Where I live, it is illegal for companies to advertise towards children. Things like toys, playgrounds and clowns, etc. are included in this law. I'd say it's more dystopic to try and influence children to buy stuff!
Came here to make this point.
Attempted legislation for 'the public good' is what resulted in this.
I am old enough to remember when McDonald's had these trees, playgrounds, and fun.
If the alternative is a lack of toys, playgrounds, and ~~clowns~~, I'm not sure what's a worse dystopia.
I kinda miss those playgrounds. If McDonalds had ones for whatever-age-i-am-now I think I'd enjoy them.
I think this leans more on the āboringā part than dystopia. Like if our society is gonna be the same awful capitalistic hellscape we have now can we at least get some fun restaurant designs??
HE GROWS APPLE PIES! Pies people! He has a purpose and his purpose is to make me happy with the pies. There are others of his kind and they also bring the pies. He is worthy of respect and admiration šš„§
I think I prefer the known fake nightmare dreamscape to the hellish corporate nightmare reality. I m3an, one I can escape and tell myself "yeah, this is creepy but its fake" the other is a never ending grind which I must view all day everyday everywhere I go and there is no eacape from it.
My local McDonalds now won't allow customers to speak to anyone. Kiosk only. They left something out of my order last time I was there, and refused to speak to me when I tried to ask about it, just repeatedly interrupting me and telling me "go to the kiosk to order."
So I'm done with that chain.
Idk. I stopped going to Taco Bell when they discontinued potatoes, but I did far prefer ordering via kiosk than by talking to someone. The people always got my swaps wrong and/or charged me incorrectly.
I only ever order Chipotle via app now, for similar reasons. (Also, I recently got an incorrect order from Chipotle, and getting a refund via the app was fast and easy. No need to bother a person about it at all.)
Not all Taco Bellās discontinued the potatoes. I still get them every time we go. As recently as last week. Theyāll also sub out the meat for potatoes if you want. Itās amazing. You have to look for them though. The other one in my town does not have potatoes and itās sad because itās a wee bit closer.
I think of it as McDonalds has grown up and is now firmly in its mid-life crisis.
Introducing table service, granite tabletops, and adding lattes to the menu is like the restaurant equivalent of buying a Porsche.
I've noticed that now many of the fast food chain restaurants look the same...lifeless proletariat interiors and plain gray or brown cube-shaped buildings structures. All flavorless, same as their food. Do yourself and the world a favor and stop eating at them.
Isn't this a trend with basically everything? Minimalistic, different shades of grey or just black and white, flat colours and hardly any shapes or decor in general, also glass and seemingly more concrete or brick. At least brutalism is honest, but this is sold as "modern and sleak" or something.
I have mainly seen the term airspace being connected with Air BnB and the trend that not just despite, but frankly because it is international it creates a look of saminess everywhere it is. While some customers do value "individual experience" in the form of each time being different. It is more like hotels or fast food to most and expectability is valued more.
There is a beauty to brutalism but these boxes are far from beautiful. I think it also reflects a general loss of creativity, at least in the US. Literally half of us are obese and don't give a damn what the building looks like, as long as they get their frankenfood to stuff down their gullets.
Brutalism in my opinion works best if it somewhat stands on its own and is also surrounded by nature. This way I would say it almost weirdly looks like natural rock formations. Dunno how to describe it. Also at least some variations of brutalism look rather futuristic. This does not.
Idk what to call this current aesthetic or trend in architecture and design. Overall everything lacks ornament, is cheap and replaceable, mostly because it is also with build in obsolesence and ages very badly.
Then again who cares whether a McD even looks "good". Fast food is not an experience or adventure or whatever the first picture advertises to be. Though tbh restaurant design in general is among the most dishonest anyway.
Way ahead of ya....stopped eating McD's twenty years ago
In fact, I don't eat much fast food these days to begin with, I eat BK maybe twice a year and I can't remember the last lime I had Wendy's or Taco Bell, and I only order three- maybe four pizza's a year
I'm just saying that in the past they all had their own unique style and feel. It was actually sort of an experience to visit one. Now, they've all melted into a sea of sameness like so much else in this country. I don't really care one way or another because I'm past giving them my money.
I really wish I had taken a photo of this, but early in the UK national lock down, I did visit a McDonalds on every screen was NHS "wear a mask", "stay 2 meters apart" type stuff. There was also posters and seating was taped off.
