TBF, the latter is a much better reflection of how lifeless and awful their food is.
This speaks for itself
Submitted 1 month ago by Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com to aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/65910627-82cd-4e32-a739-d03651b7869f.webp
Comments
DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world 1 month ago
JudahBenHur@lemm.ee 1 month ago
i was really hungover and had taken some painkillers with codeine and i had a single mcdonalds cheeseburg and it was dynamite
skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
I would wager it was the codeine painkillers that were dynamite and the burger was mostly a side effect
LiveLM@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
I’d say lots of food taste amazing when drunk /hungover, let alone on a codeine high
VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
The last time I ate McDonald’s, I arrived in Pasewalk, a tiny town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on a mich delayed train at 2 in the morning. They where the only place that was open, and I hadn’t eaten since noon.
That burger was kinda OK, but it might have been the circumstance. They stopped selling vegan burgers anyway, so whatever.
subarctictundra@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Hunger is the best cook 🤷♀️
RaoulDook@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It reminds me of the Griswold’s neighbors in the Christmas Vacation movie, Elaine and Ponytail
themoken@startrek.website 1 month ago
The mistreatment of the yuppies is my favorite part of that movie. When she opens the door and gets attacked by the squirrel and then the dog, or when the icicle destroys their stereo I crack up every time.
BakerBagel@midwest.social 1 month ago
Todd and Margot
dev_null@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
Really depends on the country. Technically the menu is the almost the same everywhere but the ingredients and quality absolutely isn’t.
Baggie@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
I know it’s a perfect example but I’m sick of modern design trends. Muted colours and uniform shapes, nothing ever interesting or emotion inducing. I’m probably pretty biased but still I’d love to see something that had some life to it.
Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
That’s the point that I thought was obvious. Everyone else seems to be focusing on other factors…
Baggie@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
I feel you. They aren’t necessarily wrong to concentrate on the other stuff, but the world did feel a bit happier when things had a bit of life to them, at least to me.
olafurp@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It looks like they’re marketing now to an older demographic instead of just children. They’re going for the “millennial gray” look which may encourage people to go to it as a restaurant instead of children activity.
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 1 month ago
They wanted to shift from marketing to children to marketing to adults so they could raise the prices.
dustyData@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If I recall correctly, they were forced. There’s an obesity pandemic going on in children, mostly driven by excessive use of sugars and overconsumption of fast food and sodas. So, there were certain regulations limiting how directed at children the marketing could be. They can still charge exorbitant prices to children, their parents are the ones buying anyways.
buffalobuffalo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
Exactly. Nobody in this thread remembers Super Size Me?
meliaesc@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’m an adult who also enjoys fun. 😢
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Me too but they won’t let me in the play place anymore :(
Jhex@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Enjoy fun?? Pftt grow up
/s
someguy3@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yup, they tried to be cool and semi restaurant.
carbonari_sandwich@lemm.ee 1 month ago
It’s the subtler version of hostile architecture. You know how they designed benches to be impossible for homeless people to sleep on? They do not want a customer to stay at the building after they have made a purchase. It is more efficient if the children do not come inside and a new customer can take their place. The building is not made for humans, it is made for money.
Saprophyte@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This is more like brutalism. www.architecture.com/…/brutalism
Yaarmehearty@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
I usually hate the removal of fun from public spaces, however not having a horrifically unhealthy place designed to attract children is probably a good thing.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The advertising model has changed, but the food is still slop and the goal is still to draw in big families who can’t afford to make dinner. What’s changed over the last forty years has been the means by which people are incentivized to enter the building. You’re no longer trying to bait children from the side of the road with a big van that says “Free Candy”. Instead, you’re focusing on bombarding kids with advertisements on YouTube streams and targeting parents with gamified repeat customer incentives. But they’ve also focused more on getting customers out the door than in, improving the speed and reducing the front-facing staff, such that customers are encouraged to get their food and leave rather than linger in kid-friendly private sector daycares.
Dasus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
still to draw in big families who can’t afford to make dinner.
What
How would making food at home be more expensive than McDonald’s ? Is this some sort of an American thing I’m too European to understand?
mohammed_alibi@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This was a McDonald’s next to the Dallas Zoo…
andros_rex@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I remember getting to play Nintendo 64 at our McDonalds. You could play things like smash, and usually could get in a full match before it did its mandatory reboot things.
Grocery stores would often have childcare areas up until the 90s I think.
So many of those little casual extras/“customer service” has gone out the window. It’s about stripping out everything that doesn’t immediately gain you profit.
