• technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 hours ago

    What do y’all expect from an industry based on torture and murder, destroying the planet, wrecking your health, and supporting genocide? Fun for the kids?

  • GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Jesus Christ you lot need to get out more. You lot are seriously over analysing changes in marketing, and using it to stroke your ego’s.

  • Yaarmehearty@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    I usually hate the removal of fun from public spaces, however not having a horrifically unhealthy place designed to attract children is probably a good thing.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The advertising model has changed, but the food is still slop and the goal is still to draw in big families who can’t afford to make dinner. What’s changed over the last forty years has been the means by which people are incentivized to enter the building. You’re no longer trying to bait children from the side of the road with a big van that says “Free Candy”. Instead, you’re focusing on bombarding kids with advertisements on YouTube streams and targeting parents with gamified repeat customer incentives. But they’ve also focused more on getting customers out the door than in, improving the speed and reducing the front-facing staff, such that customers are encouraged to get their food and leave rather than linger in kid-friendly private sector daycares.

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        still to draw in big families who can’t afford to make dinner.

        What

        How would making food at home be more expensive than McDonald’s ? Is this some sort of an American thing I’m too European to understand?

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          22 hours ago

          How would making food at home be more expensive than McDonald’s ?

          Time is money and if you can’t afford the time to cook and clean, you’re stuck brown-bagging it at a fast food restaurant.

          Is this some sort of an American thing I’m too European to understand?

          It’s a consequence of American suburban life. Transit time costs are enormous. If you’re throwing an hour+ into your commute, you often don’t have time to cook. Fast food lets you grab a meal and eat in the car on the way home.

          • Dasus@lemmy.world
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            13 hours ago

            Okay that’s an explanation with some logic in it, but like unless they have your order ready when you drive into the parking lot, there’s several dishes I could cook as fast as it takes for you to go pick up a brown bag.

            Granted time is a luxury I find myself having too much of often so maybe I’m like one of those super rich guys who doesn’t understand the cost of a milk carton.

            But nah, I don’t think I am here to be honest.

            If you said “doesn’t have the energy to cook” I’d get it but time/energy, eh pretty interchangeable.

            It isn’t faster but what it is, is more convenient and that I can see.

            • HiddenLychee@lemmy.world
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              9 hours ago

              I gave up fast food a few months ago after relying on it when my weeks got super busy. Now I meal prep and plan ahead, and I’ll be honest, while I’m much healthier and more full of energy, fast food absolutely saves time. If you know what you want you just walk in, say what you want, sit for 5 minutes while you work or decompress, get your food and leave. It’s like a 30 minute process including eating and cleaning. There is no meal I can make, eat, and clean in that amount of time. If you can, I think you’re exceptionally efficient and I would like some pointers lol

              • Dasus@lemmy.world
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                7 hours ago

                Pasta water on the boil and the kettle on (because the combined effect is a large boiling pot of water a few min sooner), take pasta sauce out of freezer, pop it in the microwave. Take out your cutting board make something green like a few tomato’s and cucumbers and a piece of lettuce. Drop some dressing/vinegrette/mayo idk your preference on. Takes literally less time than the kettle takes to boil. Spaghetti in, stir (I have a really good round pasta pot which makes spaghetti swirl really well by itself when it’s on a roiling boil).

                Sit for five min.

                Go back to the kitchen (also remember to defrost somewhat mild), put salad on plate, cutting board away, strain pasta, bit of salt&pepper, drop of oil. Plate it next to the salad, put sauce on it (and I’m talking more like ragu than marinara), and put the freezer box in the freezer. Pots away (I never wash my pasta pot as its boiling water and when poured empty the rest evaporates or maybe a bit of oil which is fine imo). Strainer away.

                Eat. Put plate in washer.

                Done.

                I never order in anymore. Can’t trust the “gluten free” stuff and I’m also avoiding dairy so been cooking a fair bunch.

