This is sad, but it doesn’t seem all that new to me. As a kid in the 80s I remember seeing suburban subdivisions going up in all the farmland around where I lived. (I lived in one of the first subdivisions to go up.) Each new subdivision looked the same as the last. Each one used the same three or four house models repeated over and over. It was revolting. When you’d go to one strip mall, it would look pretty much the same as any other strip mall. And if you go back in time and look at say, city apartment buildings from 1900 and look at New York or San Francisco or Baltimore, they all look just about the same as each other. The only difference now is that this sameness truly global. This is the first time we’ve had a truly global society. It’s probably inevitable. But at least the current AirBnB style looks better to me than your average 1980s home style.
The age of average
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Re: The age of average
#32This is the consequence of our generation taking over. We, the millennials are probably the most a-historic generation, our taste and values are exceedingly the values of the petit bourgeoisie. All of our faux sophistication reflects our depressing self-centered culture, our lack of erudition and our rabid individualism.
I want to think that my growing collection of books about nuclear weapons, nuclear war, and nuclear strategy allows me to tick the quirky box among my fellow Millennials/Zillennials.
Re: The age of average
#33>When every supermarket aisle looks like a sea of sameness, when every category abides by the same conventions, when every industry has converged on its own singular style, bold brands and courageous companies have the chance to chart a different course. To be different, distinctive and disruptive.
I feel like the author has learned the exact wrong lesson. AirBnBs all look the same for a reason! It's the Brooklyn look! There's a reason all the AirBnBs copied their style from one of the most expensive housing markets in the world. That style was high status, and AirBnBs copied it, and eventually it became ubiquitous because people aspire to that. It's not an accident where it originated from. Convergence isn't an opportunity to diverge, it emerges from underlying driving factors. Yes, you can choose to buck that trend, but the underlying reason for the trend emerging is going to be something you have to fight against, it's going to be a disadvantage, not an advantage.
Re: The age of average
#34I think what the article describes is true.
We are fed with ocean of information, the same bundle of information, with historical speed. If you are looking for e.g. interior design ideas, SEO, instagram, twitter, or whatever search channel du jour, including LLM, dictates what you are going to read.
We are also living in the most globalized era, having access to products unmatched in our history, the same bunch of products. Don't remember which book I read from, our supermarkets have more product, but all supermarkets are having the same kind of products.
Our working culture is also getting more homogenized. All companies are sharing the same kind of corporate talks. Everyone is taking the same style of profile picture, smiling, beaming with positive energy, with a uniform background colour. Think for example, your company tells you the company is cutting cost, what do you think the action will be? Why is that?
Software engineering is about using latest hot tech, not so much about understanding problems.
"We are all different", he said. [1]
Re: The age of average
#35The styles that the author reviews are real trends in their market (except the paintings, which seems like an intentional publicity stunt on the part of the artists rather than a genuine trend, and it harms the piece by being the introduction - gets everything off on the wrong foot), though not as all-consuming as they are made out to be. The author then identifies a commonality between these trends, that they are al…
The author really describes the effects of globalisation, spreading through consumer culture and online media quicker than before. Capitalism is in a phase where companies are developing "world products" to ever larger audiences. A "world car" would look very different from a 1970s Jaguar, built in Britain and sold there predominantly.
Re: The age of average
#36Part of the problem within this article is the choice of pictures. The first section states, “In nearly every country all people really wanted was a landscape with a few figures around, animals in the foreground, mainly blue.” They then present 9 pictures that reinforce the concept that people all around the world expect the _same_ thing. But that's simply not true. They didn't take that description and give it to ar…
Agree.
The author seems to be experiencing a case of what's known as Baader–Meinhof phenomenon.
There may be such thing as the AirSpace look, but this may be driven by cost cutting more than actual style.
Exposed brick, exposed air ducts, reclaimed wood, brass plumbing pipe lamps with Edison bulbs...
All this is DIY stuff you do when you want to keep your expenses at the minimum while making the place look nice, and it accomplishes that very well, if donde right, I think.
But I bet most people would go with a $50K custom Italian kitchen instead of exposed shelves if they could afford it.
Re: The age of average
#37This is the consequence of our generation taking over. We, the millennials are probably the most a-historic generation, our taste and values are exceedingly the values of the petit bourgeoisie. All of our faux sophistication reflects our depressing self-centered culture, our lack of erudition and our rabid individualism.
Sure. Also globalization, the internet, and cheaper flights have contributed significantly to this sameness and blandness. In the end, the same social forces are always at play: status-seeking, conformity, and many others. All of our aspirations and consumption are now globally defined.
edit: I'm not millennial, I'm a Gen-X. And this categories also contributes to this sameness and conformity.
Re: The age of average
#38My brother noticed this development as well and exploits it for brinkmanship and (imho abusive) rejection of any compromise in personal relationships. Why argue with that one pretty girl and give in into her needs, if there's more than 10,000 other girls who look literally identical, have the same gymed up bodies, have the same personalities, same preferences and fall for the same jokes? To me, devaluing other people…
Are people entitled to be valued by others?
Re: The age of average
#39Part of the problem within this article is the choice of pictures. The first section states, “In nearly every country all people really wanted was a landscape with a few figures around, animals in the foreground, mainly blue.” They then present 9 pictures that reinforce the concept that people all around the world expect the _same_ thing. But that's simply not true. They didn't take that description and give it to ar…
I figured people were going to take issue with the opening anecdote about art, but that was simply the author trying to frame the story in an interesting way. The rest of the article was more compelling.
The ubiquity of the 5-over-1 architecture in the US is very striking. The NY Times had an article recently called "America the Bland" [1] which challenged people to tell if apartments were in Nashville, Seattle or Denver. All I could think looking through it was "These look exactly like all the apartments near me in Boston and Cambridge.
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/realestate/housing-develo...
Re: The age of average
#40This is the consequence of our generation taking over. We, the millennials are probably the most a-historic generation, our taste and values are exceedingly the values of the petit bourgeoisie. All of our faux sophistication reflects our depressing self-centered culture, our lack of erudition and our rabid individualism.
I want to think that my growing collection of books about nuclear weapons, nuclear war, and nuclear strategy allows me to tick the quirky box among my fellow Millennials/Zillennials.
*Zoomers