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Comment by jarjoura | Hacker News Reader

I can't tell if this article is trying to make it seem like a negative or not.

Every decade defines is own unique style and it spreads until it's no longer distinct.

3rd wave coffee shops all look like that because they started during peak farm to table aesthetic. It's funny because it was born out of the answer to 1990s strip-mall sameness where you'd find Chilis and Starbucks. I remember designers losing their shit when they found wood planks of fallen down barns they could use in their interiors.

Now that people are getting bored of farm to table, it'll be on to something else. When we look back in 50 years, all of this "sameness" the author is pointing towards will mostly just be here to define 2010-2020, with whatever name historians decide to call it.

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There is a trend towards less colors overall. Something is changing

https://lab.sciencemuseum.org.uk/colour-shape-using-computer...

Millenial Gray

1. It's cheaper.

2. Design values and aesthetics are ossifying around certain "hard" rules.

I suspect that's the demographic shift towards older average population.

I've only got anecdotal examples of old people preferring blander colours, hence "suspect" rather than "think".

When my dad died, my mum replaced all the furniture and carpets with blander versions of the same — in particular replacing the bold orange living room carpet and dark green patterned hall, stairs, and landing carpets with mild off-white.

> I suspect that's the demographic shift towards older average population.

I agree. The downside is that this is a sort of permanent\long-term shift since the world is generally getting older and we are reproducing at below-replacement.

Maybe we are overstimulated by visual content and attracted to otherwise less visually striking objects, either to find some peace or to not be distracted from that content?

At least for me, visually minimalist objects and environments are appealing because I generally feel overstimulated in modern society and by modern technology. I might feel different if I were to spend my days on the field doing slow, repetitive hard work.

I don't really buy this line of reasoning. Nature can be immensely colorful yet soothing to all the senses. You don't need to stuff your house with psychedelic rugs, tapestries and color-changing LEDs for it to have color. Including color does not mean that your space is cluttered or maximalist in style.

We got a designer for a flat that was being renovated, and I realized that I needed to seriously involve myself in the project if the result was not going to turn out a lifeless, gray-white-beige soup.

Now the flat is full of green, (warm) wooden, peach and red elements, giving it a cozy autumn-y vibe. And I don't need to stuff it with props that "pop" to add personality - it has one of its own.

The prevailing wisdom seems to be "Make it all greige, and introduce life with (often pointless) colorful props". I feel this is more offending to the senses than having a tastefully colored environment where you don't need to "add" anything.

In some markets at least, like cars, this blandness is a sales optimization. Strong distinct colors are more likely to block a sale than bland generic ones.

It may not be exactly the same in other markets, but there's still a cost to offering additional color variants. It's a cost optimization to offer the fewest colors that are appealing, or at least aren't objectionable, to the widest range of potential buyers.

> can't tell if this article is trying to make it seem like a negative or not

It left no ambiguity for me. Both the project (which is great art in itself) and the commentary opens a door for a hard truth, and new questions emerge,

In tech, might we learn from this?

from TFA: "Looking for freedom, we found slavery.”

Every parent. Every patrician, condescending patron. Every "elite". Each have their idea of what "freedom" is best for others.

And the people say: "Boaty McBoatface!"

In cybersecurity we want people to be safe. But the people say; "Give me TikTok, Microsoft...."

Would Rousseau want us "being forced to be free"?

> Would Rousseau want us "being forced to be free"?

Probably. The French revolution actors were inspired by his work, and the French revolution led to the declaration of the human rights, which states that all people are born free and equal. If you take this claim as universal, then your moral duty is to make it happen.

So yes, do free people even if they believe their situation is fine. Perhaps for instance because they've been brainwashed into believing it is, or perhaps they don't even know what freedom is.

Unfortunately countries/organizations/persons that claimed to do that too often also had ulterior motives.

The phrase "looking for freedom, we found slavery" is interesting because if there's slavery, then there's a master. The master we are talking about is "norm" or "convention". The term "slavery" can be apt in some cases, but generally is excessive.

"Anticonformity" was somewhat a dismissive word in my country up to some point, but I have not heard it in that way for while, which suggests that people accept more easily "abnormal" people. When you want your freedom and you can have it, then there's no slavery nor tyranny.

You've inspired me today.

It's odd that in almost all walks of life, freedom comes from non-conformity. In arts, and in science, "progress" is a movement away from wherever we are. We may not like non-conformists, but we absolutely rely on them to move forward.

Yet totalitarian technological social systems are the only creation that make those who conform "more free". By design they limit options at the margins while enabling those in the middle of the mediocrity curve. Slavery is freedom. And thus, since time stops for no man or machine, systems invite their own inevitable destruction.

Technology is not just "a way of not having to experience the world" (Max Frisch), but a way of not having to experience change. And I think the "master" that you speak of is fear (fear of things changing).

2010s visual art was full of super saturation and hyperrealism due to Marvel and Instagram filters.

Sony's "Into the Spiderverse" freed itself from the shadow of Pixar, and has forever changed what high quality, mass audience, computer animated films can be, and Dreamworks has already shifted its own design towards more expressive unique cartoon language.

Also, the rising shift of A24's unique visual aesthetic in the 2010s remained quite obscure until "Everything Everywhere All at Once" 2 years ago finally brought its "freedom" of visual expression to mainstream audiences. Now, others want to capture that same visual style and I'm seeing a broad shift away from over saturation, hyper realism, and toward the more muted and mundane. I'm impressed that Marvel is already applying some of it in "Agatha All Along".

Anyway, my point still stands, artists will constantly push back against whatever is mainstream in an effort to be seen and to define their own aesthetic/brand. It's easier to be 1 of 10, than it is 1 of a million. Plus, if they're lucky enough, they get to be known for starting or accelerating the movement.

Every single decade has very clearly defined aesthetics that designers copy until something new comes along to disrupt it.

For the very same reasons you point out, there is also a style shared by the servers who work at these coffee shops. We would expect young people from the same generation to adopt similar hairstyles, facial hair choices etc.

When we look at 70s interiors full of leather upholstery, wood panels and with a desaturated look from old film camera pictures, they feel outdated. It's hard for me to imagine looking at these white, clean HD interiors and saying "oh this feels so outdated" - but I bet that's exactly what people will think decades from now.

What looks modern is as arbitrary as what looks futuristic

Exactly. This is how you can place in time things like TVA in Loki and the office in Severance even though they do not belong to that time canonically.

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