Like, back in the day - retail worker was supposed to know their shit. It was a full time job. You could go to Dillard’s and some older guy could give you advice on what to match with what. You could go to a Radio Shack and say you were having trouble with a project, and there’d be a good chance that you’d end up getting some help.
But businesses would rather pay someone $9/hour for a part time job that’ll fuck with their hours every week. Why have someone who’s paid a living wage who can help sell you a really nice coat for a few hundred bucks, when you can pay some shit to hawk polyester shit that wouldn’t even be worth paying a commission on?
AJ1@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Your Radio Shack example is legit. I had an uncle who worked at Radio Shack as some sort of, idk, tech or something? I was a kid and it was in the 80’s, all I knew was that he worked there and made good money doing it.
Then one day he gets recruited by a multinational tech corporation and moves to Berlin to work in a lab. He could’ve taken my aunt with him, but she cheated on him as soon as he left for the 2 probationary weeks he spent in Germany before the company in question committed to hiring him.
He eventually became a millionaire with dual citizenship and my aunt married some abusive dipshit who immediately went broke. Now she works in a pickle factory. Ain’t life interesting?
bane_killgrind@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
Just chasing pickle again and again
Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Well fuckin said and spot on!
Also thanks for reminding me how great Radio Shack used to be. It used to be a place to get actual electronics components. And the people there knew their shit. And there was enough intelligent folks around to keep a place like that in business! God I miss those days…
Grass@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
another for the list of things with downvotes for no apparent reason
Daelsky@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Urgh this sucks so much how capitalism is just making everything more « efficient » aka maximizing profits.
user224@lemmy.sdf.org 1 month ago
Ahem, not marketing to kids is bad?
Nah, bottom is better. Attracting kids to get the habit of eating unhealthy isn’t.
AWittyUsername@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This isn’t about McDonald’s this is about society. All the colour and excitement has gone, McDonald’s is just one of the casualties.
dustyData@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Corporations can’t, by definition, be victims. Fuck them all.
Hikermick@lemmy.world 1 month ago
McDonald’s is now trying to appeal to adults and the building reflects that. They did away with Ronald and all the characters long ago. No more indoor playgrounds. No more cartoon movie toys. I think they still have happy meals but we’re better known for their dollar menu now called a McValue menu
korazail@lemmy.myserv.one 1 month ago
The McDonalds near me recently clobbered their tiny playplace and turned it into a … conference room/center?
About the only time I went there was when I need a place for my kiddos to spend some energy on a rainy day at like 8am, before other things opened. I was happy to buy a coffee and biscuit for myself and maybe a treat for them to pay for my occupancy.
Now, though, and I know I wasn’t a giant source of income, they have lost my custom and I just can’t see how any real business would ever run a meeting in a McDonalds conference room, so it just seems like a dumb move.
Maybe they want to discourage parents bringing their children? That also seems pretty stupid.
Hikermick@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Like a lot of things I’ll bet it was an insurance liability plus a lot of labor to keep it clean and safe. McDonald’s is struggling to survive in a business where new=exciting and what your parents grew up with=lame. Burger Kings are closing left and right where I live. They’ve done nothing to adapt.
Funny thing about that conference room. I have an uncle who has quite a bit of money. He eats off of the McDonald’s dollar menu (or at least he did when it was still a thing). He’ll take us somewhere nice when visiting, he’s quite generous but he always makes a point to mention he eats at McDonald’s. He gives financial advice, i can see him holding meetings there
dubyakay@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Probably liability issues with kids getting the stupidest injuries and parents suing them for it.
I blame the insurance industry and lack of public health care for this, not McDonald’s.
Dozzi92@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Wasn’t part of it related to backlash McDonald’s got from essentially marketing themselves to kids? Make the place look nuts, kids say that’s awesome, let’s go there, now you got kids eating McDonald’s. Not suggesting that is how it goes, but I believe I recall reading something to that effect, regarding a rationale behind the new look.
As an aside, the building looks boring, but so does everyone’s “shades of gray” interiors inside and outside their homes. I drove black cars forever because black is best color for cars, but I got a blue one now, because we are just surrounded in shades of gray everywhere, and it is, as the sublemmy states, a boring dystopia.
TehWorld@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Black cars look dirty so much faster than any other color, they get hotter in the sun, and they’re harder to see at night which ostensibly would lead to more accidents.
Hikermick@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yes they did get criticism for it but I can’t say if the change came about because of it. I did read that they got rid of Ronald during that short time that there were news reports of people dressing up as clowns and freaking people out.
