• jedibob5@lemmy.worldEnglish
    115·
    3 months ago

    '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.

    • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
      4·
      3 months ago

      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…

    • 𝔼𝕩𝕦𝕤𝕚𝕒@lemmy.world
      263·
      3 months ago

      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.

      • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
        131·
        3 months ago

        brutalist style

        This is in absolutely no way consistent with the brutalist movement.

        • 𝔼𝕩𝕦𝕤𝕚𝕒@lemmy.world
          62·
          3 months ago

          “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.

          • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
            12·
            3 months ago

            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.

      • son_named_bort@lemmy.world
        6·
        3 months ago

        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.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPM
      264·
      3 months ago

      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.

      • spujb@lemmy.cafeEnglish
        42·
        3 months ago

        no i mean OP. unless OP outright says otherwise, it’s fair to assume they probably have at least a marginally similar opinion to the original creator otherwise why would they post it?

        edit: ok they came and said it outright lol.

  • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
    43·
    3 months ago

    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.

  • cley_faye@lemmy.world
    31·
    3 months ago

    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.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPM
      161·
      3 months ago

      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.

      • credit crazy@lemmy.world
        11·
        3 months ago

        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

        • Soleos@lemmy.world
          8·
          3 months ago

          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

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.eeEnglish
        4·
        3 months ago

        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)

    • UsernameIsTooLon@lemmy.world
      6·
      3 months ago

      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.

  • LazyBane@lemmy.worldEnglish
    292·
    3 months ago

    Probably good that a junk food merchant isn’t marketing to kids to heavily.

  • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
    20·
    3 months ago

    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?

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
        3·
        3 months ago

        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.

          • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
            1·
            3 months ago

            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.

            • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
              1·
              3 months ago

              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.

  • Stovetop@lemmy.world
    20·
    3 months ago

    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.