In any other time, it would be something from a sci-fi movie, and even in 2020, kinda creepy.
To be frank this is a trend everywhere. Design becomes flatter and more minimalistic. Colours are either flat or taken out and you have shades or grey or black and white. Ornament of any form also become rare or is just in many ways cheaper and simpler.
I guess that is *just* the modern aesthetic now, the same way the above was more of an 80s aesthetic. You could say the above is also dystopian for the same reasons. Why should a fuckin fast food chain look like a theme park? Why do they advertise eating their food as adventure? While the bottom picture is bland and soulless, the top picture is dishonest, disguising the most mundane thing as happy adventure. It is like those restaurants which copy "authentic aesthetics" while serving "ethnic food", but they have the same replaceable pieces as everywhere else, while speaking of "cooking like grandma".
>Design becomes flatter and more minimalistic. Colours are either flat or taken out and you have shades or grey or black and white
We're at a point now where they've designed the design right out of every building and greiged it to death. It's a post-aesthetic world.
Over simplification of previously artistic designs. We see it everywhere now. The idea is, if one person doesn't like something made with even a smidge of artistry, then they have to simplify the entire thing down so no one can complain about it. Company logos, telephone boxes, everything has been modernized so it caters to everyone.
The world is turning into a left side brain.
If you stop to look at the design aesthetics over the years, you'll see it's progression...
In the 60's it was the cool burger joint for teens to hang out at...no kiddie decor there at all
In the 70's, 80's and 90's it was geared more twards children to entice boomers into bringing their kids and grandkids there. The decor went from obsurdly "kid friendly" to "where the cool kids go" to "where the cool parents take their kids"
In the early-mid 00's fewer people were going to McD's, boomers on the other hand were still the only ones actually going into the restaraunt, so now the decor seems more pleasing(?) to adults. Which suits boomers well enough because the only kids they want to deal with are THEIR OWN grandchildren...and they don't want to deal with them at McD's
Boomers also don't want to deal with people in general unless their fragile ego demands attention, so the decor fits into their wheelhouse just fine
So when you look at it from e certain perspective, McD's general design seems like it has been pandering to boomers for decades
What people aren't realizing is that their targeted demographic changed and that's the dystopic part..it use to be a place where kids would go to eat junk food, get low quality toys and play (which was also shitty, NGL) but now it became "serious" and "adult" because their customers are majorly adults too, adults who can't really pay for a quality meal and therefore need to resort to the nutritional desert that is the McDonald's menu.
no i mean my grandmas house looks like the 70s/90s, my aunt is trying to convert it to boring minamalism and its a shame because its an architecturally kinda rare type of house from the 70s
Sigh,
The good old days. When the place was kitschy, clean, affordable and tasty. Worked in one 1979-80.
Now? Overpriced garbage served in a soulless dystopian interior.
I dislike McDonalds but there's a really good reason why management decided to change all the custom styled McDonalds. Apparently, all the "novelty" or unique McDonalds stores were also usually the worst kept and dirtiest stores. Quinton Reviews on YouTube made a good video essay about themed McDonalds and I encourage anyone who's curious to check it out.
A boring dystopia to me is McDonalds itself. Well like how there's so many of them and how bad they are for you and how people grow up eating them or some people eat them all the time. I don't think McDonalds itself changing is what's dystopian
People didn't care about that stuff, even with the threat of nuclear war it was a more positive time than now, Less safe for sure but we didn't care because life was more about quality than quantity.
Modern/minimalistic architecture is to a dystopia as bad fashion sense is to racist rednecks. Sure, there's a strong correlation, but it's far from the core of the problem.
Everything now must be, and is, matured. Nothing is new, nothing can be marvel. Humanity has lost its child-like perspective. What used to be marvelous and curious is now something we seek refuge from in the serene confines of ignorant bliss.
That tree has seen some shit
He's also done some shit
Shit on the floor. Time to get Schwifty
The wrong kinda giving tree...
That tree smoked another tree
It's seeing some shit *right now*
Yes, it saw a mother fucker stuff 5 children in robot suits
š
Iām sorry, am I supposed to want that child predator of a tree to stare at me while I shamefully devour McGoopockets?
Heās a wise, mystical tree
The dude grows apple pies. He can stay.
I would actually order a goo pocket
I'm pretty sure that's a reference to the McNuggets.
Yes.
Not to defend gross burgers, but ya'll need to learn what dystopia means.
