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How Urban Legend Destroyed the Ball Pit
- namdnay 4y agoI guess this is limited to the US? Ball pits are going strong here in Europe, they're a staple of every indoor playpark. There's a special machine for cleaning them, it looks a bit like the robot from teletubbies
- chomp 4y agoNo, ball pits are ubiquitous at most indoor play parks here too, the author is extrapolating their disappearance from fast food restaurants, and correlating it to the 90s rumor mill. These rumors were definitely a thing, but more than just ball pits have been removed; most McDonald’s locations have had their entire PlayPlaces removed, due to the fact that people don’t sit down in fast food restaurants anymore, and also a general race to the bottom in terms of economics to remain competitive.
- mlyle 4y agoYah, and to be honest-- good riddance. PlayPlace was definitely non-core, not-well maintained, etc.
- foolfoolz 4y agobecause they used to market to kids. the whole place was kid oriented. fast food switched their demographic to adults about 15 years ago with great success
- chrisco255 4y agoThey're still common in Chick-Fil-A, and they complement the playgrounds with family night activities for kids on certain days of the week. Chick-fil-A prob doing better than ever too.
- collegeburner 4y agoTbh Chick-Fil-A is the only fast food restaurant where im like "damn this slaps" not "meh its food ig". Food i actually like eating at fast food prices.
- mc32 4y agoChicken Fillet is good; but I’d hardly describe it as “fast-food prices.” Although it is fast food. It’s more like a chain restaurant prices (think Olive Garden and such).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- corrral 4y agoNo fast food places have "fast food prices" anymore unless you heavily coupon and/or use their apps. Seems to be a method of price discrimination. If you're poor you know about the app and coupons and never pay menu prices. If you're not then you think "god damn, fast food got expensive" and pay menu price anyway, when you happen to go to such an establishment. Like, they've always done coupons, but menu prices used to also not be a complete rip-off. They are, now.
- aerostable_slug 4y agoIn-N-Out is a nice exception. I don't think I've ever even seen an In-N-Out coupon.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoI did not even know chick fil a had play areas (between west coast and north east). I thought all the play areas in McDonalds and Burger King had closed down due to liability reasons.
- bombcar 4y agoI haven't seen a new play area in years, but some of the older franchise locations continue to run the ones they have.
- richiebful1 4y agoThey've almost entirely eliminated fast food play areas in the Northeast, but I was surprised to see them everywhere in Lexington KY. I wonder why.
- bfuller 4y agoA lot of McDonald's are franchised, its probably up to the franchise owner whether or not to build a play area. In the age of covid and monkeypox I doubt many franchisees would shell out the cash.
- tinus_hn 4y agoAnd of course they have been closed for COVID for a few years.
- micromacrofoot 4y agoI'm glad you have a machine for cleaning them. One thing I noticed in the US, even as a child, was that ball pits were filthy and musty. I don't think they were ever cleaned.
- jaclaz 4y agoVideo of the "Ball Washing Machine" (this is actually from the US): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrHvFiePokI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrHvFiePokI This is UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8VjIJuMyiE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8VjIJuMyiE
- Baeocystin 4y agoHuh. That goes a lot slower than I would have expected. I wonder at their procedure for getting all the dirty ones out before the freshly-cleaned ones start piling back in. Not complaining, glad to see them taking hygiene seriously.
- jaclaz 4y agoThe UK video I posted has some details, 15,000 balls per hour doesn't seem that slow to me[1], and still, according to the video, they are putting the clean ones into "netsacks". Most probably when they have the sacks full there are not that many "dirty" balls remaining in the pit and they can put a separator of some kind across it to start putting back the cleaned ones. Found the site of the manufacturer of that machine: https://ball-pool.eu/services/ https://ball-pool.eu/services/ What I doubt is more that the cleaning is actually done on a weekly basis or so as recommended. [1] I have no idea on how many balls are in the "average" pit, but the US video is touting 80,000 as if it was an extremely large one
- darkstar999 4y agoThe Rise & Fall of The Ball Pit - Theme Park Crazy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uahX7iEl_fI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uahX7iEl_fI
- noasaservice 4y ago
- Traubenfuchs 4y agolaughs in German Go through the pics here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Spielplatz+mit+Kletterspinne/@48.2130493,16.4000182,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipMGyhnMyfmV3e2i6pXBJwDExOiTCPGOQB2EszSI!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMGyhnMyfmV3e2i6pXBJwDExOiTCPGOQB2EszSI%3Dw203-h114-k-no!7i2688!8i1512!4m7!3m6!1s0x476d0711a0d9c9e9:0x68fda689dfc713ea!8m2!3d48.2130432!4d16.400011!14m1!1BCg0KCS9tLzAxNjZsczAB https://www.google.com/maps/place/Spielplatz+mit+Kletterspin...
