'90s-'00s McDonald's primarily appealed to kids, as the colorful characters and Happy Meals were a big part of the draw.
'10s-'20s McDonalds has pivoted to marketing towards adults, in part because they had come under fire for marketing greasy, oversalted calorie bombs to children as the US obesity epidemic took off. The other reason is that mid-to-low income adults became a much more lucrative demographic after decades of wage stagnation basically created an entire generation that's too tired and overworked to cook for themselves but too poor to go out to eat anywhere else.
Don't forget that generation also saw home economics classes removed from school, so if they don't learn to cook from their parents they just don't learn to cook.
My daughter had whatever they call home ec now (consumer science?) last year when she was in sixth grade. They baked cookies.
And that was about all I did in home ec back in the late 80s too. That and sew a stuffed animal dog.
So I don't know that home ec is actually all that worth it. Not the way it's been done for decades, anyway.
Industrial arts was the same way. He had us make wooden tulips after telling a bunch of horror stories about how the power tools would maim you, so I refused to use them. And had I used them, I know now as someone who has used them since that cutting tulip pieces out of a piece of wood with a jigsaw is not much of a learning experience.
Yeah I definitely didn't learn to cook at all from home ec. I remember sowing more though and I did learn the basics at least there but it was reinforced in my house, whereas cooking was not as much, so I can't really tell if it stuck because it was a home thing too.
I think things like, what we called tech Ed that sounds like your industrial arts, was really more about introducing kids to the concepts and they could find out if it was something they were into. Most people would never attempt or maybe even know how to attempt woodworking if not introduced in school.
Wouldn't they have to have the tools at home to continue woodworking? That's pretty expensive. Isn't that just telling kids 'here's something you might learn how to do someday if you aren't poor?'
I guess you got a point there hobbywise but I was thinking more like if they're thinking about college and whatnot, if those activities are something they enjoyed in high school they might consider going into internship or trades for that kind of thing.
Alternatively, they could take some initiative and use this wonderful tool called the internet...
Did you miss the tired and overworked comment? Feeling exhausted and burned out doesn’t inspire most people to spend a large amount of time and effort learning something new.
I don't think online resources are necessarily a replacement for in-person classroom instruction, and even if they were, it's not a reason to take the option of home ec classes away from those who want it.
That said, I think it's at least a good thing that so many good internet resources on cooking exist, and it helps mitigate the problem to some degree. Still, it takes time and energy to seek out those resources, learn from them, and put them into practice. Not easy to do for anyone who has been worked far past the point of burnout and are still just scraping by.
Telling people to suck it up and just do it is a great way to feel smug while achieving nothing.
Cool. I checked and found the following types, which one should i go to. /s
90% personal blog/vlog with vague cooking tips sprinkled within
instruction video where you need a specific device or machine from sponsor brand
overly confident with a sidedish of just as clueless and stupid
overly confident with a sidedish of overreliance on uncommon tool/machine they assume everyone has
recipe which actually makes no sense taste wise but sounds cool on paper and generates clicks
legit recipe but ingredients and keywords changed into google buzzword ones (bacon gets more hits then Italian ham)
some actually good kitchen instructors that you need to know about in advance cause there burried below the mess.
I really enjoyed cooking with dog actually, shame that after my workday i am no longer in a condition to operate anything that can burn
Yeah, those folks who work 16 hours and have no cooking knowledge should go out and buy a bunch of pots and pans and knives and a ton of ingredients. They don't need to sleep and have plenty of extra money to waste on ruined food.
What a douchey take.
really they could start somewhere and simple and build from it and be MUCH better off than fast food daily, for nutrition and money and time. throw some raw chicken on a grill and flip it over after 12 minutes. cut some veggies/fruit up. eventually add sauces or cheese or something.
Tell me your work isnt sucking 100% of your energy without saying so.
To be fair though thats a good thing, no job should exhaust people to the point of rendering them unable to take care of themselves but for many of us that is not reality.
doesn't sound sustainable. either partner up and/or reframe your work/life balances.
It isn’t sustainable, which is what i am trying to explain my doctor.
I already stopped working full time and i landed an otherwise perfect job for me, i have no real bosses and a lot of freedom to choose my work.
I just happen to be autistic is all. The way my energy works doesn’t fit with this “work hours concept” a good work balance of me would be going to the office late when its dark, calm and quiet so i can focus, do twice the amount of work in half the time and just go home when i feel tired combined with a no strings attached guaranteed livable income.
I can’t partner up to start my own business because the concept of profit is immoral to me. My current job provides tax-paid free healthcare for kids in contrast.
