alt Hacker NewsBlame 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.
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Banksy is an intelligence project. Related is Jackson Pollock.
Is the communism in the room with us now?
Do you mean modernism? You most likely mean modernism. Yes, it sucks.
You're so wrong that you're right again. The US funded and promoted modern art as a counterpoint to communism. There was even a submission about it a few weeks ago on here. [0]
> Nothing out of the ordinary or quirky, no individuality, all chains, all the same style.
One could say the same about capitalism/consumerism. In fact, many creatives have done so over the years. Bland and bleak life in the suburbs is a common theme. "Broad lawns and narrow minds" as Hemingway might have called it. So is the forlornness of a nondescript white-collar cubicle job. Even recently, the Backrooms taps into this.
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.