I'm actually going to say that I think designing a restaurant for disastrously unhealthy fast food in a way that makes it look and feel like a playground shouldn't be legal, and I'm happy to see them look as dull and unappealing as possible to young children.
The ongoing health crisis is so severe in no small part because of things like that 1990s picture getting kids addicted to trash. This post feels like someone from the 1970s yearning for the days of Joe Camel. Plain packaging does work.
Edit: I thought Joe Camel was much older than it really is.
I recently watched a (german) video about the exact development of McDonalds depicted in the meme and it made me realize how much of the experience had been catered towards children and how I felt when I went there more often (or at all) when I was younger.
it's not about mc d's. almost every business is doing this. Everything fun, colorful, expressive and artistic MUST go. All must be replaced with homogeneous minimalism.
mc d's is used as the example because they led the way with this shit.
Fair point! I entirely agree with that perspective in other areas. If we're using this as an example, then I understand why, but I actually think this is one example where the change is a tangibly good thing.
In addition to moving away from marketing directly to children, the reason a lot of fast foot restaurants are rebranding to look like grey cubes is to make the buildings more generic and therefore more valuable as commercial real estate.
We've all seen the local Mexican restaurant that definitely used to be a Pizza Hut. This is to avoid that.
That sounds like the commercial real estate version of cancer to me, but I'm no expert in that field. I can see you're right, though. It's up there with motel art and off-white walls.
McDonald's specifically is famously a real estate company that happens to serve burgers on the side. The corporation owns all of the land that its franchises are sitting on, so they can park a restaurant on it and sell it for a profit after the land appreciates in value.
AFAIK it was part of a larger restoration of the whole building complex (this is the Budapest Nyugati railway station), and the global redesign of McDonalds. They justified it by saying that the architecture is closer to the original - the lower level only became part of it when they built the McDonalds in 1990, before that it was a separate diner for the poors in third class. The furniture is default McDonalds.
The overall restoration on the building at large is not bad per se, but they basically destroyed a symbol of the Hungarian 90s - 00s. This was the place where if you lived in Budapest and got wasted, you could get some nutrition in the city center, and it wasn't full of tourists because they didn't think that the railway station buffet was so good.
BTW the local franchisee is trying to cater more to a "fast casual" crowd rather than the bare minimum, so a McDonalds in Hungary has a menu three times as long as one in the Netherlands for example. All I'm saying is that it was a nice place considering. Sic transit gloria mundi I guess.
My college did this. It might have been due to bedbugs. They swapped the cozy built in furniture with this weird vinyl stuff. Bugs can't get into the seams.
When I talk about how much I miss the 90s McDonalds, I'm mostly complaining about the loss of a third space. My parents would go to McDonalds so we had a safe, climate-controlled, indoor play space, and we could spend hours there for the price of something off the dollar menu.
I don't know of anywhere comparable these days. Anything indoors is going to be expensive, you have to get the city to unlock the local hoops, the cops start asking questions if you just want to hang out with friends, and if you have too many friends they make you get a permit to use the public park.
Libraries are basically the only remaining third space, but they don't fill the same need as the original commentor. Libraries don't have places for kids to run around, be noisy, and climb things. That would be awesome though
Some do. My library has a play area set up for littles and another area set up for infants. On Saturdays they have a sing along story hour thing, and other events like that throughout the week. We also have plenty of local parks with playground equipment. No free place with indoor slides and ball pits though like McDonald's used to have.
Discovery Zone, man. I actually feel bad for the kids that never got to experience Discovery Zone. Lasted for like 2 years. It apparently failed because they had a mountain of debt (all those plastic tubes are capital intensive buildouts) and adults had to sit around while their kids played.
I feel like if you made it work like a gym membership for your kids, and had something for adults to do off to the side, you might be able to make the numbers work.
Me, too, but I wasn't about to chop the original meme and stitch it back together in a better order. If you do it for me, you can have all my imaginary internet points, though.