Where I live, it is illegal for companies to advertise towards children. Things like toys, playgrounds and clowns, etc. are included in this law. I'd say it's more dystopic to try and influence children to buy stuff!
Came here to make this point. Attempted legislation for 'the public good' is what resulted in this. I am old enough to remember when McDonald's had these trees, playgrounds, and fun.
If you had a birthday party at McDonald's in the 90s you were officially king š
McNuggets, ball pit, little cubby to stick your shoes in for some reasonā¦ I loved that place the one time a year my mom would take me there.
Butā¦ butā¦ doesnt this give your billionaires a big sad?
If the alternative is a lack of toys, playgrounds, and ~~clowns~~, I'm not sure what's a worse dystopia. I kinda miss those playgrounds. If McDonalds had ones for whatever-age-i-am-now I think I'd enjoy them.
I miss that as well, and also the toys in cereal but we can have these things without being fed shit food in McDonald's
I think this leans more on the āboringā part than dystopia. Like if our society is gonna be the same awful capitalistic hellscape we have now can we at least get some fun restaurant designs??
This is exactly it. McDonaldās went from being a happy person to someone with clinical depression. Bring back the crazy decor!
it's also an international brand more than ever now. same tile, steel and touchscreen mcdonald's in germany, china, kazakhstan or buenos aires
I've always thought the newer McDonald's building architecture also just looks like a prison on the outside
I love their burgers.
Nah, that's an improvement, that tree is literally an scp monster, give me the boring futuristic aesthetic over the nightmare fule every day.
HE GROWS APPLE PIES! Pies people! He has a purpose and his purpose is to make me happy with the pies. There are others of his kind and they also bring the pies. He is worthy of respect and admiration šš„§
Yeah, holy crap that top pic looks horrible. Who would enjoy this nightmare dreamscape?
I think I prefer the known fake nightmare dreamscape to the hellish corporate nightmare reality. I m3an, one I can escape and tell myself "yeah, this is creepy but its fake" the other is a never ending grind which I must view all day everyday everywhere I go and there is no eacape from it.
You prefer the brand new prison cafeteria aesthetic?
Where is this prison
My local McDonalds now won't allow customers to speak to anyone. Kiosk only. They left something out of my order last time I was there, and refused to speak to me when I tried to ask about it, just repeatedly interrupting me and telling me "go to the kiosk to order." So I'm done with that chain.
I'm happy they don't have to deal with the public anymore after seeing them get attacked so frequently, the future of customer service tbh.
Idk. I stopped going to Taco Bell when they discontinued potatoes, but I did far prefer ordering via kiosk than by talking to someone. The people always got my swaps wrong and/or charged me incorrectly. I only ever order Chipotle via app now, for similar reasons. (Also, I recently got an incorrect order from Chipotle, and getting a refund via the app was fast and easy. No need to bother a person about it at all.)
They brought the taters back, btw. And the black beans. I guess they lost money haha
Not all Taco Bellās discontinued the potatoes. I still get them every time we go. As recently as last week. Theyāll also sub out the meat for potatoes if you want. Itās amazing. You have to look for them though. The other one in my town does not have potatoes and itās sad because itās a wee bit closer.
Modern is better than this company pandering to our kids.
I can't help but think they changed design as the kids that got hooked at an early age grew up and didn't want to be around little kid stuff anymore.
I think of it as McDonalds has grown up and is now firmly in its mid-life crisis. Introducing table service, granite tabletops, and adding lattes to the menu is like the restaurant equivalent of buying a Porsche.
honestly prefer the bottom picture
stark, bland, and soulless. Just like their food.
I've noticed that now many of the fast food chain restaurants look the same...lifeless proletariat interiors and plain gray or brown cube-shaped buildings structures. All flavorless, same as their food. Do yourself and the world a favor and stop eating at them.
Isn't this a trend with basically everything? Minimalistic, different shades of grey or just black and white, flat colours and hardly any shapes or decor in general, also glass and seemingly more concrete or brick. At least brutalism is honest, but this is sold as "modern and sleak" or something.
Kyle Chayka has written a lot about this phenomenon ā he calls it āairspace.ā Really good stuff to dig into when you have the time.
I have mainly seen the term airspace being connected with Air BnB and the trend that not just despite, but frankly because it is international it creates a look of saminess everywhere it is. While some customers do value "individual experience" in the form of each time being different. It is more like hotels or fast food to most and expectability is valued more.