                If you don’t want a frozen sauce, a basic marinara takes five min to make. A tuna thing I like is a can of chili tuna in oil on a skillet (whatever flat frying thing you want to call it), a large red onion I just take the outer layer off, make one or two large slices but not so it breaks the stem, then I mandoline (if you ever get one use the finger guard/veggie holder or lose the tip of a finger) it to the pan. You can do other veggies as well, I often add jalapeños. Bell peppers aren’t that good imo because they take longer to cook, but that’s prolly because I rarely chop them finely. A few min to get a nice browning in the chili oil for the onions. Garlic. Then cream of some sort (I use plant based creams now), maybe a bit of tomato paste for umami, flavour as you go. Takes less than 10 min to make and if you don’t make too much and serve it all at once the pan is just a rinse and a paper towel and it’s clean. For carbs I like going rice noodles, they’re really fast. Or if you like healthy, you could cook rice and freeze/refrigerate it. There’s some sort of crystallization that goes on when you cool rice that much and it improves the hypoglycemic index, so keeps blood sugar more stable longer. Good for diabetics and in general.

                Anyway warm one of those and serve the sauces over that.

                Dishes in washer, done.

                But yeah, those are if you’ve prepped at least one part… Just microwaving is imo kinda meh often, but carbs or sauce reheated isn’t bad.

                I also eat kinda fast maybe because I was in the army as a kid and it kinda stuck. I’ve grown out of it a bit now that I do have time.

                Meal prep is what really takes a long time. For instance mirepoix/soffritto style long cooked veggies are a base for lots of doses but takes ages to cook. So I freeze boxes of those as well, so then making even a bit more complex food like a nice ragu (made one with reindeer a few weeks ago, delissshious), you can just quickly flash the meat, add the veggies, tomato base, some red wine. Boil pasta at the same time.

                Not exactly a 30min thing but not hours long.

                But yeah I don’t commute so I just really didn’t understand. I wasn’t making fun. Just trying to widen my empathy.

                Although I have to mention my kitchen often isn’t the cleanest, I’m not too fussy about that.

                Idk what sorts do you like making? Some things keep longer some not. Basically having just like boxes you put into microwave like a risotto or something would a few min in the micro and use one plate and the box that could even be disposable.

                Idk.

                I’m not trying to tell people what to do just felt interesting to me. I used to live further from the city as a kid in another town and yeah if I’d pick up a bag of Hesburger (shameless plug for the Finnish competitor for McD. Even international to some extent. From my city, I was once at the owners grandkids house, it was in the middle of the factories. Had a pool inside lol. Spoiled brat. They make great mayos though.) then I could just eat it on the drive back home and then I needn’t bother at home.

                And one can’t really cook while driving, so…

                Also I used to drive a taxi for years. So yeah, I think I’m starting to get it.

                I had just forgotten.

                “Fast food & eating in your car?”

                (I haven’t even had a car in years)

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              10 hours ago

              unless they have your order ready when you drive into the parking lot, there’s several dishes I could cook as fast as it takes for you to go pick up a brown bag.

              Sure. When you’ve got a stocked fridge and a clean kitchen and a working knowledge of home economics, its can work.

              If you said “doesn’t have the energy to cook” I’d get it but time/energy, eh pretty interchangeable.

              There’s also the simple addictive quality of high salt, high sugar, high fat foods made to order.

              • Dasus@lemmy.world
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                8 hours ago

                Yeah.

                Well, “well-stocked” is kinda subjective, but yes, it’s a valid point. I’m sort of talking about boiling pasta / making rice and you van either have some simple protein like tuna or fishsticks or meatballs with it, or you can take 20 minutes (and you need 10 anyway for the pasta to cook) to make some basic dish to go with it.

                Mince, onions, garlic, stock/sauce of your choice. Doesn’t need to be fancy.

                Add a few cucumbers/tomatoes to the plate and you’ve made a decently healthy meal in 10/20min.

                But like yeah sure I understand the points I’m just, uh, accustomed to different things. Different isn’t wrong, it’s just different. (IDIC)

                Doesn’t going to McD cost quite a lot compared to the amount of nutrition you get? Although they still make it up on calories with so much fat and sugar. And doesn’t it also take a bit of time? Or are the drive throughs really that fast and you save time by eating in the car on the way back home? Your traffic and commute times are sort of hard to grasp. I understand, but… don’t really feel it.

                Ugh, I just made myself kebab and fries and haven’t had McD for ages because I can’t really anymore (celiac). I’d love a double QP with cheese and a large strawberry (or pear if available) milkshake.

                The longest part of making this was waiting 15 min for the fries to cook in the airfryer.

