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> Even if those things have converged aesthetically? But they haven't converged aesthetically any more than preferences have been absolutely overwritten, over

by titzer 4y ago

> Even if those things have converged aesthetically? But they haven't converged aesthetically any more than preferences have been absolutely overwritten, overridden, and overprinted by whatever is most easy to produce today. Your comment somewhat assumes that where we are is the ultimate endpoint of some long process, when in reality fads come and go. Tastes change. What is out there now is no more inevitable than bell bottoms might have seemed in the 1970s. Sure, maybe its just nostalgia, but there were plenty of trends and aesthetics from my younger years that are just nowhere to be found. Why? Because when people renovate, they go with the aesthetic de jure, what's available and what the social pressures are. Hardly anyone is going to renovate a 1980s basement and put in...1980s carpet. Can't be sourced, and people think it looks ugly. > They've converged because we think they're nice. Things don't need to be different just for the sake of being different. Because different can also be worse. No, things have converged because lots of people with no taste[1] just ho-hummed along with the zeitgest. The zeitgeist just so happens to be a bland sameness and characterless, charmless, antiseptically clean and dead grayness that we see on all the HGTV shows and AirBnBs. Different is frigging great if you ask me. At least, different than that. Give me the inside of a 1985 McDonalds instead of this, TBH! What makes something pretty and cool and interesting is skill, thoughtfulness and some sense of composition, color, and togetherness. Today it's a thoughtless cheap imitation made at scale. [1] Taste is subjective, always will be.

