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Youseum Westfield Leidschendam

Youseum: using social media to explore real topics

As well as providing fun settings for selfies, the attraction also invites visitors to reflect on the role of social media

Youseum is a fast-growing phenomenon. An interactive museum, it positions the visitor as the subject and the critic. As they move through a narrative of themed spaces and interactive installations, visitors are inspired both to take beautiful selfies for sharing and to engage in a discussion on the role of the social media platforms where they are shared.

Joep Heusschen is COO and co-founder of Youseum. He spoke to blooloop about the company’s origins, objectives, and expansion goals.

A new type of social media experience

Koen-Derks-and-Joep-Heusschen-
Heusschen (right) with Koen Derks, Youseum CEO

Heusschen seems an unlikely person, at first, to be behind a museum experience inspired by social media:

“I grew up in a very small village in the east of the Netherlands, where there are more cows than people. Although I had a nice safe environment to grow up in, I wanted to escape that. So, I decided to attend university in the north of the Netherlands in Groningen, where I studied Industrial Engineering and Management, and Energy Sciences. I did a double master’s degree.”

After eight and a half years of study, he still didn’t have a clear idea of what he wanted to do. At this point, fortuitously, his cousin, Koen Derks, called from New York, with an interesting idea:

“It was to start a social media experience in the Netherlands,” Heusschen explains. “I thought in the beginning that he had the wrong number because I’m not on social media. If you Google me, you will find nothing but a picture of me travelling in South America, 15 years ago, with my ex-girlfriend. I’m still trying to get that off of the internet, though it’s a nice memory, so maybe it’ll stay.

“I am on LinkedIn, but apart from that, I’m not on social media. I was surprised that he called me.”

However, as he had no other plans, he agreed.

“I said, ‘OK, let’s do it.’ I started developing the concept in Amsterdam, establishing what we would do, and what we needed – getting financing, finding a location, defining the right concept, and so on. So that’s what we did.

“Once the concept was defined, the funding was found and the location was signed, my cousin decided to quit his job and come back to the Netherlands. We started doing the building together in August 2019, then in November we opened.”

Youseum Westfield Leidschendam

This was a salutary experience:

“We found out in the first month that without a marketing strategy,  people wouldn’t come of their own volition.”

The second month was better; the third and the fourth even more so:

“They were incredible,” Heusschen says. “There were so many people, around 12 and a half thousand visitors which is the maximum capacity, in our Amsterdam venue in the fourth month.”

Expansion plans

Youseum-washing-machine

Then COVID-19 hit, and they were forced to close.

“My cousin and I are not good at sitting still,” Heusschen says. “We decided we could either stop right here and do something else, or we could use this time to start building something bigger than only Amsterdam. So we signed up for further funding and a new location. We opened in June of the following year at Westfield Mall of the Netherlands.”

Despite the pandemic and the consequent capacity constraints, it was a success. Accordingly:

“We figured that the time is now; we want to expand and dream bigger than only the Netherlands.”

The result of this decision is that Youseum has raised €3m of growth capital from existing and new private equity and angel investors, and is looking to expand into Europe and the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa).

“We have signed two new locations [in Stockholm and Oberhausen],” he says. “And we’re aiming for 15 in the coming three years.”

Opting out of social media

It is conceivable that Youseum’s success may, in part, be due to the detachment afforded by its COO’s reservations about social media. He explains his reluctance to engage with popular digital platforms:

“It’s a bit of a joke, and a bit of a principle. The joke is that my dad once told me, as a joke, that I have a head for the radio.” [In English, this would be ‘a face for radio’.]

“My Dad is a big example. If he says something like that, I tend to stick to it. Then, I don’t like pictures, I never take a picture of myself. I can’t imagine why anyone would be interested in what I eat at night, so I have no idea what I would do on social media, other than professionally, which is why I have LinkedIn.”

Youseum-visitors

“I did have a Facebook account for a while, especially when travelling. But when I realised that I was scrolling through cat movies for most of the day, I was like, ‘What am I doing here?’ So, I quit, and never went back.”

Creating a five-star experience at Youseum

banana-swing-

In terms of Youseum:

“My focus is on the operational side more than the creative and picture side. What I try to do, and maybe the fact that I don’t have social media even helps me, is create, with the people on the work floor, a five-star experience.

“We say that even if you forget your phone, you should still be having an incredible time at Youseum. That’s where we’re aiming at. For me, it’s not only about the pictures but also about the experience. It’s about living for an hour or so in a weird world that entertains you, that makes fun of you, that you enjoy, that facilitates your creativity, that facilitates you being on a pedestal, that facilitates you taking pride in who you are.

