Is it boredom, or are we just parasocial? Chances are, you’ve heard one thing or another about the not-so-grand Louvre heist; a suspected four robbers waltzed in dressed as construction workers, and stole just about $88 million worth of merchandise. Get it together, France.
The idea in and of itself– four seemingly average individuals literally just walking in and stealing priceless artifacts–is granted, a little silly. And, as the trend typically follows, people were having a field day. Tiktok went wild with “headcannons,” or in simpler terms, what people were assuming the Louvre robbers looked and acted like. Leave it up to the internet to turn an actual robbery into something out of a horrible “Booktok” novel.
It’s hard not to cringe when you’re minding your business scrolling, and see “Carlos (19),” followed by several other similar photos, of which have random people’s photos probably stolen off of Pinterest. I cannot make this up.
It’s nothing new for people to cling onto big events, and make parodies or jokes about it. This concept has existed since probably forever, but the Louvre heist is representative of the bigger picture: what is the fascination with making the undesirable desirable?
The Louvre robbers were, to absolutely no one’s surprise, not conventionally attractive, diverse teenagers, as some were alleging. There was no grand plan, there was no “hacking the mainframe,” and there was no “Evan (19)” dropping the crown because he saw “Vienna (19)” kissing “Carlos (19).” And no, “Brianne (18)” did not plan everything. “Lola (17)” did not distract the guards. Why is there Louvre lore?
The answer is simple: We are so bored. Heists are cool and all, but they’re even cooler when we imagine them as these big, grand events with a love story– dare I say a love triangle. Even when two of the alleged four are caught with their mugshots posted, people still cling to the idea of these literal characters.
Is it really that serious? Probably not. But the fascination with the heist is something that we’ve seen before, and will, without a doubt, continue to see.
