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Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts

mcmansionhell.com

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Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts

#331

Post by mysterypie »

aidenn0 wrote: post #121
rayiner wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Most of the McMansions around where I grew up in Northern Va. were fairly cookie cutter. Their lack of architectural unity seemed to be more of "We have X types of garages, Y types of base floorplans and Z types of entryways and so we'll just iterate on them for the whole neighborhood" This combined with the rapidly rising real-estate costs meant the builders threw in some of the architectural versions of Hofmeister…

> the architectural versions of Hofmeister kinks

I'm going to add this to my list of words for names of things that you never expected to have names. From aglet[1] to uvula[2], and now Hofmeister kink.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aglet

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatine_uvula

Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts

#332

Post by randcraw »

abandonliberty wrote: post #251
uses wrote: post #69

I 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…

Let's be real. I'm not an architect. I'm a layperson with a decent sense of aesthetics. 60%+ of what McMansion complained about I was oblivious to. Sure, there are some obvious things but the majority would not be accessible to someone unless they were educated in the field and taught what 'proper' aesthetics are. Is it still a crime in some circles to wear a blazer with denim?

Not at all. A well-chosen semi-formal jacket can be serve as a great contrast to worn denim lowers. But without attention to detail, you get a pale blue polyester leisure suit jacket over black stretch "jeans". And that doesn't express playfulness, so much as a doubling down on bad taste of biblical proportions.

Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts

#333

Post by mozumder »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #11
imkevinxu wrote: post #3

On what grounds can they sue? Isn't this pure free speech? It looks like the only references to Zillow ever are citations that the photos come from their website http://www.mcmansionhell.com/search/zillow

Likely copyright over the photographs. Realistically, it's fair use since it's transformative and used for critique. Unfortunately, fair use laws only apply in the US if you have lots of lawyer money, so they don't really matter for normal folks.

Fair use critiques is designed for the photography itself, not for the subject of the photography.

Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts

#334

Post by rmc »

glup wrote: post #47

Wow Zillow, way to protect that valuable IP! If I were an employee there I would wonder why legal wasn't working on something more useful. Is there any open repository of house images (OpenStreetMaps, etc.) that could be used as a substitute in the interim?

> Is there any open repository of house images (OpenStreetMaps, etc.) that could be used as a substitute in the interim?

OpenStreetMap doesn't store images, just map data. Mapillary and OpenStreetCam are "crowd sourced Google Street View" alternatives, which could be used for that.

At an extreme case, you can put a photo on flickr with the correct tags and geo tagging information?

Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts

#335

Post by dagw »

mschaef wrote: post #209
toufka wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I can absolutely sympathize with people that want an affordable way to get more space for their family

But a McMansion will almost always cost you more than a more 'modest' house offering the same amount of space. Also that house will almost certainly be better constructed.

Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts

#336

Post by bleepity »

iosDrone wrote: post #182

I'm never in favor of any speech being censored (especially fair use speech), including in this case. But as someone who wants to one day buy a huge McMansion in Vegas just for personal gratification, fuck all of these self-righteous snobs.

Except that she points out McMansions are shoddily built and won't last-- one of her photos shows a McMansion with especially severe water damage, for instance. Re-roofing that wackadoodle roofline is so cost-prohibitive you might as well just burn the thing and start over. If you ever have the money for "personal gratification", why not buy an actual mansion built with actual quality?

Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts

#337

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

defen wrote: post #218
peacetreefrog wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you can't ridicule them for lacking taste you're basically saying that taste doesn't exist and everything is always subjective." Or perhaps you're against ridicule in general. Why is it your problem what sort of houses other people live in?

If they're living on the other side of the country, I don't care. If they're knocking down perfectly fine, correctly-scaled houses in my neighborhood in order to build huge monstrosities that parasitize the aesthetic niceness of the neighborhood that is due in large part to correctly-sized and shaped houses then I get upset. Example happening in my town: builder buys a normal-sized house on a large lot for $800K. Kno…

> If they're living on the other side of the country, I don't care.

Is this not the textbook definition of NIMBYism?

Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts

#338

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #107
chadgeidel wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She has a Patreon.

seems like it would work better to scare off intimidation type lawsuits if we could show a willingness to pay her legal fees. then if they fuck off, we dont have to. there must be some kind of legal crowdfunding service like this right?

I love this concept and would definitely contribute if someone did build such a thing (not just this case but plenty of others, too).

Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts

#340

Post by fsloth »

trentmb wrote: post #297
ryandrake wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there may not be One True Definition, and there's room to agree and disagree, there are attributes people probably could agree are tasteless and help qualify a house as a McMansion: * No clear architectural style, or a haphazard/incoherent mix of styles * Brick or stone facades in front, and cheap siding on the (less visible) sides * Non-structural arches and columns * Oddly placed/sized windows * Multiple roof…

> * No clear architectural style, or a haphazard/incoherent mix of styles Isn't that just a new style?

Uh, no, it's noise synthesis.

The point is, with the effort and money spent, the houses are not even necessarily nice to live in when the designer just adds a hodge podge of features. The critique may sound elitist but the actual defects are concrete once you notice them and not just 'accept and adapt' to them.

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