I "discovered" the jackalope in the 1970's on one of the first road trips our family went on. Of course it was to the Badlands of South Dakota, Rapid City, Wall Drug. Even though twelve years old, I was attracted to the kitsch of the thing right away.
I'm somewhat torn because the internet has made the world so much smaller that something like the jackalope is less likely to be an accidental find on a road trip into the sticks. It will pop up in someone's Instagram feed and be just another of the day's mild amusements. "Discovery" has become too easy — less magical?
At the same time, without the internet I would probably not have known about hundreds of other things that have obsessed me over there years — had not, for example, made a point to seek out and hike on the Nakasendo highway in Japan.
Warning: kitschy Shonen Knife song, "Jackalope" (just to tie everything together):
I have a picture of me riding the giant jackalope at Wall Drug in the late 70s myself. We were able to take our teenagers there this summer on a big road/camping trip and I now have the same picture with them riding it. I think they both may have pulled some eye roll muscles about how much I was looking forward to getting that photograph.
Killing is fun, and because killing is engrained in a culture of sorts, we can bypass any and all ethical considerations. But the fun doesn't have to stop after the killing, because playing with dead things is apparently also good clean fun that also avoids ethical considerations. [1]
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I'm somewhat torn because the internet has made the world so much smaller that something like the jackalope is less likely to be an accidental find on a road trip into the sticks. It will pop up in someone's Instagram feed and be just another of the day's mild amusements. "Discovery" has become too easy — less magical?
At the same time, without the internet I would probably not have known about hundreds of other things that have obsessed me over there years — had not, for example, made a point to seek out and hike on the Nakasendo highway in Japan.
Warning: kitschy Shonen Knife song, "Jackalope" (just to tie everything together):
https://youtu.be/EunmGUje5cQ
Modern genetics proves that it is a neozoon introduced from Bavaria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolpertinger
(Couldn't find the source for the claim, though.)
[1] https://tinyurl.com/y7gllkq7