chankstein38|18mon ago

As much as I will admit the Cybertruck is ugly and don't really _want_ one, this is why I was/am tempted by them. I can barely tell the difference between a Chevy, Ford, or Dodge truck at this point. They all look the same. Cars too. But the Cybertruck actually looks different. Not here shilling for the Cybertruck... Musk sucks and it seems like the truck does as well but it looks different than this boring average we're in and I kind of dig that.

UncleMeat|18mon ago

I dunno, this feels like it is overemphasizing. Consider the section on cities. It shows eight skylines viewed from across water. They all have tall buildings. Two have towers that have a spherical bulge element. Some buildings are glass facades and others are concrete. In one skyline the tallest building is wide and looks like some sort of hotel. In one skyline there is a large and wide white building that looks like an arena. These don't look identical to me except that they all contain tall buildings, which isn't as much a design choice as it is an economic choice about city centers. Then the text immediately pivots to cheap stick framing and small apartment buildings outside of city centers.

The discussion of interior decorating is called "interiors all look the same" but it immediately narrows focus onto just AirBnB listings (and for what its worth, I've stayed at far more AirBnBs that don't look like this than AirBnBs that do). The author describes trying to get design inspiration and getting stuck here, but there are entire magazines still in circulation about interior decor that very much cover a wide range of styles.

There is something to the article, but I feel that selecting ten similar looking things from each category is just not super compelling. There are ten books that sprung from a trend and use "fuck" in the title with a similar cover layout that were published over a period of like seven years. That's like, a normal trend that comes and goes. There are still a bazillion books that don't use this cringey title and have totally different cover design.

jazzyjackson|18mon ago

globohomo[geniety] as the kids call it

Apocryphon|18mon ago

> If the citizens of the world can understand and appreciate each other through design, what else might they understand and appreciate about each other.

While I don't discount the utopian sentiment behind this, it elides the fact that it is not all citizens of parts of the world understanding each other, but rather specific subsegments of the same. So while young, well-educated, white collar urban professionals might grok each other's vibe, that is immaterial even as we head into what seems to be a new era of nationalism and tribal competition.

dangus|18mon ago

I mentioned it in another comment, but this has parallels to the Irish Pub.

I think we can just admit that good design is good design. This is extremely appealing to business owners because minimalism equals low setup costs. It’s also appealing to patrons because it’s aesthetically pleasing.

Some things become popular around the globe because the idea is so universally appealing. Coffee itself is a great example of such a phenomenon. Most coffee shops aren’t located in places that grow coffee.

monk1|18mon ago

> Instead of critiquing existing designs - it'd be helpful to have a vision of what locally culturally distinctive designs for a coffee shop or AirBNB could look like. Help us readers envision what a better world..

I agree, but then I'd argue that simply pointing out the homogeneity of cafes (and everything else) might have been the author's goal. To just make you stop and think. The finding of that authentic cafe is left as an exercise for the reader.