No kidding. Not just them either. I know it's a cultural thing in US restaurants, but I feel like I'm being rushed out the door. I know on the surface it's a having respect for a person's time thing, but it feels like an eating contest sometimes.
We will collapse the human empire by convincing the peasants within it to purchase art from artists until the economy becomes untirely imaginary (as all art is at least somewhat imaginary) and collapses.
You're right. I just didn't feel like chopping the original meme and stitching it back together. I just made my little addition to the top. I guess that did make the post a little...shitty.
Yeah, I can get not wanting to spend the time/effort. Though, there is a difference between a shit post and a shitpost. People always conflate the two.
Same(ish) here in the Netherlands. The fact that the near vicinity isn't entirely asphalt and concrete, due to there not being 300 parking spaces for a fast food place, probably helps it not feel like a Nazi bunker.
I was born in the early '80s. The 2000s picture was what my McDonald's always looked like throughout my childhood. I've never seen a McDonald's that looked like the '90s pic.
The 2020 pic shows current McDonald's, but they changed to that sometime in the mid-2010s.
That 1990's McDonald's picture is the specific restaurant that was across the entrance from the Dallas Zoo, hence the animal theme. While it's now remodeled and much more dull, it still looked like the picture up until just a few years ago. In any case, it's not typical of what a McDonald's has ever looked like.
As someone born around the same time as you, I do remember when the typical McDonald's had a bright red roof with the yellow lights, which the 2000's pic is a toned-down version of.
Hold on there's a McDonalds I remember going to, and I'm trying to think if it was in Scotland or England, but we stopped off there and the fucking place looked near enough like a villain's lair.
idk and I'm raking my brains to find out where it is. All I remember is that it was in a service area/retail park somwhere in Scotland/Northwestern England, could literally be anywhere between Inverness and Lancaster.
UPDATE
I found it, I found it! It's this one right here. It looked more menacing in my memory for some reason. We must've been going to Foyers (Loch Ness) at the time!
Respectfully, I must disagree. I feel like children need a place where they can be free to unwind after their 16-hour factory shifts and maybe grab a beer.
Inside the top one, you can hear screams regularly going like this:
No, please no, I don't wanna fucking die! No! Please no, you fucking fucking bastards! AAAAAH, IT HURTS, IT FUCKING HURTS! AAAAAAAAAHHH, MY ARMS, MY FUCKING ARMS, YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!
For me, it was just a silly metaphor, but you might be onto something:
"Fasting is eating. Refusing is ordering. Salad is burger." ~ George Orwell
"I have very vivid dreams and nightmares, and my biggest fear is of some kind of dystopian future where we're advanced in every way except in our burgers." ~ Bryce Dallas Howard
"Dystopian novels help people process their fears about what the future burger might look like; further, they usually show that there is always hope, even in the bleakest future burger." ~ Lauren Oliver
"Who controls the past controls the burger. Who controls the present controls the past." ~ George Orwell
It's the same thing that happened to the fair phone regarding the audio jack
The noisy minority wants it, they yell, write on forums and complain, but they are statically nonsignificant as people keep buying the phone
Same with colors. Why waste millions on cars and buildings dyed with colors no one might want instead of appealing to the broader consumer base?
They are also are influenced by and influencing fashion and trends in color choice as well, just look at minimalism and brutalism. It is also cheaper and more efficient on the design and manufacturing to offer things in less specialized coloration
Proof is that people keep buying stuff
Same as with furniture. There is a reason why Ikea is a whole thing
Going into the meta, imagine someone wants to buy a car. Inevitably, they will think as well on the day they will sell the car. What are you gonna buy? A car painted in a weird color? Or something that you know for sure no one will mind THAT much?
Ithat, or you can go with the theory of the Pixies finally doing their takeover
I'm actually going to say that I think designing a restaurant for disastrously unhealthy fast food in a way that makes it look and feel like a playground shouldn't be legal, and I'm happy to see them look as dull and unappealing as possible to young children.
