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Why is everything so ugly?

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171–180 of 328 posts

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#171
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, but that "Wild and Free" banner totally livens everything up. /s I would be interested in seeing the adult that grew up in that nursery. Like, do their meals have a side of fava beans and a nice chianti?

"Do you like Raffi? I've been a big children's music fan ever since the release of his classic album, "Singable Songs for the Very Young." Before that, I really didn't understand any of the kiddie tunes. Too jingly, too toddler-tastic. It was on "Singable Songs" where Raffi's catchy melodies became more apparent. I think "Baby Beluga" was the artist's undisputed masterpiece. It's an epic lullaby on ocean adventures.…

I do believe this is the first time I've ever read such an adult critique of a children's performer. I have no idea about anything you just said though, but you clearly feel passionately about ABCs and 123s. Or you're decent at the GPT prompt

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#172
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that like greige ? https://www.thespruce.com/greige-best-neutral-color-ever-797...

The problem with grey is that it's blue-ish and therefore feels dark and cold. greige fixes that.

I have a lot of beige in my house. If I didn't want to go that warm, I could definitely see some take on greige as an alternative to colder gray.

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#173
post #158

> After New York replaced the sodium-vapor lights in the city’s 250,000 streetlamps with shiny new LEDs in 2017, the experience of walking through the city at night transformed, almost . . . overnight. Forgiving, romantic, shadowy orange gave way to cold, all-seeing bluish white. Before the late 1970s, NYC was illuminated at night by pinkish-white incandescent bulbs. When the yellow monstrosities were rolled out peop…

> People of my age view them as a nuisance born out of the austerity of the 1970s, a temporary suboptimal fix that persisted due to inertia. A reminder of the rot and desperation of the that era. > Now this dude is nostalgic for them? You could just as readily be talking about a cassette tape.

The cassette tape has a lot of things going for it. They play for longer than CDs, they don't skip, they are simple to duplicate and record onto (with most cassette decks capable of one, if not both, actions), and the occasional tape tangle teaches patience and encourages mechanical understanding of the system. They can't compete with my phone and a bunch of FLAC for fidelity, but I wish they weren't effectively dead technology.

Next, let's talk about how I miss CRTs...

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#174

> After New York replaced the sodium-vapor lights in the city’s 250,000 streetlamps with shiny new LEDs in 2017, the experience of walking through the city at night transformed, almost . . . overnight. Forgiving, romantic, shadowy orange gave way to cold, all-seeing bluish white. Before the late 1970s, NYC was illuminated at night by pinkish-white incandescent bulbs. When the yellow monstrosities were rolled out peop…

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> Now this dude is nostalgic for them?

An easily-unrealized benefit until people were forced to use them, they didn't ruin our low-light vision, at least not nearly as much as the new ones. You could easily see into unlit areas, or go from an unlit area to a lit one without your vision having to adjust.

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#175

> After New York replaced the sodium-vapor lights in the city’s 250,000 streetlamps with shiny new LEDs in 2017, the experience of walking through the city at night transformed, almost . . . overnight. Forgiving, romantic, shadowy orange gave way to cold, all-seeing bluish white. Before the late 1970s, NYC was illuminated at night by pinkish-white incandescent bulbs. When the yellow monstrosities were rolled out peop…

> Now this dude is nostalgic for them?

I stopped reading there. I'll take LEDs over ugly orange any day (or mercury-arc, as well). When my town converted, they picked neutral-white lights for the side streets and ones with a very slight yellow tint for the major streets. Either of these is far better as far as I'm concerned.

Even the old mercury-arc lights weren't that great - either sickly greenish or a color-corrected version that was blue-white. The 175W mercury-arc streetlight on my corner was replace by a 40W LED, with better lighting to boot.

Low-pressure sodium is even worse - an absolute monochromatic yellow. If you forgot where you parked your red car, good luck finding it. Been there, done that.

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#176
post #90
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you're getting this. Zero of my millenial friends like this look -- and we represent a wide range of the millenial years.

I don’t know if it’s millennials per se but subreddits about cozy, nice living spaces are upvoting for whatever reason quite uniformly empty and gray minimalist designs. Like a distopian hospital from the future or something.

Since when are redditors representative of the population?

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#177

I just wanted to echo the gray frustration here. I went to buy vinyl flooring (I can't afford hardwood) and the sheer amount of inexplicably "grey wood" planks was staggering. Why! Like, it's as if some alien only saw wood in an episode of I Love Lucy and wanted to replicate it.

When selling our previous property, the seller agent recommended we paint it in "agreeable gray," supposedly the current color that is neutral and will not affect anyone negatively.

What I find really interesting is that women can see shades that men cannot. My wife painted several shades of grey on the wall, including "agreeable gray" and I could not tell the difference, all looked the same. I experienced the same thing when she was looking for a grey / green for the kitchen cabinets. I could not tell the difference and all looked grey. She was also able to see shades of blue where all I saw was grey.

I have asked around and I am not the only male in my acquaintances that experiences this.

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#178
post #130
post #127

Well, I for one don't think everything is ugly. Apple devices and stores look clean and elegant to me. Tesla vehicles feel and look simple and beautiful to me. If given a choice, I'd rather live in new buildings with bright, light-filled interiors than in old buildings with darker, mustier interiors. I could provide more examples of things I don't think are ugly. The main point is this: Beauty is in the eye of the be…

> Tesla vehicles look beautiful to me. As you say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder—but, seriously, the Cybertruck as a thing of beauty? (This is from someone who actually liked the boxy car designs of old.)

If you don't like the Cybertruck, you can close your browser tab and not be offended further. Tesla 3s and Ys exist in the real world, and they're more pleasant to look at than most vehicles.

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#180
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is the only issue. People have always copied each other throughout history. In the past before the industrial age it was much more difficult though as you had to use local materials and labor. Now we have global corporations and many of them are near monopolies in many industries. Add to this that making a billion of one thing massively drops the costs over something you make a million of, so you'r…

There is also the question of new mass media. I would hazard a guess and say if you look at AirBnB throughout major cities in the world, the aesthetic will largely be the same. Trends existed before but were often adapted to local taste, yet now everywhere has the same overpriced coffee shop with rustic wood/metal tables and edison bulbs.

There's also a boiling the frog element.
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