Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
201–210 of 388 posts
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
While people here are making an argument that this is fair use, it's not quite so simple. You have to pay money to argue in front of a judge, and unless no counter-argument is provided, summary judgement is far from an inevitability.
>You have to pay money to argue in front of a judge // USA, land of the free. Home of Freedom of Speech.
To be fair, nobody has paid anything at this point.
Zillow sent this lady a C&D letter where TOS, not copyright, was the primary factor.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#203I 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 grew up in Northern Virginia among these McMansions, and frankly I don't buy the elitism angle. These folks have a lot of money (top 5% at least, if not even top 1%) and are among the best educated in the country. And these aren't dwellings driven by the need for functionality. It's not like people here have big families they need to house (empty nesters can afford them more readily than people with families!). The…
> If you can't ridicule them for lacking taste you're basically saying that taste doesn't exist and everything is always subjective.
I don't know about the rest, but taste is definitely subjective.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
I honestly could not finish that video. She is as pretentious as the home owners she criticizes.
I don't see any pretence, I really don't.
You don't see any pretentiousness in driving around judging a bunch of people on their houses and just ragging on how terrible they are? Really? You might want to look harder.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
As engineers and designers, we should side with her on this one. The core conceit of McMansion Hell is that these are this homes built without experts, particularly architects (but any kind of designer is absent from them). These are often big, expensive homes, where the builder and the buyer thought they didn't need the help of an actual professional. This isn't just an American thing, but it seems particularly bad…
Post college I had a mentor that was in the real estate development business, not for McMansions, first time homebuyer and some developments in the next price point up ( Houses are a bit like software. Builders will typically have base plans and then depending on the price point a varying number of customizations that can be applied. The more expensive the home the more customizations offered. A really great thing ab…
I think you bring up an important point: there is a class of homebuyer who is both wealthy (or at least high-income) and a control freak. McMansion (or more specifically McMansion builders) target this demographic with empty shells, then let the homebuyer customize to their heart's content (even if said customization is stupid).
For some, it appears that the control is an important purchase consideration. The bank is the only one taking the risk.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#206I 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 thought I was the only bothered by that blog (the 99pi episode was based on it). I agree with practically all of its conclusions (ugly, oversized, out of place, generic, etc.), but the entire thing was a bunch of worthless value judgements: this is bad, that is bad. Not: this is bad because of function, but literally "this should never happen" -- no explanation. Real example from way back machine, from the blog's m…
I think there is a fair dose of irony in your value judgement of her value judgement of the buyers' value judgement of McMansions.
Her main points are basically unified theme and form follows function and how McMansions often break those rules (a hodgepodge of different elements, columns too large for the things they support).
Her blog also informs fundamentals of good taste in architecture. It's no different from learning what makes a classical painting good or good pacing in movies.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#207So 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?
I don't have any problem with someone building a huge, and subjectively "ugly" McMansion-style house if they want. What I have a problem with is where they usually locate these houses. In many (not all, not most) cases, the builders locate the house in an area completely unsuited for the property. They'll find some low-cost home in an established neighborhood of 30-40 year-old ranch homes (for instance), then tear th…
> In many (not all, not most) cases, the builders locate the house in an area completely unsuited for the property
Externalities are, as it happens, not your problem.
This is proving to be more of a bug than a feature, huh?
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#208I 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…
>The Wrong Type of people were getting the chance to design and build large houses, and of course they're applying their Bad Taste that's neither Genuine nor Authentic. They don't know about the traditions of Fine Architecture so of course they were doing it all wrong...how embarrassing for them! Leave out the "wrong type of people" part and you got pretty much every criticism ever. Bad movies, bad books, bad food...…
Poorer people can still be elitist. Expressing cultural or artistic superiority is a form of elitism that doesn't require wealth.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 d…
> Why is this so different
Benchmarks are at least attempting to be objective.
Also, there's a difference between mocking a company's product and mocking a house that is 1) an individual's home 2) their largest investment and 3) is likely, these days, to represent a significant financial liability.
I don't like McMansions much myself, but I can absolutely sympathize with people that want an affordable way to get more space for their family, etc. (Or people that have been sucked by the hedonic treadmill into a vortex of debt, high utility payments, etc.) They're probably suffering enough already.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see any pretence, I really don't.
You don't see any pretentiousness in driving around judging a bunch of people on their houses and just ragging on how terrible they are? Really? You might want to look harder.
Was she judging the houses or the people?