The ongoing health crisis is so severe in no small part because of things like that 1990s picture getting kids addicted to trash. This post feels like someone from the 1970s yearning for the days of Joe Camel. Plain packaging does work.
Edit: I thought Joe Camel was much older than it really is.
I recently watched a (german) video about the exact development of McDonalds depicted in the meme and it made me realize how much of the experience had been catered towards children and how I felt when I went there more often (or at all) when I was younger.
it's not about mc d's. almost every business is doing this. Everything fun, colorful, expressive and artistic MUST go. All must be replaced with homogeneous minimalism.
mc d's is used as the example because they led the way with this shit.
Fair point! I entirely agree with that perspective in other areas. If we're using this as an example, then I understand why, but I actually think this is one example where the change is a tangibly good thing.
That's what makes using mc d's as the example is a bad choice, but nobody consulted me about it.
I also read that cars turned less colorful since 1970s.
And a colleague told me that he read that skirts got longer on average since 1970, but idk about that one.
Also i noticed that most pop music these days are break-up songs.
Really shows you the mood of society.
Interesting take. Maybe they should be designed like an art gallery of various medical office styles. Kids would hate that.
Edit: I'm glad cigarettes are on their way out, but I used to love these when I was even stupider:
In addition to moving away from marketing directly to children, the reason a lot of fast foot restaurants are rebranding to look like grey cubes is to make the buildings more generic and therefore more valuable as commercial real estate.
We've all seen the local Mexican restaurant that definitely used to be a Pizza Hut. This is to avoid that.
That sounds like the commercial real estate version of cancer to me, but I'm no expert in that field. I can see you're right, though. It's up there with motel art and off-white walls.
McDonald's specifically is famously a real estate company that happens to serve burgers on the side. The corporation owns all of the land that its franchises are sitting on, so they can park a restaurant on it and sell it for a profit after the land appreciates in value.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJVj3vp-lho
Wheels within wheels within wheels...
That, and they want customers GONE. Eating in take space. People who come, get food, and leave are their favorites because it increases throughput.
"Two golden menus!"
Hooters is gone. This isn't off the table.
We used to have the only McDonald's (that I know of) that was in a building designed by Eiffel.
They "modernised" it last year.
Wow, which piece of shit did they bribe for that? They completely destroyed the interior of the building. Isn't there any heritage protection?
AFAIK it was part of a larger restoration of the whole building complex (this is the Budapest Nyugati railway station), and the global redesign of McDonalds. They justified it by saying that the architecture is closer to the original - the lower level only became part of it when they built the McDonalds in 1990, before that it was a separate diner for the poors in third class. The furniture is default McDonalds.
The overall restoration on the building at large is not bad per se, but they basically destroyed a symbol of the Hungarian 90s - 00s. This was the place where if you lived in Budapest and got wasted, you could get some nutrition in the city center, and it wasn't full of tourists because they didn't think that the railway station buffet was so good.
BTW the local franchisee is trying to cater more to a "fast casual" crowd rather than the bare minimum, so a McDonalds in Hungary has a menu three times as long as one in the Netherlands for example. All I'm saying is that it was a nice place considering. Sic transit gloria mundi I guess.
Thank you for the interesting context!
The place was a part of my early youth, I was sad to see it go.
Can I have my fries tho you were holding them those last three paragraphs no keep talking tho this is interesting
From beautiful 19th century architecture to boring modern office lounge. Not everything needs to be updated for current trends.
My college did this. It might have been due to bedbugs. They swapped the cozy built in furniture with this weird vinyl stuff. Bugs can't get into the seams.
Some of that is from white balance making the top picture look warmer, but even accounting for that, it's a tragedy.
Corpo interior designers should be hunted, and theblicenses should fund repairing damage they die.
When I talk about how much I miss the 90s McDonalds, I'm mostly complaining about the loss of a third space. My parents would go to McDonalds so we had a safe, climate-controlled, indoor play space, and we could spend hours there for the price of something off the dollar menu.
