Now that we can use the internet to access almost anything you'd want to see and/or hear, we should make museums that archive different smells. You could find new smells you might have not experienced otherwise, or find some nostalgic smell to bring you back to a moment in your past.

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[–] 28 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Interesting idea, but I think olfactory fatigue (aka going "nose blind") would get you fairly quick.

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    Is there a way to reset your nose after olfactory fatigue? Sorta like a palate cleanser for your nose?

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  • [–] 15 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Smell-o-vision 🤣

    But seriously, that sounds so cool!

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  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago

    find some nostalgic smell to bring you back to a moment in your past.

    He's gonna bring you back to the past.

    To smell all the things that smell like shitty ass.

    He'd rather smell, a rotten buffalo, taking a diarrea dump in his nose!

    He'd rather smell the rotten asshole, of a roadkill skunk and down it with beer!

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago

    There is, or once was, such an exhibit at the Exploratorium in San Francisco in the 1980s. They have you smell things via tubes and you try to guess what it is. Science museum. It’s since moved to the piers. So I’ve heard. It used to be cheap to go there; now, I’ve read it’s very expensive.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Dusty electronics with vacuum tubes encased in urea-formaldehyde plastic and tweed speaker covers, ungrounded and made a heavy clunk sound when starting and stopping. Smells like the early 80s.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago

    Years ago I got to visit the perfume lab at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, where students learn about making perfumes.

    It was kinda like this! They had rows and rows of little bottles all filled with concentrated oils of different aromas. Probably the weirdest one I remember is "money". I cracked it open, and sure enough, it smelled just like a stack of well used bills.

    Was a really cool experience. Maybe see if there's a perfumer anywhere near you who would let you come explore their lab?

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago

    What’s neat about this idea is that it doesn’t need a whole building. It could be mailed! I know this isn’t exactly what you meant, but you could start here.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    I’ve wanted to start one for a while. The big challenges are keeping materials fresh, avoiding cross contamination, and olfactory fatigue. There are some fragrance molecules that really fatigue your olfactory nerves and it can take hours before they become detectable again.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago

    Every museum is a smell museum and every piece of art is scratch-and-sniff if you're brave enough

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    There's nothing stopping you from smelling the exhibits at the Natural History Museum. Go take a whiff of a mummy!

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    Exhibit A: Corpse pile, bubonic plague, Toscana, 1351

    Exhibit B: Pirate beard, Queen Anne's Revenge, 1718

    Exhibit C: Blood spattered pyramid, Aztec Empire, 1501

    Exhibit D: Neolithic footwear, Anatolia, ca 7200 BCE

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    I want to smell and taste the blue whale candies from my youth. They were different and I miss them.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    I believe these actually exist in some form!

    The ones I've read about in the past are more art exhibitions than a conventional museum, but have a look and see if there's something like that near you!

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    This makes me think about vellichor! And the smell of piñon in the first cold spell of fall.

    I think it is a great idea.

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  • Now that we can use the internet to access almost anything you’d want to see and/or hear,

    Why, would that factor in?

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Well my thought process was that smell is something you can't get over the internet. Like you could see images or videos of art and sculptures and stuff, but not smells.

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