Yeah you’re right about the colors of things. In the 90’s there was a big deal made about cars painted green again
samus12345@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Bottom picture: for adults
Top picture: for children and neurodiverse adults
At least, that’s my take since I like the top picture more.
PixelPinecone@lemmy.today 1 month ago
My guess is because populations around the world are getting older, with an ever increasing median age. If there’s not enough kids to keep up profits, well time to focus on the adults, from their perspective.
BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Donald’s second term
96VXb9ktTjFnRi@feddit.nl 1 month ago
All fun and games untill obesity sets in, probably before puberty. McDonalds tries it’s very best to instill the habit of regular fast-food consumption in to children across the world. I’m all in favor for fun and games for kids, but I get uncomfortable when you target your fast-food chain at children. Let’s just make a public playground for kids, and let’s not allow the obesity-salesmen to target kids.
Yoga@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Unhealthy garbage, full of sugar, made off the backs of tortured animals not being peddled to children is a good thing.
We need more fun, kid friendly spaces but I’m grateful there’s one less hook these places have in children’s minds.
TheBannedLemming@lemmy.world 1 month ago
That’s because the nature of the marketing model has changed. Mcdonald’s has shifted their marketing demographic to exclusively adults due to the decades of growing backlash and lawsuits over the nutritional value and predatory practices of targeting children. Among many other controversies. Of all the businesses in any industry, this is probably one of the worst examples to give.
Yes, their’s truth from an architectural stance that does show a shift to contemporary minimalism. But McDonald’s, while perhaps not the most inherently evil company in the world, at least by the amount of true harm they purposely do or the product they provide and those who voluntary choose to consume it. Is still a reflection of many of the United State’s problems. Everything from issues concerning wages, labor relations, nutritional literacy, and lifestyle practices, to name a few.
HiddenLychee@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Well this adult wants a colorful, fun, whimsical eatery to forget the humdrummery of daily life, is that too much to ask?
Angelusz@lemmy.world 1 month ago
At this time in history and with this state of the world, yeah. But you can make your own whimsical, happy and lively! (and there’s some more expensive restaurants that are still themed)
AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
As an adult, when I entered a redesigned MacDonald’s it did not appeal to me at all. It was like being inside the architectural embodiment of depression.
Not that it matters. MacDonald’s didn’t seem to mind Trump associating himself with their brand, so I won’t be eating anything from there ever again anyway (ignoring the myriad of other reasons to avoid them as well).
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
McDonald’s, while perhaps not the most inherently evil company in the world,
It’s a grift based on destroying the planet, torturing and murdering animals, destroying people’s health, and supporting genocide.
So perhaps it is among the most evil capitalists on the planet.
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
yawn You really had to throw in your vegan soapboxing in there alongside other valid reasons, didn’t you? Blocked.
Subtracty@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Not just McDonald’s, every big chain has it’s own neutral toned square box exterior now. Nothing interesting about any of the architecture. Not that they have to be great works of art, but everything looks exactly the same.
petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
I do think they have an obligation to be pretty. Pretty things make people happy. It’s a contribution to the social project we’re all working on.
A walkable city, not that a McDonalds drive-thru is specifically part of that, should have greenery, places to hang out, and pretty buildings to look at. People should like being wherever they happen to be.
The main reason this McDonalds looks like this is austerity. At least I think so. Big gray cubes are cheap to build and easily templateable.
SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The main reason this McDonalds looks like this is austerity. At least I think so. Big gray cubes are cheap to build and easily templateable.
Yeah, that’s the problem!
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Now they are pretty, but I see why you’re unhappy.
ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 1 month ago
Whenever I take road trips I try to spot the old Pizza Hut buildings by the shape of the roof. It’s surprising how many there are.
HawlSera@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Honestly sometimes I wonder if some form of Solipsism is true and the reason the world isn’t bright and colorful anymore is because I’m no longer a kid.
Now do I genuinely believe I’m the only one who really exists and the world around me is a reflection of my mental state? No, but sometimes it’s fun to think “What if?”
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Look at fashion. There were huge changes from 1960s to 1970s to 1980s. The last wild change to clothes I can remember is pump basketball shoes. Cars used to come in dozens of wild colors; now everything is a generic neutral tone. BJork’s swan suit is the last really outrageous fashion statement I can recall [I know someone showed up naked recently, but dozens of folks have worn equally revealing outfits over the years] Almost all the new movies coming out are re-makes.