I don't know of anywhere comparable these days. Anything indoors is going to be expensive, you have to get the city to unlock the local hoops, the cops start asking questions if you just want to hang out with friends, and if you have too many friends they make you get a permit to use the public park.
Library? ยฏ_(ใ)_/ยฏ
Libraries are basically the only remaining third space, but they don't fill the same need as the original commentor. Libraries don't have places for kids to run around, be noisy, and climb things. That would be awesome though
And the right+libertarians want to destroy libraries too.
Some do. My library has a play area set up for littles and another area set up for infants. On Saturdays they have a sing along story hour thing, and other events like that throughout the week. We also have plenty of local parks with playground equipment. No free place with indoor slides and ball pits though like McDonald's used to have.
Libraries don't have playgrounds, and don't allow food, drink, or birthday parties with friends.
Actually a lot of libraries do events. They have separate areas for it
Whaat, my library barely has computers.
Thats unfortunate..but my city is like 200k people so that maybe helps. 6 libraries
Discovery Zone, man. I actually feel bad for the kids that never got to experience Discovery Zone. Lasted for like 2 years. It apparently failed because they had a mountain of debt (all those plastic tubes are capital intensive buildouts) and adults had to sit around while their kids played.
I feel like if you made it work like a gym membership for your kids, and had something for adults to do off to the side, you might be able to make the numbers work.
Instead of McCafe, it should be "McSoylent".
Excellent suggestion. Here you go:
Would you like a 64 oz McEnergy with your McSoylent?
"I've exhausted my monthly ration allowance for McEnergy, so I'll have to pass today."
I'd like to change the order of the meme
Me, too, but I wasn't about to chop the original meme and stitch it back together in a better order. If you do it for me, you can have all my imaginary internet points, though.
"You are in McDonald's. Consume and exit."
No kidding. Not just them either. I know it's a cultural thing in US restaurants, but I feel like I'm being rushed out the door. I know on the surface it's a having respect for a person's time thing, but it feels like an eating contest sometimes.
depends how they do it. Nothing says "we're a legit chinese restaurant" more than getting the "fuck off oranges" when you're done.
Funny thing is, I love those oranges.
Hahah the fuck off oranges. Iโll never see them differently now. ๐
https://www.sighthound-studio.com/blog/2016/6/24/simon-stalenhag
https://www.simonstalenhag.se/
Thanks! I might get a print. Those are cool.
The artbook is very cool too
https://www.tamarareads.com/2020/12/28/simon-stalenhag-art-books-tales-from-the-loop/
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Electric-State/Simon-Stalenhag/9781501181412
You have set me back financially by at least a month, but thank you.
That is long enough for our plan
We will collapse the human empire by convincing the peasants within it to purchase art from artists until the economy becomes untirely imaginary (as all art is at least somewhat imaginary) and collapses.
CAWCAWCAWCAWCAW
Long live the Crowvelution!
That's SO Raven!
The order needs to be reversed. People don't really read from the bottom up.
You're right. I just didn't feel like chopping the original meme and stitching it back together. I just made my little addition to the top. I guess that did make the post a little...shitty.
Yeah, I can get not wanting to spend the time/effort. Though, there is a difference between a shit post and a shitpost. People always conflate the two.
Not me. I only post shit shitposts so no matter why people hate it, they're right.
80s : Pizza hut
I miss it every day. That salad bar. The cups. The lamps. I wonder what things of today I'll miss in 40 years.
Being alive. ๐
I will never recover from that. You have my begrudging admiration. If you need me, I'll be in the burn ward.
My god, it even has a drinks fountain.
Welcome to McDonald's, the All-American Restaurant, papers please
A couple of minutes in Dystopika, annnnnd....
You laugh, but a cashless society means ID'ing oneself with every transaction.
McDonalds: Fuck you I'm eating! / Home of the Extra Bigass Fries
I was so sure that movie was hyperbole.
It's this a picture of kids growing olderยฟ?
You may have a future in marketing.
So mean how dare you!