The clutch is, so many people aren’t autistic and have it so much worse. Jobs where your boss gets upset because you're sick, getting pressured to work overtime and still not being able to afford rent. How about cacao farmers who work permanently to pay of a debt to their employers and get fined for missing a days work?
The modern world is not sustainable and headed for disaster.
Also those grease bomb refugees that were 5-15 during the 90s?
They were 25-35 for the '10-'20 pivot.
They never had a chance...
No, it doesn't look like a prison. It looks more like a school or a factory.
......wait a minute.
OP the original creator has never seen a prison
It's not terribly far off. The barebones brutalist style where the chairs are attached to the floor, hard plastic molded tabletops. Lack of items that can be moved or taken completely conveys "do your business and leave". Obviously a screen that size that wouldn't be that accessible in a prison, but it only adds the harsh nature and lack of human touch of the room.
7/10 definetly reminiscent of chow hall.
brutalist style
This is in absolutely no way consistent with the brutalist movement.
"Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the bare building materials and structural elements over decorative design."
I would welcome expanding my knowledge but what style do you consider buildings of few decorative designs other than their harsh geometric edges and shapes?
The inner walls of a prison are often the outer wall. Just straight rows of cinderblock. Inside and outside, the structures lack other architechtural stylings because it creates hiding places or is viewed as extra work/cost during construction.Everything ends in a corner or an edge - no soft edges. As far as my experiences are concerned, that lines up pretty well unless you would rather use the word "spartan" in terms of how little decoration the state puts up.
This is a great example of how reading a WIkipedia article imparts a lot of information and absolutely zero knowledge. This, this, and this are all extremely good examples of brutalist design. The McDonald's in the OP in no way is reminiscent of such aesthetic concerns. Both are spartan, certainly; but then, so is a lot of post-modernist design (to say nothing of the various minimalist movements throughout time). I'm not here to debate whether or not prisons are brutalist in design, that's far too sweeping a category to sum up in one school of design and additionally it's not the point of the conversation here.
No, I see your point - brutalism is making an interesting structure and shaping internal spaces using building materials as a limitation.
Where prisons are function-over-form and may appear to meet the style - it is merely coincidental and is not usually artistic expressionism but rather necessity to perform a task.
McShungles is just ultramodern design that comes from a Corp cheaping out
TBF though, concrete walls are still pretty much a requirement.
That also describes the old McDonald's. All the seats in the older photo are also attached to the floor with hard plastic molded tables.
At least the old one has colors.
I was thinking 'Apple' when I saw it, but I didn't make the meme. So I put it in the title instead. If you change 'prison' to 'designed by Apple,' it works better.
I grew up with this McDonald's, it had a jukebox. My sister had life threatening food allergies, so we only ever went there to get orange juice, but I still loved it.
The Rock 'n Roll McDonalds in Chicago was pretty cool when I went to it as a kid. Looks like it's gone now.
Your sister risked death so you all could hang out at a place with a shark's head biting a surfboard. Respect.
If there were ever anything worth risking death over, it would be to hang out at a place with a shark's head biting a surfboard.
Also, that was like all we had to do back in the 80s when cartoons weren't on.
That's rad.
🎶 Denver, the last dinosaur. He's my friend and a whole lot more!🎶
So denver is fwb?
I don't know what fwb means. 😔
You say that but dear god, that tree has seen some shit
I miss everything having distinctive features, personality, and allowing themselves to use colors and shapes.
Restaurants, business logo and branding in general, apps, everything getting normalized to the death. I know a large part of that is accessibility and cost reduction, but it's a bit sad.
In my town, subway stations where all themed around what's above them. No two stations where the same (there isn't a lot, so there's that). Now that the network is getting extensions and the old stations are remade, they're all flat, white walls with square lights, flat uniform labels (harder to see, since they're lined with the walls). If you were dropped in one without indication, it'd take some time to even know where you are.
And just none of it is fun anymore. Noble Roman's Pizza, before it became gas station pizza, had windows where kids could watch them make the pizza and they showed old silent movies and cartoons on the wall. It was awesome.
Now? Even the McDonalds playgrounds I've driven past look depressing.
Tbh I'm finding that to be quite the trend for everything today as a car guy do see some cars being cool and fun but compared to the 50s when even their equivalent of a Prius shit box was still trying so hard to look like a god damn spaceship rocket thing with so many colors that almost every car had two colors per car green and pink where common place today everything is ether trying to look like a ford focus or a SUV brick granted I currently work at a Toyota dealership so I'm constantly surrounded by Toyota cars that are in my opinion are the blandest of bland cars that only good because of their reliability
Honestly even when modern cars try to copy old car design they always end up looking like the old car having a allergic reaction
I mean there you go, Toyota's are appliances. They have to look bland because their style has to remain inoffensive after decades on the road.