“It’s not just you taking pictures of yourself.”

A surprise hit

The concept has been something of a surprise hit. He says:

“The first day we realised that we might have something interesting at hand is the day that we had a line of people outside waiting to get in. It was pre-COVID, so there were no timeslots; people just came in when they wanted to.

“It was in the first month. Koen and I were running around in the blue overalls we all had as a working outfit. He was opening downstairs, and I texted him to say, ‘Bloody hell, there’s a line outside.’

“That’s the moment that we thought this might be something fantastic.”

Youseum-mirrors

He describes the Youseum experience:

“We are not arrogant enough to say it’s more than taking selfies. We try to make it more than that, and it’s up to you to decide if it’s true. The experience is a social media experience that combines offline fun and entertainment with online reach. What you do offline here, live, we say, should be fun and entertaining. It should trigger your senses, and stimulate creativity.

“At the same time, people want to create something that other people like. That’s what we’re doing when we share our food; it’s because we believe that other people would enjoy it. When we share our picture on a nice mountain, we share that because we believe, to some extent, that other people want to be on that mountain as well. Or we want to share that moment of joy.”

Bringing together the online experience & real life

Youseum-lifesize-doll

Youseum is a fusion of the online with the offline.

“There is the offline aspect of having fun, being entertained, and having an unforgettable experience. This is then shareable online for your followers, be it on Instagram, be it on Facebook, be it on Twitter, Snapchat, whatever you use,” he explains. “We even have people that come here to add to their Tinder accounts. “

This fusion is achieved by the creation of stimulating rooms that tell a story:

“For example, in Amsterdam, we tell the story of the museum that is all about you. Here, you are the artwork, you are the artist, you are the criticism, you are everything that this museum is centred on. If you are not here, there’s nothing left.

“We have, for example, a room where you are drowning in ‘likes’ because you are so popular. There is, literally, a boat drowning in a sea of your ‘likes’. Because we don’t want to send you home with a negative feeling, you are being reborn: there is a huge womb and vagina, which is very powerful imagery, as you can imagine. You move from here into your new world, a mirror room, where everything is about you, you, you.”

Youseum: an Instagrammable experience

This is the super-Instagrammable part of Youseum:

“Even I can take incredible selfies here,” Heusschen says. “But at the same time, it prompts you to question. You are the centre of your new world; everything is literally circulating around you – but isn’t that also a bit weird? Why would you want to be in a world that’s only about you?”

Youseum-colours

Interestingly, he says, people stay long in that room:

“It’s also very confronting – and that’s exactly what we like to do.”

He adds, “We are, of course, essentially a social media experience. Kids are running around who have no idea about the storyline, but it is there.”

Educating visitors

Youseum-laundry

Youseum is a vehicle to explore both the positive and the negative aspects of social media. Although, ‘negative’ is not a word they like to use:

“It’s not because there isn’t a negative side,” says Heusschen. “It’s just because it doesn’t help to tell a kid that it’s negative. We want to emphasise that there are two perspectives, two sides to the same coin. So, we work with schools and educational programs about being aware of what social media can do, that if you share something, it’s there to stay, and so on. We educate rather than warn.

“You should always walk around with a smile at Youseum; even if you are confronted with the question of why you are walking around in an experience that is all about you, you should still be smiling. You should go out happy. That’s always the goal.”

Engaging with the TikTok generation

The second Youseum venue, launched in June 2021 at Westfield Mall in the Netherlands, boasts the country’s first TikTok experience. It is also home to 18 unique spaces and 25 installations, including optical illusions, a ball pit, and swings, designed for social media photos.

“The difference between the TikTok experience in Leidschendam and the Instagram experience in Amsterdam is that the Westfield Mall experience is much more focused on moving imagery, video. It taps into the trends that are online on TikTok.

“We have translated that into rooms where there are moving objects that you can play and have interactions with. If it’s moving, it’s difficult to take a picture, and better to take a video. We’ve used different colours, different styles, different themes, which are more focused on the trends on TikTok.”

Youseum-slide-ball-pit

“There are also lots of similarities with Amsterdam’s Youseum, of course. Because both are facilitating the creation of content.”

The TikTok experience features hidden passageways:

“We love that because it’s not really a picture, but it adds to the experience when you’re in a room wondering where to go next, watching each other, and then somebody opens the fridge. You see the light coming out and you realise that’s where you need to go. It adds to the experience and the surprise.”