epups 4y ago
> Sure, maybe its just nostalgia, but there were plenty of trends and aesthetics from my younger years that are just nowhere to be found. Why? Because when people renovate, they go with the aesthetic de jure, what's available and what the social pressures are. Hardly anyone is going to renovate a 1980s basement and put in...1980s carpet. And were people in the 1980s using furniture from the 1940s when they renovated? If not, embrace the fact that things change and will always change. I bet the 1980s aesthetics are going to get a revival at some point.
- titzer 4y ago
  > embrace the fact that things change and will always change. Living in a European city for a few years got me thinking about what the sources of changes are. Everything, and I mean everything requires maintenance, or it will crumble into dust. That maintenance is like a running cost. For (what we consider today to be) high-value jewels of the past, we pay this cost, because we like having these amazing things--like cathedrals and churches and minarets and bridges and monuments and works of art. This maintenance is literally fighting the forces of entropy. Fall behind, and it will crumble and disappear. When it crumbles or is old or broken, or even destroyed--e.g. after WWII--will you rebuild what was there, as it was, or do something new because it strikes your fancy? In Europe, they draw the line very differently than in North America. Much of the old is maintained, rebuilt, preserved. Because it is considered wealth in itself. Because people fight these forces of entropy, honor their past, and heck, maybe even like things? As an American, I see we do not do this. We seem to hate things. We hate buildings and bridges and doorknobs and pipes[1]; partly because most stuff is built like cheap crap--no matter the era--so of course it falls down and needs to be rebuilt. And it is, the cheapest way possible, usually. Today it seems to be being rebuilt all in a particular way. I dunno, I just think America's total disregard for the past is infecting the rest of the world. [1] Not above-ground power lines, poles, and endless ugly nests of wires, though. Obviously. Those friggin power lines are going to be the absolute last thing that anybody tears down.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    Just to be a devil's advocate: yes, construction in the US generally doesn't last as long as in the "old world". But on the other hand, look at how hard it is to take a beautiful 17th century stone building and make it as energy efficient as modern construction. Same with just about every other internal quality-of-life feature - the old building wins on feng shui and other ineffable valuations, but fails in terms of every day to day and efficiency/cost metric. Yes, it can seem stupid to be tearing down and rebuilding a 50-100 old house when you compare it to old-world behavior, but building technology has moved along at a pace almost as rapid as computational tech, and there's an argument to be made for benefitting from that rather than being hamstrung by "old beauty".
    - 4y ago
smnc 4y ago
> they go with the aesthetic de jure You probably meant to write "du jour" :)
naijaboiler 4y ago
the push towards homogenous zeitgest has always existed. I think what's more accentuated in the modern times, is the world-wide convergence because we have made communication across vast geographical areas instantenous. with modern phones, and internet, everyone everywhere pretty much has visual access to the same things. Now convergence is not just local, it's global in scope.
- brnaftr361 4y ago
  This is an interesting point, but I disagree that it has been around forever. I'd posit this is elementary of the state. But the state emerged not so long ago in an otherwise massive tract of history. And as to globalism, that's only somewhat correct. There are pieces of antiquity found all throughout the world, indicative of huge trade networks. Feathers from South America found on the East Coast of North America and artifacts of the Indus Valley people found in Western Europe. The speed at which that happens is, I don't think, particularly relevant. Even once in possession of such information the consequences are seldom manifest immediately. It's as much about maintaining the status quo and hierarchical stability as it is the process of civil evolution. And it's easy to explain why: the more similar people are the more predictable and thus more controllable they become. Anyone in a position of power would love it if every word spoken was agreed upon and acted out as if their imagination was manifest. If every element of a given state was mechanistic rather than organic. Of course businesses are little states in their own way. An interesting [unsourced] aside: I remember some comedian talking about their comeup, and that once they had what they wanted they became depressed. Telling the same jokes to different crowds and getting the same laughs over and over again. Peering into how easily people can be won, manipulated... I think it was Birbiglia. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.
mortenjorck 4y ago
> What makes something pretty and cool and interesting is skill, thoughtfulness and some sense of composition, color, and togetherness. This is key, yet it highlights an important aspect largely missing from these critiques of popular aesthetics: Any style popular enough to become hegemonic will itself contain examples spanning a wide range of quality and taste. There are beautiful expressions of the AirBnB interior, the NHTSA-approved car, even the five-over-one low-rise, just as there is also a sea of mediocre variations on them. A style alone does not make a designed object or space high-taste or low-taste, good or bad; it is the values of good design and craftsmanship that make it thus.