That being said, I'm impressed with how much style they've managed to put on the new Prius while still aiming for long-term fleet vehicle role. I also like what they're trying to do with the BZ4 styling wise, even if it's a compromised first gen product.
There's also always the Supra and LC500 :3
in my state, NC, they don't even have the playgrounds anymore (I think they outlawed fast food joints being allowed to have play places, as I typically only see them when I vacation in Virginia)
I think there's now a law about the modernization/regulation of fast food restaurants. Just so we don't have a bunch of leftover Pizza Hut buildings anymore when a store closes.
Probably good that a junk food merchant isn't marketing to kids to heavily.
Jokes on you, they dont need to anymore :)
What makes you think they're marketing to kids?
I mean we are living in an age where Call of Duty's audience is 14 year olds and Pokemon's audience is like 40
CoD was always 14 year olds.
They're not marketing to kids because those kids grew up and are adults now.
They're not marketing to kids becuase:
A) it's illegal in some countries
B) It should rightfully be looked down on
A Finnish prison? That's way too nice for an American one.
Maybe it's a Turkish prison.
nordic prisons are unironically way nicer than this, they're basically particularly boring and secure dormitories with normal looking (if very clean) rooms.
Gotta love the bottom picture.
Gigantic displays that can theoretically put whatever message you want on there before people interact with them.
Each has two printed leaflets taped to the sides.
Idk if other countries had this period, but there was a time where mcdonalds in sweden all had these semi-transparent glittery green glass mosaics on the walls and that is 100% the nicest it has ever been, it was actually nice to look at and the generally dark interiors made it very comfortable to be there.
The current interiors are.. okay, but so fucking uninspired.. At least they have some wood panels here and there, but christ would it kill them to tone down all the stark white?
Shit that sounds really cool.
it was! It baffles me that they changed it because during that era it was genuinely quite nice to go to mcdonalds and just hang out over some food.
Nothing cool can be allowed to exist.
I mean, i definitely think the new touchscreen displays for ordering are pretty cool.
My conclusion is more that capitalism sucks and higher-ups are blithering idiots who make worse decisions than a random number generator.
This is true. Its one of my better arguments for revolution.
This society is not for you, in the sense that even with all the efficiency of machinery/automation and economies og scale and expert craftsmen, its probably still less work for your clumsy not-a-boat-maker ass to look up a wikihow and build a boat from scratch than it is for you to 'earn' enough to buy a boat.
Its less work and expense to grow food from scratch to feed starving kids in your community than it is to lobby the government to use food that would have been thrown away to feed kids.
And I don't know if any random stranger would make good decisions that wouldn't get lots of people killed, but making any random dipshit off the street supreme emperor of earth, you wouldn't get, on average, worse decisions than our current oligarchs. Like, basically anyone could do better. Maybe not good enough; we've got some apocalypses on the horizon, but at least not worse. And I think we could do better than random dipshit emperor if we put our anything to it.
I was so confused when the lyrics didnt rhyme
E I E I O
That tree looks like the stranger on the street who offers to babysit your daughters for free.
And you say
"okay... come on over" and make sure that stranger is never seen again.
Top one looks like from a horror movie...
You didn't grow up in the 70s or 80s, did you? That was what half the shows we watched looked like.
Old McDonald’s looks like an „okay“ bad trip in this case
nvm that tree is creepy af
Neither of these looks good
Someone never went to a McPlayplace when it was watched over by friendly Mayor McCheese as a kid...
You're not wrong, I have 0 interest in anything McBranded
I don't now, but it was pretty standard when I was growing up in the 80s to go to McDonalds birthday parties. Happy Meals were something most kids loved getting. It's like Disney. Yes, they're a big evil corporation, but they also make things fun for kids. That's the loss me and others here are lamenting. They've taken all the fun away from these places.
A youtuber had a good take: MacDonald's used to be cheap cheap cheap. Then they slowly tried to become fancier. So I think now they're stuck in a weird middle ground. Great opportunity for a new chain to go back to cheap cheap cheap.
I don't even think they tried. They became cosmetically fancier. Other than some coffee options to compete with Starbucks, it hasn't really changed the menu a whole lot in terms of basic offerings. Just higher prices and slicker, more corporate restaurants. I'm guessing they still do most of their business in burgers and fries, plus maybe McNuggets,
Lots of things slowly crept up the prices. I looked it up awhile ago so going off memory: All day breakfast, new equipment for something or other, as you said fancier decor, fancy coffee. It all adds up.
And the old style chairs which you could "twist" the seat on lol 🤣
And that's why I hate everything and everyone
McDonalds is a reflection of the zeitgeist.
