Why is the world losing color?
culture-critic.com
Why is the world losing color?
1–10 of 309 posts
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#2"Color has always had a strange status in Western philosophy — and more often than not, that status is second-class."
I wonder if one big change is a shift from a more working class family focus to an upper class influencer focus. Maybe this is just because was a kid, but It does feel to me like as a kid in the 80's and 90's and probably earlier, that the middle class was essentially the aspiration, and everything was geared towards the middle class family, think happy meals and McDonald's play place. Now, everything is geared for the wealthy social media influencer's, it's not a meal, it's an experience.
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#3It's not "losing" color.
At periods when technology resulted in new color possibilities, people went overboard with color. Make all the things colorful!! Think of the technicolor sixties. And we can go back in history and see the same thing with new clothing pigments, new paint pigments.
But when everything is colorful, nothing stands out. Everything being colorful is as monotonous as everything being, well, monotone.
Modern taste is more about more neutral-colored foundations with color accents. Don't paint a whole room green -- have a gorgeous green plant that stands out all the more against its neutral background. Don't paint a whole wall orange -- have a beautiful orange-hued piece of art on the wall. It's just more tasteful to use color as one element, along with size, shape, texture, and so forth. Making it the main element in everything is just overdoing it. It's bad design.
I don't want constant "riotous color", as the article puts it, in my home, or my workplace, or while I'm driving. It's visually exhausting.
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#4I would argue that the main reason is because everything is about money, and the shorter marketability of everything. Colors are polarising, and affect the unsold inventory and perceived resale value.
Why manufacture objects in 10 different colours if you know the green one is going to be a tough sell? Why buy a blue car if you think you’re going to sell it back after 2 years and struggle to do so?
You don’t want things you don’t intend to keep to have personally, period.
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#5I won't pretend to be an expert on the cultural aspects of this, but the most compelling historical proof they have of their thesis is that chart showing the measurement of hue over a whole bunch of objects in museums, by era.
Is it possible this is a bit of... https://xkcd.com/1138/ ? The Y axis is 100% because you can only look at the objects we have, but that doesn't reflect the fact we don't have 100% of objects from 1800. We only have the objects we cared enough about to protect.
So... in someways, (in no way proof of anything) this could show the opposite? We produce a lot of junky monochrome things that get thrown away fast, and things that we care enough to protect for generations tend to be coloured. We're sort of seeing the half-life of things by colour in that chart.
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#6It's not "losing" color. At periods when technology resulted in new color possibilities, people went overboard with color. Make all the things colorful!! Think of the technicolor sixties. And we can go back in history and see the same thing with new clothing pigments, new paint pigments. But when everything is colorful, nothing stands out. Everything being colorful is as monotonous as everything being, well, monotone…
Cars suck then. We have destroyed our environments, both natural and human made, because of them.
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#7Colour is a form of bling and bling is tasteless.
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#8It's not "losing" color. At periods when technology resulted in new color possibilities, people went overboard with color. Make all the things colorful!! Think of the technicolor sixties. And we can go back in history and see the same thing with new clothing pigments, new paint pigments. But when everything is colorful, nothing stands out. Everything being colorful is as monotonous as everything being, well, monotone…
> It's visually exhausting.
This. It's about managing stimulation levels and contrast. If the environment is continually shouting at you it's hard to hear the whispers, where the meaning is.
I bet one of those color comparison graphs of the average website in 1998 through today would show the same trend. I wish the inflationary trend in linguistic overstatement did the same.
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#9"Color has always had a strange status in Western philosophy — and more often than not, that status is second-class." I wonder if one big change is a shift from a more working class family focus to an upper class influencer focus. Maybe this is just because was a kid, but It does feel to me like as a kid in the 80's and 90's and probably earlier, that the middle class was essentially the aspiration, and everything wa…
That's just upmarket-priced vendors using influencers to advertise.
You're not going to get people to pay you $80 for a meal, but you could get them to pay you that much for an experience.
You didn't see as much of that before social media because it was a waste of money to run ads for that stuff on TV. (But you could find no shortage of them in print magazines.)
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#10Gen Z is rejecting this "millennial bland" aesthetic of turning all spaces into an Apple store. Just one reason I appreciate and look forward to the coming generation. Take a look at some of their trends in art, music, fashion, graphic design... plenty of color to be found.