I read this whole thing, I even continued when he showed a clear misunderstanding of how pinterest works (the columns aren't going to show the same "Gallery Wall" in the same column every time someone clicks your link!) I continued through his careful selection of things that seemed to follow his logic and ignorance of things that argued against it. I hoped and hoped a point would be made at some time, but I was disappointed.
Yes, lots of American homes have similar decor, but those pictures on pinterest that you seem to think are fantasy are not fantasies, they are actual pictures of actual homes. We don't all live in wall-to-wall off-white boxes.
What is the point of this overgeneralization? Is it a surprise that lots of people have similar houses? Is it a surprise that lots of developers always wear t-shirts and jeans? Why is this on the front page of HN??
I like the piece. It exposes a melancholic beauty to the ticky-tacky hedge rows and webcam uniformity of the Western existence. Peering past the facades and in to the lives of American suburbanites we see a million people separated by their screens yet united in their droll simplicity.
There's more to life than just the exuberance, progress, and extraordinary creations that we obsess over here in the Bay Area. For every amazing success story there's a thousand people shuffling their feet and walking in circles just to be our customers. On the other side of almost every IP packet is a person sitting alone in a room. It's important for us to realize the implications of our creations. It is important for us to realize what's real and what's just an idealized vision of the future. It'll keep us thinking about a path forward that includes everyone. It'll keep us from thinking that we're special and different and more entitled to life's pleasures. When we turn our heads most of us see the same pale white walls.
Well Frisco's a mighty rich town, now that ain't no lie
Why they got some buildings that reach a mile into the sky
Yet no one can even afford the time just to tell me why
Here's a world filled with people and so many people alone
"There's more to life than just the exuberance, progress, and extraordinary creations that we obsess over here in the Bay Area. For every amazing success story there's a thousand people shuffling their feet and walking in circles just to be our customers. On the other side of almost every IP packet is a person sitting alone in a room. It's important for us to realize the implications of our creations. It is important for us to realize what's real and what's just an idealized vision of the future. It'll keep us thinking about a path forward that includes everyone. It'll keep us from thinking that we're special and different and more entitled to life's pleasures. When we turn our heads most of us see the same pale white walls."
OMG! The self-importance in that paragraph is hilarious!
It happens to be the same self-importance that I see driving almost every entrepreneur in the tech sector. Everyone speaks of "changing the world" and the importance of individual innovation. Very rarely do people in Silicon Valley take the time to think about the effects of their creations. Getting rich is also the process of extracting wealth from others and people seem to forget that. The blind faith that a "rising tide lifts all boats" is an ideology that deserves heavy scrutiny.
My question for you is, would it have been a better talking point if I made it very clear that I'm somehow different and "better" than the tech culture I see around me? Or would the finger-pointing be less successful than a message that inculpates myself in to the tragedy?
Wow, you must be brilliant, somehow "better" than the rest of the people in Silicon Valley, to be able to know their very thoughts, and what deep, important things that they "very rarely... take the time to think about."
It truly is a "tragedy" that they're not thinking about all of us foot-shufflers out here in the larger world who are "walking in circles just to be their customers." I don't know if I'll be able to bear the grief...
I enjoyed the post. It's well written. It had a stream-of-conciousness feel to it. I liked the idea of looking at internet videos from a different angle. I knew almost none of the videos and didn't play any of them, the stills were enough illustration for the post.
Not everything needs to make a point. Sometimes we read (and write) things just for fun.
I also read the whole thing, even though I started disliking myself halfway through.
I also wonder why this is on HN. But the reason it was written is eyeballs, a thin excuse to tie together a bunch of viral videos. This kind of 'meta-viral' post is easy to write because you're working with a vetted pool of already-popular content.
All you need is to suspend the reader's disbelief enough, with your narrative, that your post does make sense, that there is a thesis statement here. The popularity of the content you're cribbing from does the rest.
I don't see any misunderstanding about how Pinterest works. He points out that one of the pinned photos is itself a kind of meta-Pinterest -- the "Gallery Wall" item is an article about how to arrange stuff on a wall similar to Pinterest. Nothing about clicking, nothing about the same column showing every time.
> those pictures on pinterest that you seem to think are fantasy are not fantasies, they are actual pictures of actual homes
Actually, quite a lot of pinned photos on Pinterest are from marketing materials (catalogues, Etsy, magazines, etc.). That applies to Houzz, too. Sure, there are some real homes there, including ones that have been designed by professional interior designers. But the point is that's why they are pinned there: It's what a lot of people aspire to. Not necessarily what they have.
Speaking from experience of other people's homes, people generally don't have homes like those shown in interior design magazines. Part of it is that most people simply don't have the taste -- whenever I speak to Americans about their beige homes, their wainscoatings, paneling, stained-glass windows and other reactionary cruft, they insist their love it -- and also that it's often very expensive.
He said "Gallery Wall" from the second column. As if we would all see that post on the second column of the link he provided. That's not how pinterest works, it is always updating and changing.
Well, we can. Because it's a static screenshot of his Pinterest view. It's not an embed. (Edit: I very much doubt he thinks that his link always shows the same content, I don't read that from his text at all.)
Aside from the cherry picking of the author, and the natural tendency for people to use the simplest possible backgrounds when they're recording a video, it's worth noting that the simplicity of modern interior construction, and the use of neutral colors, is completely intentional and desired.
It isn't accidental or unnoticed, and isn't some side effect of cheapness or thrift, or the "temporary worker" suburbanite, as the post seems to imply. It's that we learned through many generations that the things that you think look pretty awesome today often don't look that great in the near future, and soon interior design is an enormous burden instead of an expression or enjoyment.
In the 70s homes were filled with wallpaper, wall to wall carpet, shelves with trophies and knick-knacks, etc. And then we collectively decided that we didn't like wallpaper, carpet, shelves or knick-knacks.
So we moved to more malleable internal decorating that can more easily change with tastes. Pictures and accents instead of strongly colored walls. Throw rugs instead of carpet. Decorative free-standing elements instead of bolting stuff on a wall.
This newer model has held since pretty much the 80s. Simple interiors that you make your own, and you can keep making your own with every change of your taste, instead of being tied to the taste of you from a decade ago, or worse the taste of generations before you.
Carpet/rugs were a status symbol of ultimate luxury when they were expensive; as synthetic fibers became cheaper new construction settled on plywood and carpet flooring as actually being cheaper than hardwood flooring. Pretty soon carpet was "gross" and "tacky" and hardwoods became a status symbol.
Prior to cheap aluminum manufacture through the Hall–Héroult process, aluminum tableware was light weight and considered excellent, after the process it was cheap tacky and flimsy and everyone knows you need some heft in your fork for proper balance and etiquette.
Yes, lots of American homes have similar decor, but those pictures on pinterest that you seem to think are fantasy are not fantasies, they are actual pictures of actual homes. We don't all live in wall-to-wall off-white boxes.
What is the point of this overgeneralization? Is it a surprise that lots of people have similar houses? Is it a surprise that lots of developers always wear t-shirts and jeans? Why is this on the front page of HN??