                Fries in the airfryer, kebab from the freezer, toss it on a pan with some onions and jalapenos. That, fries, tomatoes and a buttload of cucumber mayo and garlic mayo. (But also a bit of this sort of aioli I make, olive oil, habanero loads of garlic cloves and one fresh jalapeno and blend with a machine. To me It’s to kebab what wasabi is to sushi)

                • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                  4 hours ago

                  Doesn’t going to McD cost quite a lot compared to the amount of nutrition you get?

                  Heavy in calories, light in fiber and vitamins and the like. Also, the heavy sugar/salt content dehydrates you, leading to further food cravings. Its trash. Very bad for you for a whole host of reasons. But its a full meal that can go straight into the trash when you’re done. No cooking, no cleaning. You don’t even have to leave your car.

                  Ugh, I just made myself kebab and fries and haven’t had McD for ages

                  Hey, far be it for me to criticize the kebab shop. Definitely preferable to the crap McDs turns out, and arguably cheaper/faster to get your hands on while somehow being healthier to boot. I don’t think its a coincidence that kebab shops are all over the Houston downtown and underground, while the last McDs pulled out years ago.

                  Good street food is a blessing. But its also contingent on a dense walkable neighborhood. Far easier to find some good gyros in NYC, LA, or downtown Houston than out in the white boy 'burbs and exurbs.

        • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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          20 hours ago

          Average american parent works (2) 40 hour jobs. So a 2 parent household is working 160 hours a week, and still cannot even afford their 4 car payments on top of the $349 espn sports package.

          Anyway, no one has time to cook! Or even knows how to! Now hang on, I just pulled into chic fil a we’re going to be in line for about 30 minutes before i can get my order in.

  • TheBannedLemming@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    That’s because the nature of the marketing model has changed. Mcdonald’s has shifted their marketing demographic to exclusively adults due to the decades of growing backlash and lawsuits over the nutritional value and predatory practices of targeting children. Among many other controversies. Of all the businesses in any industry, this is probably one of the worst examples to give.

    Yes, their’s truth from an architectural stance that does show a shift to contemporary minimalism. But McDonald’s, while perhaps not the most inherently evil company in the world, at least by the amount of true harm they purposely do or the product they provide and those who voluntary choose to consume it. Is still a reflection of many of the United State’s problems. Everything from issues concerning wages, labor relations, nutritional literacy, and lifestyle practices, to name a few.

    • HiddenLychee@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Well this adult wants a colorful, fun, whimsical eatery to forget the humdrummery of daily life, is that too much to ask?

      • Angelusz@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        At this time in history and with this state of the world, yeah. But you can make your own whimsical, happy and lively! (and there’s some more expensive restaurants that are still themed)

    • AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net
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      9 hours ago

      As an adult, when I entered a redesigned MacDonald’s it did not appeal to me at all. It was like being inside the architectural embodiment of depression.

      Not that it matters. MacDonald’s didn’t seem to mind Trump associating himself with their brand, so I won’t be eating anything from there ever again anyway (ignoring the myriad of other reasons to avoid them as well).

    • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 hours ago

      McDonald’s, while perhaps not the most inherently evil company in the world,

      It’s a grift based on destroying the planet, torturing and murdering animals, destroying people’s health, and supporting genocide.

      So perhaps it is among the most evil capitalists on the planet.

  • bitwolf@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    The death of Skeumorphism, the rise of brutalist minimalism.

    Personified into the real world.

      • bitwolf@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        In this case literally a Zoo.

        But I was speaking for the physical manifestation of the transition of our software personified onto McD buildings.

  • Hikermick@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    McDonald’s is now trying to appeal to adults and the building reflects that. They did away with Ronald and all the characters long ago. No more indoor playgrounds. No more cartoon movie toys. I think they still have happy meals but we’re better known for their dollar menu now called a McValue menu

    • korazail@lemmy.myserv.one
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      1 day ago

      The McDonalds near me recently clobbered their tiny playplace and turned it into a … conference room/center?

      About the only time I went there was when I need a place for my kiddos to spend some energy on a rainy day at like 8am, before other things opened. I was happy to buy a coffee and biscuit for myself and maybe a treat for them to pay for my occupancy.

      Now, though, and I know I wasn’t a giant source of income, they have lost my custom and I just can’t see how any real business would ever run a meeting in a McDonalds conference room, so it just seems like a dumb move.