... But if you're hiring I'm relatively cheap and hard working if somewhat stupid
Lol
Oh you're not selling this
Lol, cuck
You're hired, starting at 300000k/yr.
๐คฃ
Adapting to their growing customers
There's the hauntingly predatory nature I was struggling to portray.
More like hambinger
The harburgler of doom. Robble robble!
Damn, I wish I'd thought of that.
The French branch puts some effort in it, usually they look like this
If I saw that in America I'd think it used to be a Starbucks.
And god knows McDonald's wouldn't want to be confused with inferior coffee.
Looks about the same in Sweden. Wood panels with green accents together with the golden arches
i miss that brief period some 5-10 years ago when they had genuinely pretty green glass mosaics with gold streaks throughout
Same(ish) here in the Netherlands. The fact that the near vicinity isn't entirely asphalt and concrete, due to there not being 300 parking spaces for a fast food place, probably helps it not feel like a Nazi bunker.
Going to a French McDonalds must be like going to a dietician, but they're just chain-smokimg throughout the appointment.
needs to change the sign and logo to be more brutalist as well
You're entirely right, but you might be writing cheques my 5-year-old phone can't cash.
I mean, I wouldn't say no to a brutalist McDonald's.
I would, but I'm rejecting the mc d's part not the brutalist part.
brutalist architecture is fucking cool.
That's fair.
brutalist state-owned fast food joint, everything's cheap but not that cheap and perfectly middling quality, and there's 4 things on the menu
I'd at least try it
Brutalist fast food restaurants? Don't threaten me with a good time. Fuckin love me some brutalism
If it were borne out of a progressive, socialist democracy, I'd be on board. Auth-right brutalist fast food would be a horror show.
Upton Sinclair has entered the chat
Upton Sinclair has left the chat in frustration.
"I warned you, but did you listen?!"
Ahhh gotta love the brutalist architecture.
The food is also going to be shit like bugs or lab-made pink paste. Possibly made with bugs.
I don't know if that will be better or worse than what they currently serve up.
Soylent Green didn't test well with consumers, so we fed it to bugs and made Soylent Pink.
it's an american business, it'll be corn burgers with cornbread and slices of corn served with deep fried popcorn and a tall glass of corn syrup
Just insert the mcnuggets tube into your throat, sir, and the credits will be deducted from your daily quota
Wouldn't be allowed here. 30 minute limit on the dinibg rooms. With purchase.
I was born in the early '80s. The 2000s picture was what my McDonald's always looked like throughout my childhood. I've never seen a McDonald's that looked like the '90s pic.
The 2020 pic shows current McDonald's, but they changed to that sometime in the mid-2010s.
That 1990's McDonald's picture is the specific restaurant that was across the entrance from the Dallas Zoo, hence the animal theme. While it's now remodeled and much more dull, it still looked like the picture up until just a few years ago. In any case, it's not typical of what a McDonald's has ever looked like.
As someone born around the same time as you, I do remember when the typical McDonald's had a bright red roof with the yellow lights, which the 2000's pic is a toned-down version of.
Oh, it's been harbinged. We're in it.
I feel a little cheated. I was supposed to get a cool cyberpunk hacking machine. All I have is a Flipper Zero and a bunch of debt.
McNormandy opens June 2026
Don't give them any more ideas.
Hold on there's a McDonalds I remember going to, and I'm trying to think if it was in Scotland or England, but we stopped off there and the fucking place looked near enough like a villain's lair.
I have to know where this is. What resources do you require to find it?
idk and I'm raking my brains to find out where it is. All I remember is that it was in a service area/retail park somwhere in Scotland/Northwestern England, could literally be anywhere between Inverness and Lancaster.
UPDATE
I found it, I found it! It's this one right here. It looked more menacing in my memory for some reason. We must've been going to Foyers (Loch Ness) at the time!
Still, that's really cool! There's something particularly funny about a McDonald's in Scotland. It feels like a Taco Bell in Spain.