- sirmarksalot 4y ago
  I think that's a bit reductive. Part of what's missing here is personality, or what I would call unique mediocrity. People who have no idea what they're doing just deciding to paint a wall yellow because they feel like it. The issue isn't just that some apartments have craftsmanship and others don't: it's that the high-skill and low-skill efforts look superficially the same. Think about it with Marvel or Star Wars movies. There are some really good ones, and some really boring ones, and although you can definitely say "Thor Ragnarok" was better than "Iron Man: Age of Ultron", that doesn't change the fact that when you zoom out, it seems all we're getting is superhero and Star Wars movies, and maybe it would be nice to watch something else now and again. We want more than just good craftsmanship. We need people of mediocre skill to be making things that are weird and interesting.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    Weird and interesting are a part of individual behavior, and unfortunately our economy is trending towards more consolidation. The urban streetscapes of older cities are dominated by very similar buildings, but often the differentiation is not just a result of the architecture but of the tenants. You have multiple buildings, multiple landlords, and multiple tenants, and the combinatoric permutations of all of them produce interesting variation on just a single city block. These days, the modern five over one probably takes an entire block or at least half of one, and the relevant landlords or HOAs basically all but forbid tenant individuality. For example, I have a balcony, but I’m not allowed to hang clothes, or flags, or art, or anything, and so the only thing that is actually out there is some basic outdoor furniture. Businesses with storefronts in these buildings also have similar restrictions, because today’s corporate landlords are used to sterile, manicured environments like malls.
anonymouskimmer 4y ago
> No, things have converged because lots of people with no taste[1] just ho-hummed along with the zeitgest. You buy what you can afford. Whether that be a shotgun shack with second-hand traipings or a McMansion with IKEA furniture. AirBNB's are optimizing for cheap, easy to clean and maintain, but still providing the minimum expected features. If you want variety, go to actual B&Bs. The big mistake the artists in the first part did was to average all input, instead of cluster analyzing the input to discover more than one average type. On average, most people like nature, so nature is what you're going to get. A better test would be to have an art museum with diverse art, and then see which paintings attract the most interest, or even better, which patterns emerge when tracing many individuals throughout the museum. I actually find the paintings fairly diverse, both in their individual content, and when compared to each other. But a person who has a mind to average everything will, of course, find a lot of similarity between them.
- groby_b 4y ago
  "You buy what you can afford. " The problem is, there is "almost everybody can afford this", and there is "completely bespoke". We have eliminated the middle ground.
  - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    Yeah. People still reupholster old furniture. I think the real problem is that many goods these days are either so cheap it's cheaper to replacement them entirely, or not built to last, so they never get to a rebuild stage.
    - titzer 4y ago
      Indeed, and all the local (and unfortunately global incentives, like GDP) are aligned for production, not wealth preservation and quality of life. The reupholster option is the most efficient wealth preservation option and saves production capacity for making new furniture for other people.
      - 4y ago
TigeriusKirk 4y ago
We've converged on the designs with the greatest acceptance. Not anyone's preference, just what they'll accept. The phrase "lowest common denominator" applies here.
- account42 4y ago
  Exactly. I like to use the term "inoffensive" as a pejorative these days.
groby_b 4y ago
This is a core point. It most stuck out to me when the article talked about car colors - most cars are black or white because car makers mostly make black or white. Buying a car with a splash of color is hard. Red is your best chance. Followed by butt-ugly blues. You cannot meaningfully choose according to your taste because choice is restricted. (Related, try to buy furniture that isn't a fucking cheap imitation of mid-century modern) And that happened because offerening the most bland and inoffensive looks will be bought by the vast majority of people who don't care about taste, or don't have any. (How would you develop taste if all the choices are the same) It's bland things for bland lives reinforcing more bland choices in product design. Mixing all colors gets a dull grey, and that's where we're landing.
- citizenpaul 4y ago
  Safety is an under appreciated function of car color. I've had a number of same looking cars of different color. I noticed that driving a white version results in substantially less near miss/near accidents while driving. I will only buy white cars now because of this. I'm tired of dodging inattentive drivers that are sleepdriving through their commute or whatever they are doing besides driving.
  - marketerinland 4y ago
    This ^ I read once that grey cars have the highest possibility of accidents for this exact reason. And since then have only driven white cars.
    - citizenpaul 4y ago
      Thats funny because I didn't know that was a stat however I definitely noticed that my grey car was like an accident magnet from real life experience.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - a4000 4y ago