      Maybe they want to discourage parents bringing their children? That also seems pretty stupid.

      • Hikermick@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Like a lot of things I’ll bet it was an insurance liability plus a lot of labor to keep it clean and safe. McDonald’s is struggling to survive in a business where new=exciting and what your parents grew up with=lame. Burger Kings are closing left and right where I live. They’ve done nothing to adapt.

        Funny thing about that conference room. I have an uncle who has quite a bit of money. He eats off of the McDonald’s dollar menu (or at least he did when it was still a thing). He’ll take us somewhere nice when visiting, he’s quite generous but he always makes a point to mention he eats at McDonald’s. He gives financial advice, i can see him holding meetings there

        • MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 day ago

          I once saw a group of about 15 elderly men having a get together in a Wendy’s. This was in a very small town. I didn’t speak to them but I got the feeling it was a regular thing. They were all very friendly with each other. Rather than a conference room, maybe it is more to attract groups like that.

          • nomy@lemmy.zip
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            1 day ago

            I had forgotten all about that. I grew up in a pretty small town, groups of old men (and women, to a lesser extent) would meet up at the Hardees and McDonalds early in the morning and have their coffee. I’m sure that and the growth of remote work makes a conference-type room more appealing to more people than playground equipment.

      • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        Probably liability issues with kids getting the stupidest injuries and parents suing them for it.

        I blame the insurance industry and lack of public health care for this, not McDonald’s.

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          1 day ago

          Has that suddenly become an issue in the last few years? They are famously the company that got sued for having coffee that was hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns, and that was in the 90s.

    • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Wasn’t part of it related to backlash McDonald’s got from essentially marketing themselves to kids? Make the place look nuts, kids say that’s awesome, let’s go there, now you got kids eating McDonald’s. Not suggesting that is how it goes, but I believe I recall reading something to that effect, regarding a rationale behind the new look.

      As an aside, the building looks boring, but so does everyone’s “shades of gray” interiors inside and outside their homes. I drove black cars forever because black is best color for cars, but I got a blue one now, because we are just surrounded in shades of gray everywhere, and it is, as the sublemmy states, a boring dystopia.

      • TehWorld@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        Black cars look dirty so much faster than any other color, they get hotter in the sun, and they’re harder to see at night which ostensibly would lead to more accidents.

      • Hikermick@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Yes they did get criticism for it but I can’t say if the change came about because of it. I did read that they got rid of Ronald during that short time that there were news reports of people dressing up as clowns and freaking people out.

        Yeah you’re right about the colors of things. In the 90’s there was a big deal made about cars painted green again

    • samus12345@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      Bottom picture: for adults

      Top picture: for children and neurodiverse adults

      At least, that’s my take since I like the top picture more.

    • PixelPinecone@lemmy.today
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      1 day ago

      My guess is because populations around the world are getting older, with an ever increasing median age. If there’s not enough kids to keep up profits, well time to focus on the adults, from their perspective.

  • wheeldawg@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    Isn’t the business model based on getting people to love it when they’re kids and become addicted then, before they’re able to critically think about food, and then coasting on the people that have fond memories of it?

    The adults going there now were kids in the 80s and 90s, and remember the old style. No kid gives a rip about a place that looks like this, with no characters or colors. Even today when I see red and yellow together it makes me think of them, but now it’s all gray, brick, and beige, with a dollop of yellow just for the logo.

    Personally I like this boring look fine. But damn if it’s not gonna take a huge hit from being loved by generations that have no memory of fast play places and mascots.

    Getting rid of the play area is probably good though because I mean really they are gross if you just think for a few seconds. But capitalism does dictate wringing every drop of injury money from anyone whenever possible.

    Now while I support draining the bucks from corporations, ruining opportunities for kids to have fun memories too. If only having fun wasn’t so injury-prone.

    • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I’m my country they made it illegal to market fast food directly to kids. It may not be a choice, it may be regulatory.

        • nomy@lemmy.zip
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          1 day ago

          Additionally, you know McDonalds corporate office did all kinds of research; they wouldn’t rebrand unless they were confident in the new branding. The sleek, monochrome building probably reminds people of cleanliness or something.