The everything resembles the prison?
I'm guessing it's for more efficient cleaning. Bummer.
They don’t want you to spend time in the restaurant. Less and less McDonalds PlayCenters are surviving. The seats in the restaurant purposely get uncomfortable after 20 minutes of sitting. Harsh lighting. Drab surfaces. They want you to get your food and go. Even better if you use the drive thru or mobile app. Any modern fast food restaurant like McDonald’s, but especially Starbucks, does not want to be your “third place”.
That doesn't mean it has to be eye searing white, imagine if they went with gray granite-like surfaces instead, that would be so much mre pleasant.
My old McDonald's in my hometown had a GameCube / N64 hooked up with 2 controllers. Was pretty dope. I think they got rid of it though, haven't been in years.
That movie really wasn't supposed to be a documentary.
Great read, thanks for sharing that!
The world is not McDonald's though. But yes, there is a trend towards sterile clean environments with muted colors.
Have you seen the beige baby stuff? My wife watches weird videos and apparently there's a trend to have a colorless baby pretty much.
Humanity slowly goes insane... :)
The kiosks are great. I can more easily customize my McChickens, and they almost always come out boiling lava hot.
and they almost always come out boiling lava hot.
That does not sound pleasant.
That's why I don't get their apple pie.
It's pleasant because it's not like luke warm. It means it's fresh.
I can let it cool, or nuke the roof of my mouth; choice matters!
If hot was the same as fresh, you wouldn't be able to heat up day-old Chinese takeout.
The move toward self-serve stuff is actually revolutionary for people who don't like constant social interactions, i have autism and holy shit just 10 years ago i would have been spending all my social energy just talking to cashiers.
They do that partially to encourage people not to sit down and eat inside for a long time. They want you in, buying their trash, and GTFO quickly after. They make the seats intentionally uncomfortable so you don't stay for long.
It also discourages "them" from sitting there with their dirty unwashed clothes and body when they dared to only buy one thing with the money they were able to panhandle.
Wouldn't want to let such people have a warm place to sit that wasn't the public library, now would we? By the way, when do we close down the public library?
Source?
Old times: people did the good drugs
New times: drug tests
This guy was in the lobby at the McDonald's in the local mall jamming on a self playing piano throughout my childhood. Now it's just a bland, boring lifeless shell of its former self.
more like a hospital 🏥 than a prison.
Seems to me like there's a pretty wide variety of McDonald's interiors.
Top image looks like a dystopia abandoned place from a Disney villain. Low image looks like a nice simple area
I hope Gen Z fixes this when we're running the businesses.
i'm praying gen Z fixes this by telling corporations to fuck off and going back to how fast food worked for most of human civilization: just random people selling stuff from their kitchen, basically.
fun fact: at least in rome it was basically standard for most people to eat "fast food", the streets were jam packed with various little food shops.
I think that's still the case in some places, take countries like Korea or Vietnam, where street food is everywhere and it won't literally kill you to live off of it.
Their food is absolute garbage do not eat there.
The fancy look is just what everyone else is doing.
America doesn’t actually have style. They have architectural and design dickheads throw shit at a wall and we have to put up with it and that’s what winds up in peoples homes.
And I have remodeled some homes to look like McDonalds and the client doesn’t even recognize it.
It’s so sad.
And I have remodeled some homes to look like McDonalds and the client doesn’t even recognize it.
Saddest part is, I also default to this sort of appearance. Though if I do see a cozy place, I like it - but if you asked me to design something, it would be millennial gray. I have no imagination.
I don’t like McDonald’s. I’m just old enough that the Play Place thing wasn’t for me.
But I’ve got family that likes that stuff, especially the kids. The one closest to my house was kept to look like a 50/60's diner with murals of rock n roll musicians and an old school juke box (with the lil baby singles records).
It was a pleasant, if not fun, setting. They gutted it to look like the prison picture.
I miss the looks of the 90's McDonald's restaurants
This is mostly because they don't want you eating inside. Maintaining a dining room takes extra staff and other expenses.
This post brings back a recent memory of my high school senior field trip to Disneyland where we went to the nearby McDonald's first, and trying to do hygene stuff in the crowded bathroom felt so ghetto, and then at the tables while other kids were talking I was writing a comment on a pull request on Lemmy's GitHub repository
'90s-'00s McDonald's primarily appealed to kids, as the colorful characters and Happy Meals were a big part of the draw.