Look at James Bond. Amazon acquired the studio that owns Bond and pushed out the producers who’d helmed the character for decades. The creative process is in the hands of MBAs who only care about the bottom line. I can spend hours talking about how bad Henry Ford the man was, but I give him credit for truly loving cars and driving. I’ll bet 99% of the car executives today don’t drive themselves, so why would they care about the rest of us?
MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
I hear you but I have to disagree on fashion. Check out what the teenagers and 20 somethings are wearing in cities. There was also a racial divide in fashion and music when I was growing up that seems to be gone. Today you can spot a white kid wearing an ODB shirt and a black kid wearing a Nirvana shirt. Most of the “rules” are gone outside of work. I’m in my 40s and one day I might dress punk and the next I might have a more hip hop look. I can wear things that would have someone questioning my sexuality a decade ago and now it’s normal for a straight person. It’s fun and freeing.
I tried to phrase that last bit so I didn’t come off as a homophobe but I’m done messing with it.
Yoga@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
I’m the only one who really exists and the world around me is a reflection of my mental state?
What did you (I) do to deserve Donald Trump? Is this a punishment for misandry?
Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org 1 month ago
What did you (I) do to deserve Donald Trump? Is this a punishment for misandry?
Yes. Unironically, yes. Young men have swung right in a way that the youth usually doesn’t and it is in a meaningful way because Dems and progressives offer them little, blame them for much and the right welcomes them in with open arms.
HawlSera@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Another reason why this can’t be Solipsism, Donald Trump is too horrible to be true, if the world was I see it, he would be a plot point in a really shitty movie panned for how unrealistic it is despite playing things so seriously.
crypto@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Misandry or misanthropy?
Gladaed@feddit.org 1 month ago
When places go bust faster resale value is more important. this means you need to build generic buildings that hold value when sold or rented.
theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Why should garbage unhealthy “food” be marketed to children though?
DerdWurst@lemmy.world 1 month ago
When will people stop eating that garbage…?(probably never)
MITM0@lemmy.world 1 month ago
One is makeup the other one is the ugly truth
BartyDeCanter@lemmy.sdf.org 1 month ago
I really miss the unhinged topiary that used to be outside of every fast food restaurant when I was a kid.
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Latter is better NGL. It’s a fucking food place, not a zoo.
bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
The death of Skeumorphism, the rise of brutalist minimalism.
Personified into the real world.
angrystego@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Looks like they changed their target group.
houstoneulers@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The playpen was nasty af tho
psyklax@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Architecture in the Soviet Union
PurpleGameBoy@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
Even the architecture of their fast food joints is fascist.
Superheavy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Slowly all colour and fun is being removed from our world it seems.
wheeldawg@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Isn’t the business model based on getting people to love it when they’re kids and become addicted then, before they’re able to critically think about food, and then coasting on the people that have fond memories of it?
The adults going there now were kids in the 80s and 90s, and remember the old style. No kid gives a rip about a place that looks like this, with no characters or colors. Even today when I see red and yellow together it makes me think of them, but now it’s all gray, brick, and beige, with a dollop of yellow just for the logo.
Personally I like this boring look fine. But damn if it’s not gonna take a huge hit from being loved by generations that have no memory of fast play places and mascots.
Getting rid of the play area is probably good though because I mean really they are gross if you just think for a few seconds. But capitalism does dictate wringing every drop of injury money from anyone whenever possible.
Now while I support draining the bucks from corporations, ruining opportunities for kids to have fun memories too. If only having fun wasn’t so injury-prone.
Prandom_returns@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Let’s just say, I’m glad you guys aren’t architects.
KeenFlame@feddit.nu 1 month ago
What… Is it saying? They changed branding? It sounds like it’s supposed to say something more interesting?
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This was in Dallas. There was another one in Brownsville that this happened to.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This is misleading. The top picture is bright and sunny and the lower one is gray and dreary. Notice the tree in the background on the left without any leaves?
That is because the top picture was taken in the summer and the lower one in the winter when it is cold and the animals have been moved indoors to keep them warm. They will be back in the spring.
smh
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Had me in the first half, not gonna lie 😄
danc4498@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The gorilla was shot and killed though.
KingJalopy@lemm.ee 1 month ago
But don’t pull your dick out in a McDonald’s.
Trust me.
olafurp@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Dicks out for Harambe
Prandom_returns@lemm.ee 1 month ago
The first part, but unironically. Imagine how creepy the plaster animals look like in the evening. Or rain. Truly dystopian.