          • Stegget@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            It’s less complicated than even that, it’s about real estate value, which is where McDonald’s corporate arm really makes it’s money. It’s easier to sell a full gray box than one that is so obviously a McDonalds in a past life. Same thing has happened with Pizza Hut, they don’t build them with the classic roofline anymore.

          • wheeldawg@sh.itjust.works
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            1 day ago

            Also very true. But I’m not convinced it was the right choice, just because the brand is confident in it. UHC likely did research to choose a CEO, and look how that turned out.

  • Gladaed@feddit.org
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    2 days ago

    When places go bust faster resale value is more important. this means you need to build generic buildings that hold value when sold or rented.

    • CafecitoHippo@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      McDonalds isn’t a fast food company. They are a real estate investment company. Their former CFO said as much “we are not technically in the food business. We are in the real estate business. The only reason we sell fifteen-cent hamburgers is because they are the greatest producer of revenue, from which our tenants can pay us our rent.” - Harry J Sonneborn

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      Same reason you see so many neutral colored cars these days. People used to have colorful cars because they were buying the car they’d be driving for years; now they get soemthing they know they can dump.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Problem being that even when they try for that, near as I see they are still just as prone to demolish it and rebuild anyway. At best the framing is retained, but they rip everything out including the drywall and renovate.

  • ToiletFlushShowerScream@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Typical family with kids can no longer afford to eat here since the business model is to maximize shareholder value. So it makes sense to rebrand to the only people who can afford it.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      24 hours ago

      the menu prices are insanity.

      last time i was in there, they wanted 3 bucks for the shitty little burger they used to sell for 99 cents.

      Not even getting started on 10 dollar bigmacs and other stupidity.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    Honestly sometimes I wonder if some form of Solipsism is true and the reason the world isn’t bright and colorful anymore is because I’m no longer a kid.

    Now do I genuinely believe I’m the only one who really exists and the world around me is a reflection of my mental state? No, but sometimes it’s fun to think “What if?”

    But yeah the only fast food joint in my town with any color or a play place is a single chic-fil-a, and it’s always overly crowded, so clearly customers respond to this stuff.

    Don’t eat at Chic-Fil-A btw, the profits go to passing Anti-LGBT legislation.

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      Look at fashion. There were huge changes from 1960s to 1970s to 1980s. The last wild change to clothes I can remember is pump basketball shoes. Cars used to come in dozens of wild colors; now everything is a generic neutral tone. BJork’s swan suit is the last really outrageous fashion statement I can recall [I know someone showed up naked recently, but dozens of folks have worn equally revealing outfits over the years] Almost all the new movies coming out are re-makes.

      Look at James Bond. Amazon acquired the studio that owns Bond and pushed out the producers who’d helmed the character for decades. The creative process is in the hands of MBAs who only care about the bottom line. I can spend hours talking about how bad Henry Ford the man was, but I give him credit for truly loving cars and driving. I’ll bet 99% of the car executives today don’t drive themselves, so why would they care about the rest of us?

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        I hear you but I have to disagree on fashion. Check out what the teenagers and 20 somethings are wearing in cities. There was also a racial divide in fashion and music when I was growing up that seems to be gone. Today you can spot a white kid wearing an ODB shirt and a black kid wearing a Nirvana shirt. Most of the “rules” are gone outside of work. I’m in my 40s and one day I might dress punk and the next I might have a more hip hop look. I can wear things that would have someone questioning my sexuality a decade ago and now it’s normal for a straight person. It’s fun and freeing.

        I tried to phrase that last bit so I didn’t come off as a homophobe but I’m done messing with it.

        • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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          1 day ago

          I live in NYC. Guys here have been wearing the same belt below the ass style since 1996.

          If you’re in your 40s think of it this way. Remember Spice Girl mania? Even if you never picked up a CD, you’d hear them on the radio, in stores, all over the place. Whenever I hear the radio these days I hear an oldies station.

          Compare fashion from 1960 with 1985, and then do the same with 2000 and 2025.

          • MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 day ago

            Interesting. I stayed in Brooklyn for four months a few years ago for work, and spent time in Manhattan and Queens. I saw far fewer people saggin there than in the small city in a red state I come from. I do agree the differences are smaller in the latter of the two timeframes you mention.

    • Yoga@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      I’m the only one who really exists and the world around me is a reflection of my mental state?

      What did you (I) do to deserve Donald Trump? Is this a punishment for misandry?

      • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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        What did you (I) do to deserve Donald Trump? Is this a punishment for misandry?

        Yes. Unironically, yes. Young men have swung right in a way that the youth usually doesn’t and it is in a meaningful way because Dems and progressives offer them little, blame them for much and the right welcomes them in with open arms.

        • theneverfox@pawb.social
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          Oh, progressives offer them plenty, just not on social issues (and that’s the only type of change on the table)

          To put it another way, anxiety is preparing for a fight. It destroys you spending all your life looking for an enemy you can’t see. But we all feel it

          The right offers them an enemy, and a way to fight for something better. It’s a bald faced lie, but the need for something to change is overwhelming for a lot of people

          • ameancow@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            but the need for something to change is overwhelming for a lot of people

            More than that, it’s the need for community.

            We are social creatures to the degree that we literally can die without a social identity.

            The missing sense of community in the developed world is part of the many reasons so many young men are lonely and don’t know how to talk to girls anymore making them seek out incels and andrew tates, but it also community is supposed to help you feel purpose, identity and belonging. Your community is who (traditionally) helped you find a job, make friends and establish your traditions and ways of thinking.

            When you don’t have these things around you, you will seek it out and yep, the right certainly has a open-door policy, they don’t care HOW fucked you are in the head or how ignorant you are, they welcome everyone with open arms, give them a target and reward you when you lie to the enemy and cheat them. This gives a sense of accomplishment and belonging to something greater than yourself. It’s addicting.

            We don’t have community anymore, we have unwalkable neighborhoods and delivery services and social media and a general sense of apathy and cynicism that often results in violent pushback against ANY form of genuine emotional expression between peers. Is it any wonder young, dumb, desperately lonely men are reverting to dark-age attitudes?

            This has all been designed. A population at odds with each other will never unify and cripple institutions of power with combined effort.

            • theneverfox@pawb.social
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              1 day ago

              Very, very true. And I mean honestly, the fact we no longer have third spaces and our communities have moved online have given an insane boost to the most extreme voices. Groups based on location and hobbies might lean to one side, but there’s going to be moderating voices

              But in a right wing echo chamber, you just have to listen to people attacking others. The left is plenty welcoming, but there’s these people who are just sitting there to attack any perceived bigotry or ideology - like once I got called out for using the wrong pronouns in a new voice chat because I had the wrong name… And it was just this one drunk girl and we just moved on and someone else privately apologized for her, but that injustice just feels terrible

              It’s not that left spaces aren’t welcoming, it’s just that it takes one person to make you feel constantly on edge and sour you on anything like it

              And it’s not like the right doesn’t do the same - they ban people left and right for perceived purity tests and label you a far left instigator, but pound for pound they need less people because they’re more organized than we are

              They have leaders at every level and every checkpoint from general dissatisfaction to rabid Fascism to feed you the next level of hate you need to repeat

              We have liberals who hate the left more than they hate fascism and constant infighting between what few communities we do have

              We really need to set a set of next step goal posts, like universal healthcare, worker protections, and forcing corporations in line

              We need to be able to talk to tankies and just avoid geopolitics, we need vegans to be able to talk about reducing meat consumption instead of all or nothing, we even need to be able to talk to bigots and focus on why they actually agree with our next step goalposts once they understand them

              We need to provide a ramp to leftism, even if we have to hold our noses at some of it. We can still have our safe spaces and leftist spaces, but we need to do outreach and give people stepping stones and middle grounds so people can slowly learn, where we’re lazer focused on key subjects and let the rest slide

              We also need places where we can organize around issues we all agree on so we can organize and make actual progress, where we don’t talk about end goals, ideals, and values - just on the next step

              The truth is, most everyone wants a lot of the same things, and they’d support it if they understood it - we need to be able to teach them issue by issue what we want to do, no matter what baggage they haven’t yet overcome.

              • ameancow@lemmy.world
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                22 hours ago

                I’m saying this all over Lemmy, I was saying it all over reddit until they banned me with an aggression I never saw from that site’s administration in over 14 years of using it regularly.

                Which is that if we wish to save the human species, much less progressivism, we need better stories.

