The Website

Roller Coaster Philosophy aims to create the best written reviews, opinions and commentary about parks, coasters and related attractions in the entire world. Aside from the comments section, everything on this website belongs to the sole authorship of one person (see bottom). Numerous parks in North America, Europe and Asia are featured, as well as additional stories and observations from world travel, plus numerous other essays, fiction, short films and movie reviews, and a selection of NoLimits tracks free for download.

The domain name for Roller Coaster Philosophy was purchased in May of 2009, although it didn’t evolve into a finished format from the basic WordPress design until several months later. Ideas for a website started a year earlier in 2008 when I was writing reports for the now-defunct CoasterSims.com and decided I ought to get my own platform to share my work. Some of those old reports from that site can now be found here, most notably my review of the also now-defunct Hard Rock Park. The goal was to create the in-depth, critical coaster and amusement park review website I always wanted to read but could never find the address for.

The screaming face on the top of every page is the 21st Century Schizoid Man from King Crimson’s debut album In the Court of the Crimson King. I always looked at that art and visualized him riding a roller coaster. However the expression does not suggest a response to some external fear but from some madness originating from within, which I think is representative of how one can respond to a really good coaster.

These pages are formatted using Firefox on a screen resolution greater than 1024 px wide. The pictures are simply embedded into the html and different browsers/resolutions can throw off the formatting of some pages, although based on my testing they should display as intended for Firefox, IE and Chrome users. It is created using the WordPress blogging platform and uses the theme Atahualpa by BytesForAll.

The Idea

The question is: why do I ride roller coasters? The television documentaries tell me some lines about adrenaline and type-T personalities, about the need for a rush and always seeking out the bigger, faster, better rides on the planet. Oh, and the airtime. There must always be airtime.

If you’re like me, you know that this is all bullshit. Maybe it is true for many people out there, but there is something awfully cold and alienating about this picture of the roller coaster enthusiast as a social construct, programmed by their amygdala to seek the exertion of forces upon their body. Where’s the mind in all of this? Besides, after so many roller coasters, doesn’t the thrill start to wear off? I couldn’t care to give extreme sports a try. Because it’s no longer about the thrill. Because there’s something beneath the surface that I’ve never seen or comprehended, let alone been able to put into words, but always sort of knew in the back of my head what it was and that it was there.

But then why?

I never call myself a “coaster enthusiast”, except reluctantly when a clichéd turn of phrase is needed to quickly communicate a general idea. “I ride roller coasters, over 500 of them”. There I make no claims about the ‘what’ or ‘why’ as to my identity. It simply states how I go about my existence. It can change. No elemental property is given. The question of what is authentic being is far too complicated to be defined by an enthusiasm for any one thing, let alone something as silly and trite as theme parks, those bastardized visions of American popular consumer culture.

Given the situation I (and hopefully others) find themselves in, it should be no surprise that eventually an attempt would be made to elevate the hobby, and dignify the roller coaster, dark ride, and/or theme park to the status of art. Or, at least the potential to be art, if the amusement industry would get off their lazy asses and actually try. Roller coasters are designed and operated by basically good people, but if there’s only one widespread, systematic sin I recognize in the theme park biz, it’s lack of imagination. I love these places to death, but in the history of the field I have found fewer instances of a truly imaginative leap than I have digits on my hands. These pages explain why that is. This needs to change.

Although “Roller Coaster Philosophy dot com” comes in the guise of a review website, I hope any regular readers will eventually recognize it as something more than that. The stated goal at its inception was to be the first to define the unique aesthetic properties and criteria of the roller coaster experience. I figured this would mean traveling the world, riding roller coasters while witnessing the panoply of human expression as manifest through tacky themed façades, and reporting back on those bits and pieces of the journey that seem to suggest something authentic through all the artifice. Can a roller coaster tell a story using it’s own language? If so, how deep can it be told?

Perhaps theme parks are on the cusp of their most exciting breakthrough of the century. As lived experience moves more and more into the intangible digital realm, will people not soon be clambering for a chance to be immersed in a fantastic environment in which they know everything they see, hear and feel is concrete and real? These attractions have the ability to immerse us in controlled and directed sensation in a way no other form of artistic expression has ever had the luxury of. So why is it that the concept of the auteur is still foreign to amusement parks? Why did Fritz Lang never construct a carousel, Jean-Luc Godard never draft a roller coaster, or David Lynch never sketch a dark ride? The best we’ve ever had is Walt Disney (who did some good work in his time) but speaking honestly I’ve never considered Cinderella to be in quite the same strata as Metropolis, Breathless or Eraserhead.

Or perhaps this project is fundamentally misguided. Why must I insist that coasters be art? Is it not just to defend my own ego by transforming a hobby perceived to be common and even vulgar into something bourgeois? Hell, what does it even mean to be art any more? Have I missed the memo that there is nothing original left to be said? Maybe adrenaline is incompatible with aesthetics, and artistic expression necessarily dead under the weight of millions of dollars, spreadsheets and engineers.

Perhaps, but philosophy is ultimately spoken through actions, not words. We’ll never know until we push the medium as far as imagination will let us, and then step back and ask ourselves what we’ve achieved with the results. Maybe it will be something profound, or maybe not.

I hope whatever that is, one day we can look back and say it started here.

The Author

I call myself Jeremy Thompson. I am from northern Michigan and I attend Michigan State University where I’m pursuing double degrees in business management and philosophy. Currently I have been on 572 different roller coasters at 151 parks between 17 countries. My home parks are Michigan’s Adventure and Cedar Point, which I have visited every year since 1994 and 1995, respectively. I am also an avid cinema-goer, having seen over 1000 movies and counting every day. I enjoy listening to progressive rock and related forms including symphonic rock, jazz fusion, and experimental/avant-rock.

As much as I enjoy writing about coaster and parks in my free time, my long term goals are much more ambitious.

List of coasters I’ve been on / Map of parks I’ve been to

List of movies I’ve seen / Photography collections (Flickr) / Email Contact

All photos on this site were taken by myself or occasionally a family member unless otherwise stated.