- Cockbrand 4y agoBut… the children! Won't somebody think of the children! Oh, they did, you say? I see :)
- Traubenfuchs 4y agoTo be honest, that thing is scary even for me as fit adult male. One little mistake and I could seriously hurt myself. Same for the children. I would be very uncomfortable letting my own child climb around on this to be honest. I would probably let it, but feel bad the whole time.
- Cockbrand 4y agoI used to play on that kind of thing in my childhood. A child can (and probably at some point will) fall down, but usually not from the highest point, but rather while climbing. Also, there's sand underneath, so the landing is somewhat softened. That said, it's still easy to seriously hurt oneself on that, but I was aware of that as a child and acted accordingly.
- schwartzworld 4y agoThose rope structures are harder to fall off than you think. Ropes are easy to grab and don't get slippery or hot.
- secondcoming 4y agoTLDR: They got rid of them due to a hoax originating from South Africa that a child got spiked with a heroin needle and died from an overdose.
- pupppet 4y agoI just assumed they were removed because they were too hard to clean.
- cbanek 4y agoHere I thought this would be about dashcon and the beloved ball pit. Extra time in the ball pit for all.
- post_break 4y agoI can't help but think of the Dashcon ball pit meme whenever ball pits are mentioned. See at about 3:40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZgxeX2dCnQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZgxeX2dCnQ
- ta988 4y agoFor those that don't want or can't watch a video: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DashCon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DashCon
- sn0w_crash 4y agoJUMP IN THE PIT
- dgaaaaaaaaaa 4y agoAn almost hour long Dashcon video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPwgSXZJcok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPwgSXZJcok
- xwdv 4y agoI’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in ball pits. Are they even swimmable or do you just sink straight down? What if there was a very deep ball pit, think 12 feet or so. Could it be escaped by swimming back up?
- 9991 4y agoI don't know for sure, but I don't think so. The balls are very light, so there's almost no buoyancy. The only way to support yourself is if the balls are locked in place from the force of your foot stepping on it, which might work for a stack 2~3 balls in height at the most before it becomes unstable and slips out from underneath you.
- xwdv 4y agoSo presumably there could be a very deep ball pit with smooth walls somewhere in the world that is filled with the rotting skeletons of dead children at the very bottom?
- 9991 4y agoWith enough kids they’d stack corpses to climb out.
- xwdv 4y agoIndeed, this would make a good high concept movie, taking place entirely within a ball pit, kind of like that movie Ryan Reynolds did buried in a box underground. Good jump scare when a kid finds a dead face while rummaging through the balls.
- yxwvut 4y agoThe article describes the lack of sanitation as a baseless part of the negative mythology, but a dearth of scientific studies (and questions of generalizability of the existing studies) does not mean that their reputation is without merit. When your kid finds turds in the ball pit you don't need a study to know there's a sanitation problem. Anecdotally, as a child I had a near 100% rate of coming down with an infection after visiting the local ball pit and witnessed the discovery of fecal matter by another child, which, combined with the repeated illness, led to a ban on further visits.
- spacemanmatt 4y agoSAME. We learned fast that other parents gambled with diapers in public/shared places.
- thecans7 4y agoExactly! And anecdotally speaking, almost every single one that I entered as a kid smelled like urine. Not that it ever stopped us from playing in it, but even as kids we knew that it wasn't a clean place.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoBased on the frequency of my kids getting infected at daycare, I assume any activity where toddlers or even a little older get together has a near certain chance of transmission. Although, I still would not take my chances with a ball pit that I doubt is ever thoroughly cleaned.
- hgomersall 4y agoExcept, strangely enough, according to my anecdata, not COVID-19. For nearly 2 years there were, AFAICT, almost no cases of COVID transmission through our nursery. I'd love this to be followed up properly. I have a theory that not only are the kids more resistant, but the parents are too due to the circulation of the other coronaviruses in pre-school children, along with all the other various infections. It's all changed somewhat with Omicron, but then it has everywhere.
