Explore Venango Instills Hope by Encouraging Followers to Wish Things Back Into Existence

Typically, a question beginning with the phrase "if you had the power" suggests that people don’t really have the power. Nonetheless, instead of offering perspective on where locals do have power to make a change, Explore Venango decided to ask people what they would do if living in the past could make a difference.

A picture was posted to Explore Nothing’s Facebook page early Thursday morning with the caption, “Let’s play mall tycoon.” The post then asked visitors what store they would bring back if they "had the power" to do so. Several individuals engaged this post and even hit the like button. Those who hit the laugh emoji seemed to have a right perspective on reality.

We understand that Explore Nothing thought they were creating a silver lining in a dark reality. The mall looks depressing, and they thought that encouraging people to live in the past would somehow invoke a bit of encouragement. In reality, they’re becoming just like the Venango County trolls we are.

Think about it. What better way to troll the decline than to remind people they have no power to turn things around? You might as well just start your own satirical news website and mock the region you’re currently living in. That’s what The Venango Republic did. I mean, we could have settled for less than interesting news, like Explore Venango, but we wanted something that would actually be entertaining.

The way to bring people back to the region is not by living in the past. We’ve been doing it for years, and it hasn’t worked. Nobody is coming to Venango County when we say, “we used to be great.” Instead, you have to come up with something unique that has never been tried before. No, we are not talking about those stupid bridge lights!

What would really draw people to the region is if we did something as ridiculous as Mount Rushmore. Pasting 4 white presidents on Native American territory was a genius way for South Dakota to draw people to the middle of nowhere. Our recommendation? Someone needs to purchase the largest hill they can find and build a 10-story monument of a middle finger pointed at Oil City. This obviously would draw tourists from all over the world. You can revive your community while acknowledging its decline. What makes this different from Explore Venango is that it acknowleges the decline without acting like we're living in denial.