'10s-'20s McDonalds has pivoted to marketing towards adults, in part because they had come under fire for marketing greasy, oversalted calorie bombs to children as the US obesity epidemic took off. The other reason is that mid-to-low income adults became a much more lucrative demographic after decades of wage stagnation basically created an entire generation that's too tired and overworked to cook for themselves but too poor to go out to eat anywhere else.
Don't forget that generation also saw home economics classes removed from school, so if they don't learn to cook from their parents they just don't learn to cook.
My daughter had whatever they call home ec now (consumer science?) last year when she was in sixth grade. They baked cookies.
And that was about all I did in home ec back in the late 80s too. That and sew a stuffed animal dog.
So I don't know that home ec is actually all that worth it. Not the way it's been done for decades, anyway.
Industrial arts was the same way. He had us make wooden tulips after telling a bunch of horror stories about how the power tools would maim you, so I refused to use them. And had I used them, I know now as someone who has used them since that cutting tulip pieces out of a piece of wood with a jigsaw is not much of a learning experience.
Yeah I definitely didn't learn to cook at all from home ec. I remember sowing more though and I did learn the basics at least there but it was reinforced in my house, whereas cooking was not as much, so I can't really tell if it stuck because it was a home thing too.
I think things like, what we called tech Ed that sounds like your industrial arts, was really more about introducing kids to the concepts and they could find out if it was something they were into. Most people would never attempt or maybe even know how to attempt woodworking if not introduced in school.
Wouldn't they have to have the tools at home to continue woodworking? That's pretty expensive. Isn't that just telling kids 'here's something you might learn how to do someday if you aren't poor?'
I guess you got a point there hobbywise but I was thinking more like if they're thinking about college and whatnot, if those activities are something they enjoyed in high school they might consider going into internship or trades for that kind of thing.
Alternatively, they could take some initiative and use this wonderful tool called the internet...
Did you miss the tired and overworked comment? Feeling exhausted and burned out doesn’t inspire most people to spend a large amount of time and effort learning something new.
I don't think online resources are necessarily a replacement for in-person classroom instruction, and even if they were, it's not a reason to take the option of home ec classes away from those who want it.
That said, I think it's at least a good thing that so many good internet resources on cooking exist, and it helps mitigate the problem to some degree. Still, it takes time and energy to seek out those resources, learn from them, and put them into practice. Not easy to do for anyone who has been worked far past the point of burnout and are still just scraping by.
Telling people to suck it up and just do it is a great way to feel smug while achieving nothing.
Cool. I checked and found the following types, which one should i go to. /s
90% personal blog/vlog with vague cooking tips sprinkled within
instruction video where you need a specific device or machine from sponsor brand
overly confident with a sidedish of just as clueless and stupid
overly confident with a sidedish of overreliance on uncommon tool/machine they assume everyone has
recipe which actually makes no sense taste wise but sounds cool on paper and generates clicks
legit recipe but ingredients and keywords changed into google buzzword ones (bacon gets more hits then Italian ham)
some actually good kitchen instructors that you need to know about in advance cause there burried below the mess.
I really enjoyed cooking with dog actually, shame that after my workday i am no longer in a condition to operate anything that can burn
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
cooking with dog
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Yeah, those folks who work 16 hours and have no cooking knowledge should go out and buy a bunch of pots and pans and knives and a ton of ingredients. They don't need to sleep and have plenty of extra money to waste on ruined food.
What a douchey take.
really they could start somewhere and simple and build from it and be MUCH better off than fast food daily, for nutrition and money and time. throw some raw chicken on a grill and flip it over after 12 minutes. cut some veggies/fruit up. eventually add sauces or cheese or something.
Tell me your work isnt sucking 100% of your energy without saying so.
To be fair though thats a good thing, no job should exhaust people to the point of rendering them unable to take care of themselves but for many of us that is not reality.
doesn't sound sustainable. either partner up and/or reframe your work/life balances.
It isn’t sustainable, which is what i am trying to explain my doctor.
I already stopped working full time and i landed an otherwise perfect job for me, i have no real bosses and a lot of freedom to choose my work.
I just happen to be autistic is all. The way my energy works doesn’t fit with this “work hours concept” a good work balance of me would be going to the office late when its dark, calm and quiet so i can focus, do twice the amount of work in half the time and just go home when i feel tired combined with a no strings attached guaranteed livable income.
I can’t partner up to start my own business because the concept of profit is immoral to me. My current job provides tax-paid free healthcare for kids in contrast.
The clutch is, so many people aren’t autistic and have it so much worse. Jobs where your boss gets upset because you're sick, getting pressured to work overtime and still not being able to afford rent. How about cacao farmers who work permanently to pay of a debt to their employers and get fined for missing a days work?
The modern world is not sustainable and headed for disaster.
Also those grease bomb refugees that were 5-15 during the 90s?