by titzer 4y ago

epups 4y ago

> Sure, maybe its just nostalgia, but there were plenty of trends and aesthetics from my younger years that are just nowhere to be found. Why? Because when people renovate, they go with the aesthetic de jure, what's available and what the social pressures are. Hardly anyone is going to renovate a 1980s basement and put in...1980s carpet. And were people in the 1980s using furniture from the 1940s when they renovated? If not, embrace the fact that things change and will always change. I bet the 1980s aesthetics are going to get a revival at some point.

titzer 4y ago
> embrace the fact that things change and will always change. Living in a European city for a few years got me thinking about what the sources of changes are. Everything, and I mean everything requires maintenance, or it will crumble into dust. That maintenance is like a running cost. For (what we consider today to be) high-value jewels of the past, we pay this cost, because we like having these amazing things--like cathedrals and churches and minarets and bridges and monuments and works of art. This maintenance is literally fighting the forces of entropy. Fall behind, and it will crumble and disappear. When it crumbles or is old or broken, or even destroyed--e.g. after WWII--will you rebuild what was there, as it was, or do something new because it strikes your fancy? In Europe, they draw the line very differently than in North America. Much of the old is maintained, rebuilt, preserved. Because it is considered wealth in itself. Because people fight these forces of entropy, honor their past, and heck, maybe even like things? As an American, I see we do not do this. We seem to hate things. We hate buildings and bridges and doorknobs and pipes[1]; partly because most stuff is built like cheap crap--no matter the era--so of course it falls down and needs to be rebuilt. And it is, the cheapest way possible, usually. Today it seems to be being rebuilt all in a particular way. I dunno, I just think America's total disregard for the past is infecting the rest of the world. [1] Not above-ground power lines, poles, and endless ugly nests of wires, though. Obviously. Those friggin power lines are going to be the absolute last thing that anybody tears down.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  Just to be a devil's advocate: yes, construction in the US generally doesn't last as long as in the "old world". But on the other hand, look at how hard it is to take a beautiful 17th century stone building and make it as energy efficient as modern construction. Same with just about every other internal quality-of-life feature - the old building wins on feng shui and other ineffable valuations, but fails in terms of every day to day and efficiency/cost metric. Yes, it can seem stupid to be tearing down and rebuilding a 50-100 old house when you compare it to old-world behavior, but building technology has moved along at a pace almost as rapid as computational tech, and there's an argument to be made for benefitting from that rather than being hamstrung by "old beauty".
  - 4y ago

smnc 4y ago

> they go with the aesthetic de jure You probably meant to write "du jour" :)

naijaboiler 4y ago

the push towards homogenous zeitgest has always existed. I think what's more accentuated in the modern times, is the world-wide convergence because we have made communication across vast geographical areas instantenous. with modern phones, and internet, everyone everywhere pretty much has visual access to the same things. Now convergence is not just local, it's global in scope.

brnaftr361 4y ago
This is an interesting point, but I disagree that it has been around forever. I'd posit this is elementary of the state. But the state emerged not so long ago in an otherwise massive tract of history. And as to globalism, that's only somewhat correct. There are pieces of antiquity found all throughout the world, indicative of huge trade networks. Feathers from South America found on the East Coast of North America and artifacts of the Indus Valley people found in Western Europe. The speed at which that happens is, I don't think, particularly relevant. Even once in possession of such information the consequences are seldom manifest immediately. It's as much about maintaining the status quo and hierarchical stability as it is the process of civil evolution. And it's easy to explain why: the more similar people are the more predictable and thus more controllable they become. Anyone in a position of power would love it if every word spoken was agreed upon and acted out as if their imagination was manifest. If every element of a given state was mechanistic rather than organic. Of course businesses are little states in their own way. An interesting [unsourced] aside: I remember some comedian talking about their comeup, and that once they had what they wanted they became depressed. Telling the same jokes to different crowds and getting the same laughs over and over again. Peering into how easily people can be won, manipulated... I think it was Birbiglia. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

mortenjorck 4y ago

> What makes something pretty and cool and interesting is skill, thoughtfulness and some sense of composition, color, and togetherness. This is key, yet it highlights an important aspect largely missing from these critiques of popular aesthetics: Any style popular enough to become hegemonic will itself contain examples spanning a wide range of quality and taste. There are beautiful expressions of the AirBnB interior, the NHTSA-approved car, even the five-over-one low-rise, just as there is also a sea of mediocre variations on them. A style alone does not make a designed object or space high-taste or low-taste, good or bad; it is the values of good design and craftsmanship that make it thus.