- peggmeg 4y agoHi! This is the author of this piece, and since a lot of you seem to be interested in rise and fall of the ball pit, I wanted to add that there are two exceptions where the ball pit seems to live on (at least in the US): - Here and there, you'll find ball pits that seem to exist for the sole purpose of providing Instagram photo ops and seem to be more for adults than children (The Color Factory chain of museums is a notable example) - There also seems to be a growing demand for private ball pit rentals in the same vein of the rental bouncy houses you'll find sometimes at children's parties I couldn't find a ton of up-to-date information concerning ball pits outside of North America, so it's interesting to hear that they're still alive and well in Europe! I suspected they might be thriving elsewhere based on this sort of silly article about a woman getting stuck in a ball pit in Singapore https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/desperate-mum-drowning-giant-childrens-11984082 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/desperate-mum-drown... Anyway, thanks for reading!
- Handytinge 4y agoThey're also still super common in Australia, both for kids in playcenters and restaurants, and in nightclubs for the 18-23 year old demographic.
- philliphaydon 4y agoIn Taiwan and Singapore, ball pits exist in like every single childrens in-door playground. https://honeykidsasia.com/indoor-play-centres-in-singapore-for-kids/ https://honeykidsasia.com/indoor-play-centres-in-singapore-f... Few of these have photos. Here's a couple of local articles about the mum drowning in the ball pit and the response from AirZone. https://mothership.sg/2018/02/airzone-suspended-playground-safety-review/ https://mothership.sg/2018/02/airzone-suspended-playground-s... https://mothership.sg/2018/02/suspended-playground-net/ https://mothership.sg/2018/02/suspended-playground-net/
- klyrs 4y agoFYI, there is a big business of playplaces in Canada, and by and large, they appear to be independently run. Most of the ones I've been to have ball pits. The good ones have pneumatic "cannons" that kids can shoot the same balls out of.
- dhosek 4y agoMy kids’ school has actually retained some elements of the junk playground. In the courtyard play area, there is a wealth of scrap wood that the kids use for building projects. When we did the tour before enrolling our kids, the older kids had just built a shed which I thought was appropriate because the school is based on John Dewey’s progressive education ideals, with his central example he returned to many times in his writings being, building a shed. Amusingly, the director of the school, didn’t know this.
- asdff 4y agoPlaygrounds in restaurants take staff time to clean. You have to do the windows since they get all fingerprinted. You have to sweep and mop the floors. Usually you send someone into the structure itself with a pack of sanitizer wipes and hope for the best. At a busy fast food place like chickfila, where they staff 15 people on a closing shift, they can afford to have an area like this. At a mcdonalds with a staff of 2, no chance.
- rootsudo 4y agoI came here thinking it was the infamous tumblr Ball Pit. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/dashcon https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/dashcon
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y agoI really hope the adventure playgrounds mentioned are still a thing. The ones in Germany were a bit more organized than just a pile of junk, but you basically went there, maybe parents paid some (nominal) fee or deposit, and you got a toolbox with basic hand tools like a saw, hammer and nails and there was plenty of wood to build with. Larger structures were clearly built with some guidance and probably a civil engineer because there were multi-story buildings.
- nemo44x 4y agoYeah, I don't think we're giving kids saws and nails to play with. Saying that where I grew up there were a lot of homes being built so there were piles of scrap wood, etc all over and we'd raid them and build forts using saws and nails from our dads' workshops. So maybe we are overprotective today.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y agoThe nice thing about such basic hand tools is that you usually get to learn from mistakes without permanent consequences. Will a child hurt themselves at least once with a saw and a hammer? Probably. Will they seriously hurt themselves? Probably not. Will they learn to not hurt themselves? Almost certainly. I also don't remember how exactly supervision works, but it definitely isn't just dumping a bunch of kids at some unattended construction site. Parents and/or the team managing the place are at the very least nearby.
- cgriswald 4y agoWe crafted wooden swords and then fought with them. Worst we ever got was some stinging fingers or a bruise.
- hammyhavoc 4y agoWow, as a Brit with an engineer/machinist father, this would have been amazing to go to as a kid. We have absolutely nothing like that here short of taking a woodworking class.
- dosman33 4y agoHeh, before the internet rumor mill existed, I had friends who worked at fast food joints with ball pits. They ALWAYS complained about kids pissing in the ball pits. That scared me off from ever messing with them as a young adult (and they didn't have them around my area when I was the right age/size to play in one).
- kettleballroll 4y ago> the boy found peace in his formative years crawling among the debris and refuse on the outskirts of post-blitzkrieg Manchester. As far as I know, Hitler never tried to take England in a blitzkrieg. It seems like the author just wanted to use a hip word, but they completely lost my interest with that mistake