Mount Rushmore’s Newest Face Is Just a QR Code to a GoFundMe for the Park’s Lawnmower
RAPID CITY, SD – In a move that has historians, tourists, and anyone with a functional sense of aesthetics absolutely frothing at the mouth, the National Park Service (NPS) today unveiled the latest addition to Mount Rushmore: a massive, 80-foot-tall QR code carved directly into the granite face of the mountain, positioned just to the left of George Washington’s perpetually constipated expression. The NPS claims the code is “a bold step into the 21st century,” but after scanning it, visitors are redirected to a GoFundMe page with a goal of $4.2 million to buy a new lawnmower for the park’s grounds crew.
Yes, you read that right. The same government that can afford to blow up a mountain with dynamite to make a giant white guy staring contest cannot, apparently, afford a Cub Cadet from Lowe’s.
“We felt the original four presidents were a bit… exclusive,” said NPS spokesperson Karen Millbrook during a press conference that devolved into a shouting match between a guy dressed as Thomas Jefferson and a man who kept screaming about “THE ALGORITHM.” “We wanted to make the monument more accessible to the modern American. What says ‘democracy’ more than a convoluted corporate marketing scheme that requires a smartphone and two bars of LTE to appreciate?”
The QR code, officially dubbed “The People’s Portal” by a focus group that was clearly drunk, is linked to a GoFundMe titled “Save Our Sedge: A New Zero-Turn for the Rushmore Crew.” The campaign, which has raised a whopping $47 in the first three hours (all from a single user named “I_Love_Lawns_69”), features a heart-wrenching video of a park ranger trying to push a 1987 John Deere with a dead battery down a hill while a bald eagle circles overhead, judging him.
“Our current mower, ‘Old Rusty,’ has a broken blade, no brakes, and a fuel leak that we’re pretty sure is a federal Superfund site,” said head groundskeeper Gary “Grits” Henderson, wiping a tear that could have been from emotion or the exhaust fumes. “We’ve been using a goat named Gerald, but he unionized and demanded dental. The QR code seemed like the most American way to solve this. We considered a lemonade stand, but that’s not a landmark.”
Reaction from the public has been, well, about what you’d expect from a species that elected to put a giant rock baby on a building in New York. Local tourist Cindy Patterson, visiting from Ohio with her family, captured the general sentiment perfectly.
“I drove 14 hours in a minivan with three kids who haven’t stopped arguing about who gets to hold the iPad. I paid $10 for a parking spot that’s a mile from the actual monument. I bought a $28 t-shirt that says ‘My Dad Went to Mount Rushmore and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt’ from a gift shop that smells like stale popcorn and disappointment. And now I’m supposed to pull out my phone, fight for signal with 400 other sweaty people, and donate money to buy a lawnmower? Where’s the giant head of John Cena? Where’s the fourth face that was supposed to be a Native American leader? We got a QR code? I’m leaving a one-star Yelp review and I’m going to sue for emotional damages,” she said, before her youngest child threw a slushie at a nearby statue of a buffalo.
Reddit, of course, is having a field day. The r/nottheonion subreddit has already declared it the “peak of the American empire,” while r/ABoringDystopia is debating whether this is a metaphor for late-stage capitalism or just a really elaborate prank by a bored park ranger.
“Honestly, this is the most honest representation of the American Dream I’ve ever seen,” wrote user u/Spaghetti_Jesus_69420. “Four dudes who owned slaves and a link to a begging website. It’s like the whole country is a pop-up ad for a free iPhone that you’ll never actually get.”
Historians are less amused. Dr. Evelyn Reed of the University of South Dakota called the addition “a grotesque defacement of a national treasure that already had questionable artistic merit.” She noted that the original sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, intended the monument to represent the birth, growth, development, and preservation of the United States. “I don’t think ‘the ability to guilt-trip tourists into paying for municipal landscaping equipment’ was on his vision board,” she said. “This is like putting a bumper sticker on the Mona Lisa that says ‘My Other Car is a Chariot.’”
The NPS has defended the project, claiming the QR code is actually a “temporary augmentation” that will be removed once the lawnmower fund reaches its goal. However, when pressed on what happens if the goal isn’t met, Millbrook shrugged and said, “Then we’ll probably just leave it. Maybe we’ll add a pop-up ad for a VPN next to Lincoln’s beard. We’re open to corporate sponsorships. Any company that wants a 500-foot-tall logo on a mountain, give us a call. We’re cheap.”
In a statement released late this afternoon, the White House commented, “The President believes this is a wonderful example of public-private partnership and the power of the free market. Also, the President’s son’s friend’s cousin owns a landscaping company in South Dakota, so this is a big win for small business.” The statement was immediately fact-checked and found to be 73% inaccurate, which is considered a bipartisan victory.
Meanwhile, back at the monument, chaos was the order of the day. A group of protesters, calling themselves “The Four Faces Preservation Society,” held up signs reading “No More Clicks on the Rock” and “Bring Back the Goat.” A counter-protest group,
Final Thoughts
Having stood before that colossal granite quartet, I’m struck less by the monument’s scale and more by the unsettling contradiction it embodies: a tribute to democracy carved into a sacred Native American landscape by a sculptor with ties to the Ku Klux Klan. It forces us to grapple with the uncomfortable truth that our most iconic symbols of national unity are often built on the very fractures we refuse to fully acknowledge. Ultimately, Mount Rushmore is less a testament to the flawed men it depicts and more a mirror reflecting the perpetual, messy argument over whose story gets to shape the American identity.