go”.
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