They were 25-35 for the '10-'20 pivot.
They never had a chance...
No, it doesn't look like a prison. It looks more like a school or a factory.
......wait a minute.
OPthe original creator has never seen a prisonIt's not terribly far off. The barebones brutalist style where the chairs are attached to the floor, hard plastic molded tabletops. Lack of items that can be moved or taken completely conveys "do your business and leave". Obviously a screen that size that wouldn't be that accessible in a prison, but it only adds the harsh nature and lack of human touch of the room.
7/10 definetly reminiscent of chow hall.
This is in absolutely no way consistent with the brutalist movement.
"Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the bare building materials and structural elements over decorative design."
I would welcome expanding my knowledge but what style do you consider buildings of few decorative designs other than their harsh geometric edges and shapes? The inner walls of a prison are often the outer wall. Just straight rows of cinderblock. Inside and outside, the structures lack other architechtural stylings because it creates hiding places or is viewed as extra work/cost during construction.Everything ends in a corner or an edge - no soft edges. As far as my experiences are concerned, that lines up pretty well unless you would rather use the word "spartan" in terms of how little decoration the state puts up.
This is a great example of how reading a WIkipedia article imparts a lot of information and absolutely zero knowledge. This, this, and this are all extremely good examples of brutalist design. The McDonald's in the OP in no way is reminiscent of such aesthetic concerns. Both are spartan, certainly; but then, so is a lot of post-modernist design (to say nothing of the various minimalist movements throughout time). I'm not here to debate whether or not prisons are brutalist in design, that's far too sweeping a category to sum up in one school of design and additionally it's not the point of the conversation here.
No, I see your point - brutalism is making an interesting structure and shaping internal spaces using building materials as a limitation.
Where prisons are function-over-form and may appear to meet the style - it is merely coincidental and is not usually artistic expressionism but rather necessity to perform a task.
McShungles is just ultramodern design that comes from a Corp cheaping out
Stuff changes. Here an example what is considered brutalism nowadays: https://thespaces.com/the-best-brutalist-homes-on-the-market-right-now/3/
TBF though, concrete walls are still pretty much a requirement.
That also describes the old McDonald's. All the seats in the older photo are also attached to the floor with hard plastic molded tables.
At least the old one has colors.
I was thinking 'Apple' when I saw it, but I didn't make the meme. So I put it in the title instead. If you change 'prison' to 'designed by Apple,' it works better.
I grew up with this McDonald's, it had a jukebox. My sister had life threatening food allergies, so we only ever went there to get orange juice, but I still loved it.
The Rock 'n Roll McDonalds in Chicago was pretty cool when I went to it as a kid. Looks like it's gone now.
Your sister risked death so you all could hang out at a place with a shark's head biting a surfboard. Respect.
If there were ever anything worth risking death over, it would be to hang out at a place with a shark's head biting a surfboard.
Also, that was like all we had to do back in the 80s when cartoons weren't on.
That's rad.
🎶 Denver, the last dinosaur. He's my friend and a whole lot more!🎶
So denver is fwb?
I don't know what fwb means. 😔
You say that but dear god, that tree has seen some shit
"Come into my fun Playland"
FUN!!!
https://youtu.be/FHqcNj0Pv6c
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/FHqcNj0Pv6c
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Old MacDonalds was a trip gone bad
E I E I O
I miss everything having distinctive features, personality, and allowing themselves to use colors and shapes.
Restaurants, business logo and branding in general, apps, everything getting normalized to the death. I know a large part of that is accessibility and cost reduction, but it's a bit sad.
In my town, subway stations where all themed around what's above them. No two stations where the same (there isn't a lot, so there's that). Now that the network is getting extensions and the old stations are remade, they're all flat, white walls with square lights, flat uniform labels (harder to see, since they're lined with the walls). If you were dropped in one without indication, it'd take some time to even know where you are.
And just none of it is fun anymore. Noble Roman's Pizza, before it became gas station pizza, had windows where kids could watch them make the pizza and they showed old silent movies and cartoons on the wall. It was awesome.
Now? Even the McDonalds playgrounds I've driven past look depressing.
Tbh I'm finding that to be quite the trend for everything today as a car guy do see some cars being cool and fun but compared to the 50s when even their equivalent of a Prius shit box was still trying so hard to look like a god damn spaceship rocket thing with so many colors that almost every car had two colors per car green and pink where common place today everything is ether trying to look like a ford focus or a SUV brick granted I currently work at a Toyota dealership so I'm constantly surrounded by Toyota cars that are in my opinion are the blandest of bland cars that only good because of their reliability Honestly even when modern cars try to copy old car design they always end up looking like the old car having a allergic reaction
I mean there you go, Toyota's are appliances. They have to look bland because their style has to remain inoffensive after decades on the road.
