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Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
171–180 of 388 posts
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#172This is a real shame. McMansion Hell was one of my favorite sites, and one of the few that I would repeatedly check for updates.
IANAL, but her case seems cut-and-dry by fair use standards. I hope that she fights it and seeks the help of her (very appreciative) readers in fighting it.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#173So I don't get it. This girl sounds really, really petty, and the 99pi episode is probably their worst. So what if someone wants to build a huge house? How is that harming anyone else? If I were wealthy I would totally build a McMansion because I want it, I like it, and I would love to live in it. Who cares?
If I were wealthy I would totally build a McMansion
If you were wealthy why not put in the tiny bit of extra effort build a well constructed, nice, huge house that will last for generations?
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#174The Washington Post ran an article/video combo today[1] about Kate and McMansion Hell, and while Kate herself didn't mention Zillow the article itself did a few times. I imagine this is what prompted the legal threat. It's an entertaining video if you have five minutes. Also of note: Kate's twitter posts from this morning also indicate she has received threatening emails following the video[2], which is sadly not sur…
I honestly could not finish that video. She is as pretentious as the home owners she criticizes.
>All of these things combine together to form this thing that's really easy to dislike because, it's like, pretentious.
Yeah screw these people living in their hard earned home! Their windows are wrong!
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#175She might want to double check with Zillow. The Cease and Desist is signed 'Christopher Poole', which happens to be the real name of Moot of 4chan fame?
There is a Christopher Poole on Linkedin that is Corporate Counsel at Zillow Group. I'm not going to post a link here because it might be considered doxxing, but that person is real.
That's quite the unfortunate name.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#176I totally understand the whole "McMansions are bad architecture" thing... However, something about it really bothers me. There was an episode of 99% Invisible where the guest was talking about their McMansions blog and how it makes fun of these Horrid dwellings. The whole thing stank of classist elitism. The Wrong Type of people were getting the chance to design and build large houses, and of course they're applying…
I think a lot of people here are confusing her criticisms of McMansions with criticisms of mansions in general.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#177The Washington Post ran an article/video combo today[1] about Kate and McMansion Hell, and while Kate herself didn't mention Zillow the article itself did a few times. I imagine this is what prompted the legal threat. It's an entertaining video if you have five minutes. Also of note: Kate's twitter posts from this morning also indicate she has received threatening emails following the video[2], which is sadly not sur…
To add to your comment, she also posted the letter from Zillow to her twitter https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879429709251137537
Zillow pulled out the fucking CFAA??? That's just plain dirty.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The blog is sarcastic in nature. What's wrong with that? It's punching down: the builders/purchasers didn't know/care how to make architecturally sophisticated dwellings, which is no reason to make fun of someone. The commentary applies equally-well to pre-fab apartments, shotgun shacks, suburban housing developments, etc. It's poorly-targeted. It's also elitist a.f. "Look at these gauche bungalows, drawn up no dou…
> It's punching down I generally reject the premise of punching up versus down; but McMansion Hell is emphatically not punching down. Anyone who can afford a $1 million 5000+ square foot house deserves very little sympathy for their bad taste.
It's OK to be mean to people because of the socioeconomic class they belong to? They're all humans just like each other. I bet half of poorer people would opt to design their own house in an ugly way if they had the chance. They just don't have the chance. Some of them certainly try hard though: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/543809723727647414
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#179I would expect nothing short of this from Zillow. I'm also not really certain that Zillow has the copyright: those are usually property of the RETS/MLS of that specific area, if not the agent taking the pictures.
I came here to ask this question. I've never seen a Zillow ad that wasn't just a copy of the MLS listing (usually a month out-of-date, at that). The same pictures show up on realtor.com, redfin.com, and about 50 other sites.
If you can get the byte-for-byte identical image from a different website, how does Zillow exercise any control here? If she just stops using Zillow, isn't she protected?
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Additionally, McMansions are often not very functional. As much as I would appreciate more space, I've been in enough McMansions to appreciate how important a well-built and well-designed house is. Completely ignoring scale doesn't just make McMansions aesthetically unpleasant, it them uncomfortable or completely unsuitable for most of the things we use a house for as well. If you spend any time in a McMansion, you w…
This is where I fall on the spectrum. I can understand someone wanting their house to evoke some notion of grandeur but really if it isn't functional the effort feels wasted to me. That said, I have always felt ridiculing other people's taste to be fairly mean. And while there are/were some solid points in the blog about design and things that 'look right' and things that 'look wrong' it could often come across fairl…
All the more reason the blog is so useful. I'd hate to think with all the modern technology around us that the house I live in 'just doesn't feel right' because it was not built employing the past dozen millennia-worth of architectural knowledge at our social disposal. Just because I am not an architect doesn't mean I want to be swindled into an unknowingly unpleasant home. Just because I'm not an architect of CPUs doesn't mean I'd be willing to have a computer run poorly given my investment in a new computer - even if I like the processor's name and it has lots of gigahertzes.
No one finds the tech reviewer 'mean' for saying the processor is slower at particular benchmarks according to our present technological measure. Why is this so different - if in fact what is being put to the measure is a human technology and not simply taste. And even then, many 'tasteful' architectural features only exist because of some function - and missing that function they are actually only taste.