                Trump won because he exploited the human need to simplify complex ideas into 2-dimensional narratives that even the most cracked-up yokels in the backwaters of the southern swamps could understand. Instead of the leftist need to educate, to inform, to give people all manner of rights to self-actualization that most people will NEVER exercise, he just plowed through all social decorum and started telling people how to feel and who’s to blame and what they need to do. Simple, direct, effective.

                Abhorrent sure, and may yet lead to end of us all, but if you cannot understand the effectiveness of the tactics he used you’re blinded by emotion. Instead of being blinded by feelings, we need to start working together to craft new narratives for the results we actually want. It’s not even that hard to do.

                On an interpersonal level, we share more with each other than what separates us. I grew up in the boonies surrounded by the most racist hicks and rednecks you can imagine. I was one of them for a spell until I grew up, but a lot of people never grow up. They’re all scared children who cling to their guns and bibles but when they’re not trying to act boisterous and macho, they want the same things and can be shaped. The large majority of them don’t actually want harm to come to LGTBQ+ people or people of color. They may be scared of these folks but if you just managed to expose enough of them to the right stories about these people, they would care a lot less. Their hate is largely manufactured because… and I don’t say this lightly, they are fucking dumb.

                We need to start accepting people are dumb and need fairy tales and exaggerated WWE wrestling theater productions to keep their interest. We have to stop pretending people care about principles. No, they care about how they feel right now. People don’t care about values, about the constitution, they certainly don’t care about what’s real or not, they just care about how their leadership is making them feel at this moment. The left is TERRIBLE at managing other people’s feelings, but the right doesn’t care, they don’t mind stepping on people’s rights to think for themselves if it spreads the word. Why can’t we do that? Why can’t we start new stories to get the best results? Where is our up and coming generation of inspired grifters who can cold-read a room? We need them, but we need them harnessed for good.

                • faythofdragons@slrpnk.net
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                  8 hours ago

                  Instead of being blinded by feelings, we need to start working together to craft new narratives for the results we actually want. It’s not even that hard to do.

                  Bingo.

                  I once got somebody to think differently about green energy by harassing the power of patriotism. His initial argument basically boiled down to “new is scary and I don’t see why we need to change anyways”, and I hit him with a “what are you talking about, innovation is what made america great”, and I could see the loading icon spin in his brain.

                  I’ve also gotten conservative family in on medicare-for-all by pointing out that the military maybe doesn’t have enough healthy citizens to pull from if a crisis happened, and if we’re gonna be serious about national defense, we absolutely need national healthcare.

        • Yoga@lemmy.ca
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          1 day ago

          blame them for much

          Is it time to bust out the crime statistics?

          I’m sorry, I just have so much negative life experience exclusively caused by men. My heart tells me that these are just damaged boys that are too scared to heal but my brain says ‘dont get assaulted again’.

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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            Is it time to bust out the crime statistics?

            What is it you’d call someone who said exactly this but was talking about crime statistics broken down by race rather than sex, again?

            • Yoga@lemmy.ca
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              1 day ago

              Not analogous in any meaningful way. Unless you want to argue that men are underprivileged in society.

              • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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                12 hours ago

                Not analogous in any meaningful way.

                Let’s try it. I’m thinking of a group of people. This group of people is disproportionately subjected to police violence, including police shootings. This group is more likely to be prosecuted when accused of a crime, is more likely to be convicted when prosecuted, and gets harsher sentences when convicted. What group am I describing? Hint: The answer is that all that applies to both black folks and men, and usually to similar degrees (close enough that some measures have a wider sex gap and others have a wider race gap). And that’s not even a complete list of similarities.

                By the vast majority of measures the way men are treated by the criminal justice system compared to women and the way black folks are treated by the criminal justice system compared to white folks line up (other non-white racial groupings tend to end up somewhere between). Race and sex also both apply, meaning that black men get treated the worst and white women get treated with kid gloves. Depending on the specific measure, sometimes the gender gap is actually wider than the racial gap but that again depends on the specific measure (for example black folks are more disproportionately killed by police than men are but mostly because that would require more than 100% of police shootings to be men instead of merely 95%, while men get disproportionately harsher sentencing for many crimes than women to a larger degree than black folks do compared to white folks).

