It’s not every day that you see a Victorian mug made to keep mustaches safe from tea or a velvet hat covered in the teeth of dental patients from the 1800s. But perhaps if you took more visits to The Museum of Curiosities on Twitter, run by the Monsieur Pompier’s Travelling Freakshow musical group, you might find yourself learning about strange things such as these on a daily basis!
Below, you’ll find some of our favorite posts from this bizarre page dedicated to sharing all things weird. From old paintings with interesting subjects to weird contraptions that aren’t common nowadays, we’re sure you’ll find something that piques your interest on this list. So enjoy visiting this virtual museum, and keep reading to find out how you might be able to visit it in person some day soon too!
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The Museum of Curiosities, or Monsieur Pompier’s Museum of Curiosities, has been fascinating viewers on Twitter since January 2012. The page has amassed an impressive 46.2k followers through sharing over 5,000 photos and videos and by captivating audiences from all over the globe. According to the virtual museum’s website, “It all started in a tiny corner of the internet around ten years ago when a strange man named Paul began posting interesting and unusual items from the past on Twitter and Instagram.”
“Over the following decade, the popularity of these accounts grew to such a degree that the idea of turning this online prescience into reality became something increasingly hard to ignore,” the museum’s creators continued. “And so, in 2023, it was announced that Monsieur Pompier would launch Ireland’s first ever Museum of Curiosities the following year and (as of February 2023) is currently finalizing the collection, raising funds and looking for a home for this world of wonders.”
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That’s right, pandas. Come 2024, you’ll be able to visit Ireland and take an IRL look at some of the world’s quirkiest and most fascinating objects and images. You can actually donate to the campaign right here if you’re interested in helping it become a reality! And if you’d like to learn more about Monsieur Pompier’s Museum of Curiosities, or the musical group behind it all, lucky for us, Bored Panda was able to get in touch with them about 8 months ago when we first featured their Twitter account.
Paul, aka Monsieur Pompier himself, previously shared that some of his initial inspiration for the account and museum project came from one of his favorite websites on the internet, ‘The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things’ curated by Dr. Chelsea Nichols and Viktor Wynd’s ‘Museum Of Curiosities’ in London, as well as various other museums both real and fictional who operate in the same strange world. “I’m a magpie for anything oddball and unusual, especially from the past, so I’m always on the lookout for stories about things like old medical devices, bad taxidermy, the occult, bad inventions, weird unsolved mysteries, and so on,” he explained.
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As far as why this curious account resonates with so many followers, Paul previously told Bored Panda, “People are always looking for something outside of the ordinary, something beyond their reality or as an escape from mundanity. It’s probably similar to the success of ghost stories or horror movies, there seems to be a magnetism towards what frightens or unsettles us.”
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Paul also supposes that oddities from the past might be even more interesting now because of how different they are from today’s technology. “I think particularly now as we’re living through the sterility of the internet age, these strange physical objects of the past with fascinating backstories harness an even greater aura of mystery and shine a light on bygone times and customs,” he previously shared.
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Paul also predicts that one day, we might look back on our current age as “the second wave of quack medicine, with self-medication and the power of pharmaceutical companies growing all the time.”
“Elsewhere, some of the face masks and skincare treatments currently available very much hark back to the often mocked beauty treatments of the 1930s and ’40s,” he added. “One thing I hope we will look back on with a great deal of cringe is the prevalence of the ‘laughing-crying’ emoji.”
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If the oddities on this list are up your alley, be sure to check out Paul’s musical group as well, Monsieur Pompier’s Travelling Freakshow.
“[The group] is my very eccentric rock group and sometimes cabaret act,” Paul explained. “We’ve been performing all around Europe and in our homeland of Ireland since 2018 with a rotating cast of characters including The Ear Fairy, Guts The Cat, The Crabbit, as well as newcomers such as Betty Bogweed and Sister Whispers. On stage, I attempt to sing my ridiculous songs whilst the ‘freaks’ interact with me or the audience as they interpret and act out the story of their individual songs.”
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“Our shows are very surreal and often end up in complete chaos—it’s all about getting people out of their comfort zones,” Paul explained. “Last year, we were proud to release our debut album Teatime Terrors on Cleopatra Records, and since then we’ve transformed into a fully-fledged four-piece live band. In many ways, the museum is an extension and evolution of the Travelling Freakshow, taking the concept to the next level.”
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“Monsieur Pompier draws inspiration from horror stories, unsolved mysteries, psychedelia, experimental and new wave music, children’s television of the 1970s and ’80s,” Paul went on to share. “I enjoy taking mundane topics and blowing them up into something theatrical and grandiose—like a new song I’m working on called ‘Billy Breakfast’ about a neglected housewife who has an affair with her breakfast when the face in the pan comes to life.”
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Have you seen something new that you found fascinating on this list, pandas? We would love to hear in the comments below what you find most interesting, as well as what you would include in your own personal museum of curiosities. Keep upvoting your favorite pics, and then if you’re interested in even more captivating images that have been shared by The Museum of Curiosities on Twitter, you can find Bored Panda’s last article on the same topic right here!
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