I see a lot of sentiment against the post-WW2, american, timber-based style of construction on HN and I've never really understood it.<p>I view modern american residential construction as a model of efficiency. Why build a house out of brick or stone when timber is completely sufficient, and the latter is much, much cheaper to come by? It's not like timber just magically stops working one day - there are plenty of houses in older parts of the US that are 100+ years old. Any argument along the lines of "they don't build them like they used to" is likely ignoring survivorship bias among older homes.<p>And for the record, ceilings over 8FT are not a luxury item in the US. Any major home improvement store sells framing lumber and drywall in a variety of sizes over 8FT long:<p><a href="http://www.menards.com/main/c-13132.htm?criteria3_facet=2%22+x+6%22" rel="nofollow">http://www.menards.com/main/c-13132.htm?criteria3_facet=2%22...</a><p><a href="http://www.menards.com/main/c-5656.htm?criteria5_facet=9%27&criteria5_facet=10%27" rel="nofollow">http://www.menards.com/main/c-5656.htm?criteria5_facet=9%27&...</a>
As a landlord, I put neutral-beige paint on the walls because it's the least-offensive option. If I had put a strong color on them, even as an accent color, there will be a percentage of potential tenants that would dislike it and rent from someone else. "Oh, that was the place with the hideous apple-green wall by the stairs. I couldn't live with it there."
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.<p>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.<p>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??
Walls that are white or beige indicate to me that there is no personal ownership of the room. When I last owned a room, I painted it orange, because I was the only one that had any say in the matter, and I wanted orange.<p>Now, all my rooms are white.<p>And almost all of my furniture is crappy, flat-pack, self-assembly particle-board dreck. That's because my preference for durable, quality furniture is overridden by my ever-declining wage relative to my expenses, and my need to move around frequently in search of jobs that allow me to tread water a bit longer at my current standard of living.<p>I want a nice chair, but I also want something to sit on until I can afford one. It always seems that the price of a chair I could keep until the day I die increases faster than my ability to pay for one. And so I live in a cheaply developed suburban subdivision, in a cheaply built home, on cheaply constructed furniture, using a discounted laptop. And all the while, things crumble around me, and I constantly find myself paying to replace the cheap things that I only have in the first place because I am trying to save up enough to buy the nice, durable things that I really want. And those recede into the distance faster than I can chase them.<p>My American room is devoid of decoration, because I no longer have any sense of ownership. It makes no sense to personalize a place that is not mine. It makes no sense to invest emotion and effort into something that you feel in your heart to just be temporary.<p>And in the end, I live a temporary life, plodding through endless mundane todays in search of an extraordinary tomorrow. Everything that I own is junk that I never wanted to keep. Everything that I really want dangles just barely out of my reach.<p>And all the time, I am angry and frustrated, because all I ever wanted is quality. And I can't afford it. The walls behind my webcam aren't blank, white, and empty. They're covered in the corpses of my dead dreams and aborted aspirations. Those gothy types think black is the color of despair. But it's really eggshell semi-glossy.<p>I have plenty of decorations to hang up. But they are still packed up and ready to move--again--because there is no longer any wall that I can say is <i>my wall</i>. All those white walls out there belong to someone else. All those videos just show that someone else controls the backdrop of your life.<p>And I just want to get out my brush and paint. It. All. Red.
The fact that the author is trying to make the argument that (I'm exaggerating here) "All Americans must be poor, because the walls in YouTube videos are white" doesn't make any sense. The author even alludes to this briefly in talking about "YouTube Teens." Yes, author, younger people tend to a) rent more and b) not have as many things to hang.<p>As someone under 30 who moves across states every few years, I have no desire to collect a bunch of stuff to hang on my walls.
This struck me as analysis for the sake of analysis. I'm willing to wager many people pick the most bare wall in their house on purpose because it looks best to film against.
I'm immediately reminded of the background Ze Frank has used in his web series, "A Show"[1]. In the videos, Ze regularly places a single white bookshelf with a mishmash of objects on it, mostly books. He either uses the bookshelf often enough to arrange the objects in unique ways regularly, or re-arranges it for every individual episode of A Show he records.<p>When I see videos like those Ze creates, I know they're staged but can't help but feel like my life, too, should be filled with knickknacks, books, clutters of inspiration.<p>There's some sense of: "If my environment looks like <i>that</i> environment, I'll be able to act like that person does." I imagine much of pop culture influences how we imagine our rooms and homes should look.<p>1 <a href="http://ashow.zefrank.com/" rel="nofollow">http://ashow.zefrank.com/</a>
My house is 100 years old. The walls are bright green and ten feet high, and full of homemade art. I will never buy or live in a boring beige box again.<p>I'll never understand why people want to live in such mind numbingly plain spaces. We decorate our cars, we decorate our laptops, we have cute cases for our phones, but the walls of the house we live in <i>must</i> be grey, beige or off-white? I don't mind the architectural sameness. I understand its efficiency. But the lack of color, or any kind of self-expression, that's what I don't get.
Paul Ford is a magician and offers terrific perspective on subtle aspects of what is typically our American culture. If you're looking for him to beat you over the head with THE POINT about what he insists you're suppose to think, you're reading the wrong author.
This whole article feels like the author is trying to pull something from nothing. House-poor seems like a stretch. I would suggest a more plausible theory: people, in general, just aren't that creative, especially when it comes to interior decorating.
Tangental: did anyone else see that video of the woman talking about a nuclear Jesuit semen bomb (not making this up)? Is she frighteningly schizophrenic or just pulling yarn?
I have noticed the American Room in YouTube videos too. Another things is lake of shelfs - things seem to be stored sitting on the floor. No time to move it?
At risk of sounding cynical, I would find an entry titled "The Medium Blog Entry" even more compelling.<p>It is a platform made for entries to be authored quickly and cheaply. The droll full-page lead image sets it apart, the color palette muted and neutral, simultaneously making it exactly like every other Medium blog entry you've seen lately. Many intermix videos and viral media to tether off of other's fame.<p>The air of grandeur of the platform allowing people to post with pomposity while simultaneously sharecropping. To post judgmental observations by carefully cherry picking the evidence.<p>Medium. You and your predictable blogs.<p>As an aside, it's curious that this entry talks about "suburbs" a number of times. Most condo and apartment rooms have the same 8' ceilings, the same muted palette, and virtually identical construction. But...you know...suburbs and temporary workers, or something.