                I personally know a white woman from here who got busted for drugs in another state, was released on her own recognizance pending her hearing, fled back here, was eventually picked up, spent a few days in jail while the other state decided it wanted to extradite her and made arrangements to transfer her, went before a different judge and was released on her own recognizance pending her new hearing date a second time, despite demonstrably proving she was a flight risk. That’s doesn’t happen unless you are a white woman, preferably a young, pretty one because those traits both carry further privileged treatment by criminal justice.

                Unless you want to argue that men are underprivileged in society.

                I’d argue you are operating from a bad model. The core problem is that a lot of social justice models are ultimately built upon a bedrock of Marxist class conflict, with people being assigned into roles of bourgeois-analog “oppressor” and proletariat-analog “oppressed”. The problem is that the degree to which Marxist class conflict actually works as the basis for a model is basically the degree that whatever feature you are basing it on functions as a proxy for economic class. For race, it does well enough in the aggregate that it works, albeit imperfectly. For sex, however it’s a poor fit.

                The trick is that to justify fitting sex into a model based on class conflict you lie to yourselves by looking at the sex distribution at the very top and pretending that that tells you anything useful about men as a whole (this is a fallacy of composition). Or to put it another way, Nancy Pelosi and turtle lich Mitch McConnell have more in common with each other than either of them does with men or women as a general class.

                A consequence of this is a whole series of apologetics and the like to try to justify why the model still holds even when evidence seems to run counter to it. Like using epicycles and deferents to try to make a geocentric model of the solar system fit reality. Except it;s all things about how “the patriarchy hurts men too” in exactly the way you wouldn’t say “capitalism hurts billionaires too” and that kind of thing. Like why in a system allegedly built on male supremacy would men be treated worse by criminal justice than women, in all the same ways that this same system that is also allegedly built on white supremacy treats black folks worse than white folks? The short answer is that it’s unfalsifiable, the model can be stretched to fit any measurement of reality.

                A better though still imperfect approach is the concept of malagency which seems to do a better job of actually predicting how western culture actually treats people with respect to sex. The core notion of malagency is that society treats men as hyperagentic (that is men are perceived to have greater agency/responsibility than they actually might) and women as hypoagentic (that is women are perceived to have less agency/responsibility than they actually might). Applied to criminal justice, this directly explains things like men being given higher bail and longer sentences for the same crimes - men are seen as more responsible for their crimes, and so “deserve” a longer sentence. Even when a man and woman do a crime together, the man is often subject to higher bail or a longer sentence, which makes no sense as “privilege” but makes all kinds of sense if men are treated as having greater agency. When having lots of agency/responsibility for your actions is beneficial, this leads to better treatment for men and conversely when having greater agency/responsibility for your actions is not beneficial, this leads to worse treatment for men.

                So for example, imagine we both saw a news headline on Reddit or Lemmy about a young woman throwing her newborn baby out a window, leading to it dying in the ambulance. Presumably under a model of privilege and male supremacy, we’d expect lots of blame directed at her and her behavior because she’s a woman and any comments questioning her guilt or supporting her to be downvoted. Under malagency, you’d expect people to immediately start looking for ways to diminish her responsibility for throwing her child out a window and maybe even poking at the possibility of the father being at least partly to blame in some fashion for the baby killing and downvoting anyone laying responsibility for the killing squarely on her, because the slant is minimizing her agency for what she did and if possible assigning agency to a man.

                What do you think we’d actually see in those comments? Hint: this isn’t a hypothetical, it’s a recent news story that’s popped up on Reddit and you should take a look. It…strongly resembles what you’d expect under malagency.

          • MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            Feminism has always been egalitarianism. There will always be people co-opting terms and movements for negative reasons. If men see feminism as something different that’s on them to educate themselves. Women never achieved equity and now (in the US) we are backsliding as a country.

            • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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              4 hours ago

              And… that’s part of the problem,

              Women haven’t achieved equity, this is true, and we ARE backsliding as a country.

              But at the same time it’s saying “Could people be co-opting Feminism for Misandrist and Transphobic purposes? No, it’s the men who are to blame!” that pushed young men to the Right to begin with. It’s time to take some responsibility, and say “Not my circus, not my monkeys”

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        Another reason why this can’t be Solipsism, Donald Trump is too horrible to be true, if the world was I see it, he would be a plot point in a really shitty movie panned for how unrealistic it is despite playing things so seriously.

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      Pretty amazing to see some stuff about Solipsism and of the idea of what-you-see-is-what-you-are here.