I am the ultimate useless eater.

[Misery]

McMansion - Wikipedia

Huh... I really dont get it.

They just look like generic boring houses to me.

I'll never understand architecture or real estate or any of that nonsense.

 

[Crossbreed]

Huh... I really dont get it.

Basically, it is a mass-produced pre-mansion (marketed toward the upper middle class).

 

[oregano]

A lot of people from outside the US really don't "get" what passes for architecture here. Maybe that's because some place like England or France or Italy has a lot of really cool centuries old buildings that have actual design prowess behind them, done by men who really knew what they were doing. Here, we have endless sprawling suburbs of detached houses built cookie cutter style that were intended to make an easy profit for a developer who in most cases is long gone, leaving behind neighborhoods that are incredibly UNlivable.

A "McMansion" is, essentially, a house in this American cookie cutter neighborhood style that is marketed towards the "affluent" as they're commonly called here. McMansion neighborhoods have houses that are just different enough from each other so that the newly rich can't tell how alike they are. (The reference is to McDonald's fast food restaurants and their assembly-line processes for making bland food.) The houses are big enough to hold all the junk that the affluent like to buy to show off to each other, but not quite big enough to be an actual mansion.

The people who live in these houses tend to be really snobbish. They tend to be all about symbols of status, and not true luxury. These types are the people I grew up with. The people my age from my HS class who are very wealthy and prominent and powerful are second generation wealthy, if not third. I lived far below their status level, and along with the unknown autism and such they bullied me until I snapped.

 

[Misery]

A lot of people from outside the US really don't "get" what passes for architecture here. Maybe that's because some place like England or France or Italy has a lot of really cool centuries old buildings that have actual design prowess behind them, done by men who really knew what they were doing. Here, we have endless sprawling suburbs of detached houses built cookie cutter style that were intended to make an easy profit for a developer who in most cases is long gone, leaving behind neighborhoods that are incredibly UNlivable.

A "McMansion" is, essentially, a house in this American cookie cutter neighborhood style that is marketed towards the "affluent" as they're commonly called here. McMansion neighborhoods have houses that are just different enough from each other so that the newly rich can't tell how alike they are. (The reference is to McDonald's fast food restaurants and their assembly-line processes for making bland food.) The houses are big enough to hold all the junk that the affluent like to buy to show off to each other, but not quite big enough to be an actual mansion.

The people who live in these houses tend to be really snobbish. They tend to be all about symbols of status, and not true luxury. These types are the people I grew up with. The people my age from my HS class who are very wealthy and prominent and powerful are second generation wealthy, if not third. I lived far below their status level, and along with the unknown autism and such they bullied me until I snapped.

Eh, I'm in the US (Illinois most of the time, I hate it) and I still dont get it, really. Just... illogical. Same with the whole "showoff" sort of spending. What the hell is the point? I say that even considering my own situation.

I mean, I can understand if someone buys something pricey because they genuinely enjoy that particular thing. I have an armada of drones (or "quads" as some call them) but they arent to show off with... they're meant to fly. And maybe take aerial photos or do flips or scare cats or whatever. I mean, what the hell else would they do? To use them for anything else would be like buying a car, but you staple it to the wall as a "showpiece" instead of driving it. But even as I say this I know there are probably people that will buy a drone JUST so they can tell their friends that they have one (even if they dont know how to get it off the ground without crashing it). Come to think of it, this might explain all of the hilarious drone failure videos out there. I suppose someone doing that kinda has it coming when the thing bounces off a tree and into a lake. In front of those friends who were supposed to be so impressed, preferably. Funnier that way.

Or those people that buy a boat and dont ride in it. What's the bloody point if it's just going to sit there? It's a boat, not a statue!

Or really expensive cars. A NOT expensive car serves the same function. It goes forward when you stomp the pedal and goes BEEP if you punch the wheel... what the heck else are they supposed to do? Transform and join the Autobots? Yet I know there are cars out there that sell for millions despite doing the same bloody thing every functioning car does. And then people that have that sort of car often drive them like idiots... you know the sort. We've all seen them on the road.

I dunno. I could ramble for ages about this. I've never understood it. I'm the sort that buys something, and then uses it until it literally falls apart or somehow goes missing. Makes logical sense to me. If the thing functions and does it's bloody job, it's a good whatever, even if there are pieces dangling off and it makes an alarming THUD noise every now and then. If it doesnt function, it's bad, even if it looks pretty. Seems simple, right?


Though you know, this all goes into what was being said before. If these people you talk about are the sort that do the status symbol crap... there's not much reason to envy them. They're just shallow, trying to fill a hollow void by buying a car where the mirrors cost like 2 million just so they can say the mirrors cost 2 million. If people like that think badly of you, well.... maybe you're doing something right, eh?

 

[Bronzelincolns]

So you grew up in a culture where status and wealth were highly valued and you didn't cut the mustard

You got two options :

Stop giving a crap about what these people are doing and learn to be comfortable in your own skin

Or

Begin the work of improving yourself to get on their level so you can belong.

I'm pretty much the same. Socially isolated. But I am a rock! I am an island!

In other words, I'm okay with who I am.

 

[Misery]

So you grew up in a culture where status and wealth were highly valued and you didn't cut the mustard

You got two options :

Stop giving a crap about what these people are doing and learn to be comfortable in your own skin

Or

Begin the work of improving yourself to get on their level so you can belong.

I'm pretty much the same. Socially isolated. But I am a rock! I am an island!

In other words, I'm okay with who I am.

Being an island works out pretty well.

The big smelly landmass cant quite get at you that way.

Seems like a winning situation to me.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

Use a knife and fork.
Cut the food into small bits.
Proceed.

 

[oregano]

Well, I've certainly tried my best to raise myself up to their level. I talked my way into several jobs and even an internship with a high ranking California politician, only to get fired each time for doing stuff that I couldn't realize was wrong until it was explained to me. I trained to be a computer technician, and tried to run my own business, and failed at that too.

I've tried again and again and again, and failed and failed and failed. (At least that's better than the "lolcows" that are lulz fodder for Kiwi Farms and 8chan-those guys/girls don't even attempt to better themselves.) I went into debt to start a business on the internet and launched it just as the stock and real estate markets disintegrated in 2008. Great timing, huh?

So yeah, maybe a half dozen attempts to make it in the real world, and here I sit in front of a beat up laptop in worn pajamas, "mad at the internet" to borrow a Kiwi Farms meme. I don't think that being an island is doable, but I'll settle for a peninsula.

And no, I haven't talked to any of my HS classmates since the 10 year reunion. The reunion went so badly that there was never another one, AFAIK. I live in a poorer area right now, but like I said I find myself in my old hometown way more than I really should. At least when I'm a hermit in the Siskiyou Mountains I won't have to deal with the memories.