That being said, I'm impressed with how much style they've managed to put on the new Prius while still aiming for long-term fleet vehicle role. I also like what they're trying to do with the BZ4 styling wise, even if it's a compromised first gen product.
There's also always the Supra and LC500 :3
in my state, NC, they don't even have the playgrounds anymore (I think they outlawed fast food joints being allowed to have play places, as I typically only see them when I vacation in Virginia)
I think there's now a law about the modernization/regulation of fast food restaurants. Just so we don't have a bunch of leftover Pizza Hut buildings anymore when a store closes.
Probably good that a junk food merchant isn't marketing to kids to heavily.
Jokes on you, they dont need to anymore :)
What makes you think they're marketing to kids?
I mean we are living in an age where Call of Duty's audience is 14 year olds and Pokemon's audience is like 40
CoD was always 14 year olds.
They're not marketing to kids because those kids grew up and are adults now.
They're not marketing to kids becuase:
A) it's illegal in some countries
B) It should rightfully be looked down on
A Finnish prison? That's way too nice for an American one.
Maybe it's a Turkish prison.
nordic prisons are unironically way nicer than this, they're basically particularly boring and secure dormitories with normal looking (if very clean) rooms.
Gotta love the bottom picture.
Gigantic displays that can theoretically put whatever message you want on there before people interact with them.
Each has two printed leaflets taped to the sides.
Idk if other countries had this period, but there was a time where mcdonalds in sweden all had these semi-transparent glittery green glass mosaics on the walls and that is 100% the nicest it has ever been, it was actually nice to look at and the generally dark interiors made it very comfortable to be there.
The current interiors are.. okay, but so fucking uninspired.. At least they have some wood panels here and there, but christ would it kill them to tone down all the stark white?
Shit that sounds really cool.
it was! It baffles me that they changed it because during that era it was genuinely quite nice to go to mcdonalds and just hang out over some food.
Nothing cool can be allowed to exist.
I mean, i definitely think the new touchscreen displays for ordering are pretty cool.
My conclusion is more that capitalism sucks and higher-ups are blithering idiots who make worse decisions than a random number generator.
This is true. Its one of my better arguments for revolution.
This society is not for you, in the sense that even with all the efficiency of machinery/automation and economies og scale and expert craftsmen, its probably still less work for your clumsy not-a-boat-maker ass to look up a wikihow and build a boat from scratch than it is for you to 'earn' enough to buy a boat.
Its less work and expense to grow food from scratch to feed starving kids in your community than it is to lobby the government to use food that would have been thrown away to feed kids.
And I don't know if any random stranger would make good decisions that wouldn't get lots of people killed, but making any random dipshit off the street supreme emperor of earth, you wouldn't get, on average, worse decisions than our current oligarchs. Like, basically anyone could do better. Maybe not good enough; we've got some apocalypses on the horizon, but at least not worse. And I think we could do better than random dipshit emperor if we put our anything to it.
I was so confused when the lyrics didnt rhyme
E I E I O
That tree looks like the stranger on the street who offers to babysit your daughters for free.
And you say "okay... come on over" and make sure that stranger is never seen again.
Top one looks like from a horror movie...
You didn't grow up in the 70s or 80s, did you? That was what half the shows we watched looked like.
And by design.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_%26_Marty_Krofft_Television_Productions_Inc._v._McDonald%27s_Corp.
Old McDonald was more fun, E-I-E-I-O
Old McDonald’s looks like an „okay“ bad trip in this case
nvm that tree is creepy af
Neither of these looks good
Someone never went to a McPlayplace when it was watched over by friendly Mayor McCheese as a kid...
You're not wrong, I have 0 interest in anything McBranded
I don't now, but it was pretty standard when I was growing up in the 80s to go to McDonalds birthday parties. Happy Meals were something most kids loved getting. It's like Disney. Yes, they're a big evil corporation, but they also make things fun for kids. That's the loss me and others here are lamenting. They've taken all the fun away from these places.
I think modern McDonald's looks appropriate.
A youtuber had a good take: MacDonald's used to be cheap cheap cheap. Then they slowly tried to become fancier. So I think now they're stuck in a weird middle ground. Great opportunity for a new chain to go back to cheap cheap cheap.
I don't even think they tried. They became cosmetically fancier. Other than some coffee options to compete with Starbucks, it hasn't really changed the menu a whole lot in terms of basic offerings. Just higher prices and slicker, more corporate restaurants. I'm guessing they still do most of their business in burgers and fries, plus maybe McNuggets,
Lots of things slowly crept up the prices. I looked it up awhile ago so going off memory: All day breakfast, new equipment for something or other, as you said fancier decor, fancy coffee. It all adds up.