Every room is a surprise

Black-white-room

The layout, he explains, is reminiscent of an IKEA:

“You’re walking around, and you can’t really go back. You can never anticipate what’s around the corner; it’s always a surprise. We deliberately try to create differences in terms of colour themes, look and feel, so that every room is a surprise.

“So, we don’t have three super-colourful rooms one after the other, we break it up by having a mirror room in between. We don’t have two black and white rooms together; we have a black and white room, then a colourful one, then a mirror room, then a black and white room again. At Youseum, we try to play with that because that adds to the sensory experience.”

Exploring social issues at Youseum

Youseum encourages the exploration of social issues, such as sustainability, without being blatant. Heusschen explains:

“It’s not really us that does it, but our visitors. We simply provide a platform or a podium.

“For example, we collaborate with Omapost, a Dutch organisation that works to mitigate loneliness in elders. The way it works is you create content, and we have made an interface where you can use that content to send a picture instantly to an older person who is lonely and is in the database of that organisation.”

Ball pit at the Westfield location

“For example, I might take a super-nice picture in the ball pit that looks funny. I can send it to a grandma somewhere with a message saying, ‘Hey, my name is Joep. I’m in the ball pit, look at me! I want to say hi. I hope you’re all fine. If you want to reply, here’s my address.’

“We believe that creating this opportunity is super-helpful, and it’s easy for us. But it’s the people who come to Youseum that actually do it.”

Sustainability & environmental issues

Another room at Youseum is a collaboration with Plastic Soup Foundation. This is themed around ocean plastics, and focuses attention on the plastic pollution issues in our oceans:

“We have two beaches, one of them perfect, with palm trees, and one covered with plastic. It’s ugly and you don’t want to be there. The plastic was actually from the canals here in Amsterdam. We ask the question, ‘Which picture do you share?’ The funny thing is that a lot of people share the ugly picture.”

It’s not one influence that is powerful – it’s Frank, who is 14 years old, and all Frank’s friends. If he shares it, it’s a real message

“That’s how we use them. People send the image to their followers, creating high-value impressions. It’s not one influence that is powerful – it’s Frank, who is 14 years old, and all Frank’s friends. If he shares it, it’s a real message. That’s how we do it.”

Events at Youseum

Youseum hosts many events:

“For instance, we have the rebirthing womb-room in Youseum designed by a Dutch feminist artist. So, we have had a lot of events and activations around that. Youseum is, of course, a wonderful location for whatever event you want to host. We’ve had everything from galas to business presentations, but we also use it for informative topics around families and LGBTQ+ rights: stuff like that.”

Youseum-visitors-laundry.

There is also a wedding chapel:

“It’s in the colours of the rainbow. In the Netherlands, everybody is allowed to marry whoever they love, above a certain age. We believe that this should be the standard for the world.”

What’s next?

Youseum-mirrors

On Youseum’s expansion plans, he adds:

“Both Koen and I, and now the rest of the team, are growth-minded. This means that we like to challenge ourselves. One of the sayings of [Swedish children’s book character] Pippi Longstocking is, ‘’I have never tried that before, so I think I should definitely be able to do that.’ That is the culture we try to have as Youseum. We should do what we have never done before.

“An example of that would be running three social media experiences, including one in a country that we have never been to before. So, our growth plan is to continue to expand, and to create these social media experiences globally, in the end. It doesn’t make sense to set a European target: why not aim globally?”

The first step, of course, will be to cover the European market:

“In, let’s say, three to five years, we want to have 25 experiences, at least, in Europe. We are also exploring what we can do in Asia or the US. Now, we are engaged in the first talks with 10 – 15 locations, and are designing a plan to grow there.”

A museum all about you

In conclusion:

“It’s Youseum: it’s a museum all about you, so the experience is truly up to you. We don’t blame you for it if you only come for two pictures in the mirror room, are happy, and go home.

“We feel sad if you go home sad, if you’re happy because of two pictures, we are happy. If you’re happy because you engaged with the stories that we told you and took 200 pictures, we are happy. If you came with your kid, didn’t take any pictures, and your kid had a nice time in the ball pit, we are happy.

“It’s about so much more than taking pictures.”

All images courtesy of Youseum, credit David Stegenga Fotografie

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Lalla Merlin

Lalla Merlin

Lead features writer Lalla studied English at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford University, and Law with the Open University. A writer, film-maker, and aspiring lawyer, she lives in rural Devon with an assortment of badly behaved animals, including a friendly wolf

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