- TikTok videos shot at a UNESCO World Heritage Site have some historians concerned.
- Tourists in the videos recreate the "Temple Run" video game at Angkor Wat, running through the temple.
A series of TikTok videos showing tourists reenacting a video game run through a 900-year-old Cambodian temple complex has some conservationists and historians up in arms.
Bloomberg first reported on the fresh wave of videos at Cambodia's Angkor Wat, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
TikTokers, Facebookers, and YouTubers are attempting to recreate the "Temple Run" video game in real life, according Bloomberg, with clips of themselves dashing across the ancient grounds set to jaunty sound effects.
@chiaracontino_ Temple Run in real life #cambodia #angkorwatcambodia #angkorwattemple #templerun
♬ original sound - Apollo_tee2.0
"It's not just potential damage to the stones by people bumping into them and falling or knocking things over — which is real," conservation consultant Simon Warrack told Bloomberg, "but it's also damage to the spiritual and cultural value of the temples."
"Tourists have been doing silly things at Angkor for years," Alison Carter, an archaeology professor at the University of Oregon specializing in Southeast Asia, told Business Insider via email — though she noted she wasn't familiar with the latest viral wave.
In April, for instance, authorities said YouTubers were abusing monkeys at the Angkor UNESCO World Heritage Site.
"People often forget that Angkor Wat and other Angkorian temple sites are places of living cultural heritage for Cambodian people," Carter said. "If one wouldn't do something in a church or a mosque, they shouldn't do it in an Angkorian temple."
Andy Brouwer, a film producer and research consultant in the region, agreed.
"I cannot believe the temple authorities haven't put a stop to it immediately," Brouwer told BI, adding that "allowing brain-dead idiots to run through the temple, jumping up and down, is a combined accident and disaster waiting to happen."
That said, not everyone is opposed. Bloomberg reports some Cambodians on social media have said a possible trend could be a boon for tourism, which has dipped in the wake of COVID.
Neither Cambodia's Ministry of Tourism nor the ASPARA National Authority — which is charged with protecting the archaeological site — immediately responded to requests for comment from BI.