I mean, McDonald is a Scottish name, but McDonald's doesn't sell Scottish Food.
Yeah, that's what I was trying to express. Taco Bell is vaguely Spanish, but doesn't have anything to do with Spain (or Mexico, for that matter).
It would be like an O'Brien's restaurant that primarily sells sushi.
The 2000s was perfect
My generation was the best generation. I know a lot of people feel that way, but my generation was the only one that was correct.
Le right generation
Ofc
I prefer the 20s look
2020s looks like a crappy run down office sold & converted into a makeshift McDonaldโs lol
Which is ridiculously fitting.
I donโt like the idea of publicly visible advertisements, I think it leads to distracted driving
The 2000s design is not distracting :)
The 2000s design is not distracting :)
Good thing they dont target children like in the past anymore tbh. The flag pole is dystopian af though
It should have been replaced by a 20mm turret.
I don't like the sound of that. Can we call it a "freedom launcher?"
Respectfully, I must disagree. I feel like children need a place where they can be free to unwind after their 16-hour factory shifts and maybe grab a beer.
Dystopian? The flag that waved over this?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/28/fact-check-9-things-women-couldnt-do-1971-mostly-right/3677101001/
$3.99 Big Mac combos ๐ญ
Those were the days. Don't look at how the size changed over time. It'll make you too sad.
It's going to suck to be forced to eat there. But what can you do, the ziabatsu commands it.
Yeah, we're nearly back there. I didn't have revisiting feudalism on my bingo card.
A new McDonaldโs commercial has a burger stolen and the character shouts โitโs the hamburger thiefโ
Cultural erasure
Al-Beefda
We transitioned from the war on crime to the war on terrorism.
The soon one makes sense 'cause of global warming. We don't be able to do it like the good old times.
I wonder what will be in the filet-o-fish when we run out of fish.
I shudder to think what the 1908s and 1970s McDs looked like in the US.
Or worse, a McDonald's in 1860s Mississippi.
Inside the top one, you can hear screams regularly going like this:
Love your imagination. Tell me what the McDonald's employees are doing to the customer's arms.
Taco bell recycled, Pizza Hut recycled, peak kids life bottom.
I for one welcome our new brutalist McDonald's overlord ๐
It should be a hole underground.
That's the 2040s after WWIII
Ah yes. Because we all know that dystopia is when dull burger.
For me, it was just a silly metaphor, but you might be onto something:
"Fasting is eating. Refusing is ordering. Salad is burger." ~ George Orwell
"I have very vivid dreams and nightmares, and my biggest fear is of some kind of dystopian future where we're advanced in every way except in our burgers." ~ Bryce Dallas Howard
"Dystopian novels help people process their fears about what the future burger might look like; further, they usually show that there is always hope, even in the bleakest future burger." ~ Lauren Oliver
"Who controls the past controls the burger. Who controls the present controls the past." ~ George Orwell
It's the same thing that happened to the fair phone regarding the audio jack
The noisy minority wants it, they yell, write on forums and complain, but they are statically nonsignificant as people keep buying the phone
Same with colors. Why waste millions on cars and buildings dyed with colors no one might want instead of appealing to the broader consumer base?
They are also are influenced by and influencing fashion and trends in color choice as well, just look at minimalism and brutalism. It is also cheaper and more efficient on the design and manufacturing to offer things in less specialized coloration
Proof is that people keep buying stuff
Same as with furniture. There is a reason why Ikea is a whole thing
Going into the meta, imagine someone wants to buy a car. Inevitably, they will think as well on the day they will sell the car. What are you gonna buy? A car painted in a weird color? Or something that you know for sure no one will mind THAT much?
Ithat, or you can go with the theory of the Pixies finally doing their takeover
McDonaldโs use to be a place for kids. They have since rebranded to let people know thereโs stuff on the menu thatโs for adults.
Much of marketing to Americans is treating everyone like a monkey and using colors to trick them into buying your stuff.
Are you the ob/gyn that recommends pregnant people to swap chocolate for broccoli?