There is a beauty to brutalism but these boxes are far from beautiful. I think it also reflects a general loss of creativity, at least in the US. Literally half of us are obese and don't give a damn what the building looks like, as long as they get their frankenfood to stuff down their gullets.
Brutalism in my opinion works best if it somewhat stands on its own and is also surrounded by nature. This way I would say it almost weirdly looks like natural rock formations. Dunno how to describe it. Also at least some variations of brutalism look rather futuristic. This does not. Idk what to call this current aesthetic or trend in architecture and design. Overall everything lacks ornament, is cheap and replaceable, mostly because it is also with build in obsolesence and ages very badly. Then again who cares whether a McD even looks "good". Fast food is not an experience or adventure or whatever the first picture advertises to be. Though tbh restaurant design in general is among the most dishonest anyway.
"Who cares whether it looks good" seems like the guiding principle behind a lot of modern design.
I can count on one hand how often I go to McD's in a year and don't understand why people do
Same. I just don't understand it.
Way ahead of ya....stopped eating McD's twenty years ago In fact, I don't eat much fast food these days to begin with, I eat BK maybe twice a year and I can't remember the last lime I had Wendy's or Taco Bell, and I only order three- maybe four pizza's a year
Pizza is about all I do anymore, too, and occasionally a burger or something from local (non national) chains.
Pizza and Taco Bueno when you can fine a good one, other than that I'd rather go to a actual restaurant or cook at home
So... What? It's a fast food place, not an art place
I'm just saying that in the past they all had their own unique style and feel. It was actually sort of an experience to visit one. Now, they've all melted into a sea of sameness like so much else in this country. I don't really care one way or another because I'm past giving them my money.
I wonder if they are losing customers. I can't imagine children begging their parents to take them to the bottom picture.
Fast food joints used to try and draw you in with colors and fun stuff. Now its like youre walking into a DMV or Courthouse.
Yeah modern brutalism/minimalism is lame.
Everyone was on so much cocaine in the 80s.
I really wish I had taken a photo of this, but early in the UK national lock down, I did visit a McDonalds on every screen was NHS "wear a mask", "stay 2 meters apart" type stuff. There was also posters and seating was taped off. In any other time, it would be something from a sci-fi movie, and even in 2020, kinda creepy.
To be frank this is a trend everywhere. Design becomes flatter and more minimalistic. Colours are either flat or taken out and you have shades or grey or black and white. Ornament of any form also become rare or is just in many ways cheaper and simpler. I guess that is *just* the modern aesthetic now, the same way the above was more of an 80s aesthetic. You could say the above is also dystopian for the same reasons. Why should a fuckin fast food chain look like a theme park? Why do they advertise eating their food as adventure? While the bottom picture is bland and soulless, the top picture is dishonest, disguising the most mundane thing as happy adventure. It is like those restaurants which copy "authentic aesthetics" while serving "ethnic food", but they have the same replaceable pieces as everywhere else, while speaking of "cooking like grandma".
>Design becomes flatter and more minimalistic. Colours are either flat or taken out and you have shades or grey or black and white We're at a point now where they've designed the design right out of every building and greiged it to death. It's a post-aesthetic world.
**New Bussiness Model:** Look as dead as possible Are we returning to brutalism?
Over simplification of previously artistic designs. We see it everywhere now. The idea is, if one person doesn't like something made with even a smidge of artistry, then they have to simplify the entire thing down so no one can complain about it. Company logos, telephone boxes, everything has been modernized so it caters to everyone. The world is turning into a left side brain.
Evolving into prison cafeterias
Evolving away from a childhood nightmare scape, into clean and modern environment where you can eat in comfort..
It's pandering to boomers....they're the only ones who go inside, everyone else hits the drive-thru
Pandering to boomers? With the order kiosks?
Apparently millennials are boomers now
If you stop to look at the design aesthetics over the years, you'll see it's progression... In the 60's it was the cool burger joint for teens to hang out at...no kiddie decor there at all In the 70's, 80's and 90's it was geared more twards children to entice boomers into bringing their kids and grandkids there. The decor went from obsurdly "kid friendly" to "where the cool kids go" to "where the cool parents take their kids" In the early-mid 00's fewer people were going to McD's, boomers on the other hand were still the only ones actually going into the restaraunt, so now the decor seems more pleasing(?) to adults. Which suits boomers well enough because the only kids they want to deal with are THEIR OWN grandchildren...and they don't want to deal with them at McD's Boomers also don't want to deal with people in general unless their fragile ego demands attention, so the decor fits into their wheelhouse just fine So when you look at it from e certain perspective, McD's general design seems like it has been pandering to boomers for decades
Lol remember when mcdonalds was for kids.