sirmarksalot 4y ago
I think that's a bit reductive. Part of what's missing here is personality, or what I would call unique mediocrity. People who have no idea what they're doing just deciding to paint a wall yellow because they feel like it. The issue isn't just that some apartments have craftsmanship and others don't: it's that the high-skill and low-skill efforts look superficially the same. Think about it with Marvel or Star Wars movies. There are some really good ones, and some really boring ones, and although you can definitely say "Thor Ragnarok" was better than "Iron Man: Age of Ultron", that doesn't change the fact that when you zoom out, it seems all we're getting is superhero and Star Wars movies, and maybe it would be nice to watch something else now and again. We want more than just good craftsmanship. We need people of mediocre skill to be making things that are weird and interesting.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  Weird and interesting are a part of individual behavior, and unfortunately our economy is trending towards more consolidation. The urban streetscapes of older cities are dominated by very similar buildings, but often the differentiation is not just a result of the architecture but of the tenants. You have multiple buildings, multiple landlords, and multiple tenants, and the combinatoric permutations of all of them produce interesting variation on just a single city block. These days, the modern five over one probably takes an entire block or at least half of one, and the relevant landlords or HOAs basically all but forbid tenant individuality. For example, I have a balcony, but I’m not allowed to hang clothes, or flags, or art, or anything, and so the only thing that is actually out there is some basic outdoor furniture. Businesses with storefronts in these buildings also have similar restrictions, because today’s corporate landlords are used to sterile, manicured environments like malls.

anonymouskimmer 4y ago

> No, things have converged because lots of people with no taste[1] just ho-hummed along with the zeitgest. You buy what you can afford. Whether that be a shotgun shack with second-hand traipings or a McMansion with IKEA furniture. AirBNB's are optimizing for cheap, easy to clean and maintain, but still providing the minimum expected features. If you want variety, go to actual B&Bs. The big mistake the artists in the first part did was to average all input, instead of cluster analyzing the input to discover more than one average type. On average, most people like nature, so nature is what you're going to get. A better test would be to have an art museum with diverse art, and then see which paintings attract the most interest, or even better, which patterns emerge when tracing many individuals throughout the museum. I actually find the paintings fairly diverse, both in their individual content, and when compared to each other. But a person who has a mind to average everything will, of course, find a lot of similarity between them.

groby_b 4y ago
"You buy what you can afford. " The problem is, there is "almost everybody can afford this", and there is "completely bespoke". We have eliminated the middle ground.
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  Yeah. People still reupholster old furniture. I think the real problem is that many goods these days are either so cheap it's cheaper to replacement them entirely, or not built to last, so they never get to a rebuild stage.
  - titzer 4y ago
    Indeed, and all the local (and unfortunately global incentives, like GDP) are aligned for production, not wealth preservation and quality of life. The reupholster option is the most efficient wealth preservation option and saves production capacity for making new furniture for other people.
    - 4y ago

TigeriusKirk 4y ago

We've converged on the designs with the greatest acceptance. Not anyone's preference, just what they'll accept. The phrase "lowest common denominator" applies here.

account42 4y ago
Exactly. I like to use the term "inoffensive" as a pejorative these days.

groby_b 4y ago

This is a core point. It most stuck out to me when the article talked about car colors - most cars are black or white because car makers mostly make black or white. Buying a car with a splash of color is hard. Red is your best chance. Followed by butt-ugly blues. You cannot meaningfully choose according to your taste because choice is restricted. (Related, try to buy furniture that isn't a fucking cheap imitation of mid-century modern) And that happened because offerening the most bland and inoffensive looks will be bought by the vast majority of people who don't care about taste, or don't have any. (How would you develop taste if all the choices are the same) It's bland things for bland lives reinforcing more bland choices in product design. Mixing all colors gets a dull grey, and that's where we're landing.

citizenpaul 4y ago
Safety is an under appreciated function of car color. I've had a number of same looking cars of different color. I noticed that driving a white version results in substantially less near miss/near accidents while driving. I will only buy white cars now because of this. I'm tired of dodging inattentive drivers that are sleepdriving through their commute or whatever they are doing besides driving.
- marketerinland 4y ago
  This ^ I read once that grey cars have the highest possibility of accidents for this exact reason. And since then have only driven white cars.
  - citizenpaul 4y ago
    Thats funny because I didn't know that was a stat however I definitely noticed that my grey car was like an accident magnet from real life experience.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- a4000 4y ago