I love this. We need more whimsy. Unfortunately, refinement culture is taking over. Even the new McDonald's design is "private equity" refined.
mc32 3 hours ago [-]
He's probably photographed it, but one of the biggest and the pinnacle of this idea, I think, is the Longaberger building in Ohio. If he did photograph it, I think it should have been among the ones listed in the article. Of course it's not as "folksy" as the others but it's in the same vein though greater in scale.
Blame the suburbs and communism - those are the two driving factors there.
Suburbs: everything has to be standardized and made efficient for global supply chains. Private equity is just the mechanism to achieve that. Want better food and produce? Stop going to McDonald’s, Costco, and Starbucks in your Jeep Gladiator. Also need to stop wasting so much taxpayer dollars on these useless, endless highways that destroy local economies and entrepreneurship and spread us out so we are reliant on cars.
Communism: everything must be “modern”, bland, and sterile. Andy Warhol. Banksy. Tape a banana to the wall and stare at it in your all black jumpsuit. All bright, white fluorescent. Nothing out of the ordinary or quirky, no individuality, all chains, all the same style.
mnkyokyfrnd 6 minutes ago [-]
Banksy is an intelligence project. Related is Jackson Pollock.
monksy 38 minutes ago [-]
You can still have consumerism with a divergence of style. You just can't have large concentration of wealth in select businesses and high cost of entry.
This kind of style comes out when there is high compeition and an economy that can support experimentation.
morkalork 3 hours ago [-]
Is the communism in the room with us now?
cynicalsecurity 2 hours ago [-]
Do you mean modernism? You most likely mean modernism. Yes, it sucks.
AnimalMuppet 3 hours ago [-]
Banksy is part of "communism"? Consider me skeptical.
ericmay 3 hours ago [-]
It’s ideologically related and, unfortunately with our McDonald’s level standards of art and culture it passes for something akin to artwork.
You’ll find Flower Thrower at your local IKEA or hung in the bathroom of Chipotle. They wouldn’t be caught dead hanging actual art from, say, Renoir though. The focus is to destroy originality, destroy individuality, destroy religion, and promote sterilization (not of people, though of course in some cases authoritarian ideologies like this do promote such insanity) and mass production.
It’s all the same communist ethos. Not everyone agrees, and you’re certainly free to disagree of course, it’s just my opinion.
26 minutes ago [-]
bloaf 4 hours ago [-]
To anyone who loves these, add this to your playlist:
Otis Gibbs - Great American Roadside
4 hours ago [-]
FireBeyond 3 hours ago [-]
One of the ideas put forward in Neil Gaiman's American Gods is that roadside attractions, "Biggest X", collections of whimsy happened where they happened because they were ancient places of power, and people felt inexplicably drawn to them and to set up somewhere people would explore and worship, if not literally, with their attention and energy. Gods could recharge there.
decimalenough 1 hours ago [-]
[dead]
Rendered at 05:55:22 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Here's a good one from my hometown https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tommy-the-turtle
And then drive about 20 miles east and you hit this guy https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/w-eel-turtle
And then drive 30 miles north and you hit the original https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tommy-the-turtle-boissev...
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e31fca375f7a471a9a2e2cd...
via https://guides.loc.gov/roadside-america-photographs?loclr=fl...
via submitted link.
I was certain the collection had to have Lucy the Elephant and indeed it does:
https://www.loc.gov/item/2017712086/
https://lucytheelephant.org/
Full moon over Margate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Longaberger_Company
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F6n_xlckNE
Suburbs: everything has to be standardized and made efficient for global supply chains. Private equity is just the mechanism to achieve that. Want better food and produce? Stop going to McDonald’s, Costco, and Starbucks in your Jeep Gladiator. Also need to stop wasting so much taxpayer dollars on these useless, endless highways that destroy local economies and entrepreneurship and spread us out so we are reliant on cars.
Communism: everything must be “modern”, bland, and sterile. Andy Warhol. Banksy. Tape a banana to the wall and stare at it in your all black jumpsuit. All bright, white fluorescent. Nothing out of the ordinary or quirky, no individuality, all chains, all the same style.
This kind of style comes out when there is high compeition and an economy that can support experimentation.
You’ll find Flower Thrower at your local IKEA or hung in the bathroom of Chipotle. They wouldn’t be caught dead hanging actual art from, say, Renoir though. The focus is to destroy originality, destroy individuality, destroy religion, and promote sterilization (not of people, though of course in some cases authoritarian ideologies like this do promote such insanity) and mass production.
It’s all the same communist ethos. Not everyone agrees, and you’re certainly free to disagree of course, it’s just my opinion.
Otis Gibbs - Great American Roadside