I'm missing the ashtrays in the 90s photo
And the old style chairs which you could "twist" the seat on lol 🤣
And that's why I hate everything and everyone
McDonalds is a reflection of the zeitgeist.
The everything resembles the prison?
I'm guessing it's for more efficient cleaning. Bummer.
They don’t want you to spend time in the restaurant. Less and less McDonalds PlayCenters are surviving. The seats in the restaurant purposely get uncomfortable after 20 minutes of sitting. Harsh lighting. Drab surfaces. They want you to get your food and go. Even better if you use the drive thru or mobile app. Any modern fast food restaurant like McDonald’s, but especially Starbucks, does not want to be your “third place”.
That doesn't mean it has to be eye searing white, imagine if they went with gray granite-like surfaces instead, that would be so much mre pleasant.
My old McDonald's in my hometown had a GameCube / N64 hooked up with 2 controllers. Was pretty dope. I think they got rid of it though, haven't been in years.
Compare to the Carl's Junior kiosks in Idiocracy.
That movie really wasn't supposed to be a documentary.
Great read, thanks for sharing that!
The world is not McDonald's though. But yes, there is a trend towards sterile clean environments with muted colors.
Have you seen the beige baby stuff? My wife watches weird videos and apparently there's a trend to have a colorless baby pretty much.
Humanity slowly goes insane... :)
The kiosks are great. I can more easily customize my McChickens, and they almost always come out boiling lava hot.
That does not sound pleasant.
That's why I don't get their apple pie.
It's pleasant because it's not like luke warm. It means it's fresh.
I can let it cool, or nuke the roof of my mouth; choice matters!
If hot was the same as fresh, you wouldn't be able to heat up day-old Chinese takeout.
The move toward self-serve stuff is actually revolutionary for people who don't like constant social interactions, i have autism and holy shit just 10 years ago i would have been spending all my social energy just talking to cashiers.
They do that partially to encourage people not to sit down and eat inside for a long time. They want you in, buying their trash, and GTFO quickly after. They make the seats intentionally uncomfortable so you don't stay for long.
It also discourages "them" from sitting there with their dirty unwashed clothes and body when they dared to only buy one thing with the money they were able to panhandle.
Wouldn't want to let such people have a warm place to sit that wasn't the public library, now would we? By the way, when do we close down the public library?
Source?
Old times: people did the good drugs
New times: drug tests
This guy was in the lobby at the McDonald's in the local mall jamming on a self playing piano throughout my childhood. Now it's just a bland, boring lifeless shell of its former self.
more like a hospital 🏥 than a prison.
Seems to me like there's a pretty wide variety of McDonald's interiors.
Top image looks like a dystopia abandoned place from a Disney villain. Low image looks like a nice simple area
I hope Gen Z fixes this when we're running the businesses.
i'm praying gen Z fixes this by telling corporations to fuck off and going back to how fast food worked for most of human civilization: just random people selling stuff from their kitchen, basically.
fun fact: at least in rome it was basically standard for most people to eat "fast food", the streets were jam packed with various little food shops.
I think that's still the case in some places, take countries like Korea or Vietnam, where street food is everywhere and it won't literally kill you to live off of it.
Their food is absolute garbage do not eat there.
The fancy look is just what everyone else is doing.
America doesn’t actually have style. They have architectural and design dickheads throw shit at a wall and we have to put up with it and that’s what winds up in peoples homes.
And I have remodeled some homes to look like McDonalds and the client doesn’t even recognize it.
It’s so sad.
Can you elaborate on that story?
It's been in style for a while
Saddest part is, I also default to this sort of appearance. Though if I do see a cozy place, I like it - but if you asked me to design something, it would be millennial gray. I have no imagination.
I don’t like McDonald’s. I’m just old enough that the Play Place thing wasn’t for me.
But I’ve got family that likes that stuff, especially the kids. The one closest to my house was kept to look like a 50/60's diner with murals of rock n roll musicians and an old school juke box (with the lil baby singles records).
It was a pleasant, if not fun, setting. They gutted it to look like the prison picture.
I miss the looks of the 90's McDonald's restaurants
This is mostly because they don't want you eating inside. Maintaining a dining room takes extra staff and other expenses.
This post brings back a recent memory of my high school senior field trip to Disneyland where we went to the nearby McDonald's first, and trying to do hygene stuff in the crowded bathroom felt so ghetto, and then at the tables while other kids were talking I was writing a comment on a pull request on Lemmy's GitHub repository