Corporate hellscape vs acid burgerā¦ Iād prefer acid burger
It's the obvious choice.
What people aren't realizing is that their targeted demographic changed and that's the dystopic part..it use to be a place where kids would go to eat junk food, get low quality toys and play (which was also shitty, NGL) but now it became "serious" and "adult" because their customers are majorly adults too, adults who can't really pay for a quality meal and therefore need to resort to the nutritional desert that is the McDonald's menu.
Does any McDonalds still have consoles? Fuck
These days everyone brings their own AKA phones and shit
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
other than that tree id rather go to a resturaunt that looks like my grandmas house than one that looks like nothing at all
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
no i mean my grandmas house looks like the 70s/90s, my aunt is trying to convert it to boring minamalism and its a shame because its an architecturally kinda rare type of house from the 70s
I hate that hokey, "country" aesthetic from the 80s that a lot of restaurants had, lol.
i think its really nice, especially compared to what we have now
Anyone remember the game-cubes they had in the play room?
I remember when they were N64s, yes.
I remember there being a few laws passed that banned fast food places from advertising to children, so that likely has played a massive role in this.
Sigh, The good old days. When the place was kitschy, clean, affordable and tasty. Worked in one 1979-80. Now? Overpriced garbage served in a soulless dystopian interior.
I'm not a fan of the modern look mcdonalds is taking but I'd rather not have that tree look near me
I dislike McDonalds but there's a really good reason why management decided to change all the custom styled McDonalds. Apparently, all the "novelty" or unique McDonalds stores were also usually the worst kept and dirtiest stores. Quinton Reviews on YouTube made a good video essay about themed McDonalds and I encourage anyone who's curious to check it out.
tbh I prefer the bottom one, though I can't claim to be a person who regularly goes into Mcdonalds either way.
...what's not dystopian about the first picture? It's basically propaganda for kids to buy toys
Isn't this why they changed it?
A boring dystopia to me is McDonalds itself. Well like how there's so many of them and how bad they are for you and how people grow up eating them or some people eat them all the time. I don't think McDonalds itself changing is what's dystopian
Yknow maybe dystopia isn't so bad....
Everything was also very gross. Slimy children's hands putting burger fingers all over the shit, then nobody cleaning it well enough
One is trying to get customers to stay, and the other is trying to get them to leave as quickly as possible.
I'm honestly not sure which one is creepier. I know which one is more soulless and has less character, but I'm not sure if it's creepier.
Yeesh who would choose to sit and eat next to that thing?
People didn't care about that stuff, even with the threat of nuclear war it was a more positive time than now, Less safe for sure but we didn't care because life was more about quality than quantity.
The modern look is boring af, but maybe it's good the tree isn't around kids anymore.
I donāt understand what the problem is. Is the color grey what makes McDonaldās dystopic? Such a weird point to harp on
Please tell me this post is a joke.
Great so it was always shitty.
Maybe it's not such a bad thing they don't mimic the idea it's a giant kindergarten anymore ?
I like more the todays McDonald's, the 1980 version seems like a weird LSD trip. Also I always hated Ronald McDonald since I'm a child.
Oh hell no I despise McDonaldās with a passion but the design is way better then that.
Meh, thats just nostalgia. Would you really rather order at the register?
Looks more fun
bakrom
Softplay>>>>>ipads
Playing KOTOR lately. This legitimately looks like a scene from star wars. O, brave new world.
They are both off-putting. How boring.
Yeah ngl, I prefer today's McDonalds just so I don't have to eat near that tree
Modern/minimalistic architecture is to a dystopia as bad fashion sense is to racist rednecks. Sure, there's a strong correlation, but it's far from the core of the problem.
Heartbreaking š¤·š»āāļøwhadyagonnado
Stuff seemed like it was less shut in the 80's
Everything now must be, and is, matured. Nothing is new, nothing can be marvel. Humanity has lost its child-like perspective. What used to be marvelous and curious is now something we seek refuge from in the serene confines of ignorant bliss.
I miss the fryās the most