Even the architecture of their fast food joints is fascist.
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
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What do y'all expect from an industry based on torture and murder, destroying the planet, wrecking your health, and supporting genocide? Fun for the kids?
Jesus Christ you lot need to get out more. You lot are seriously over analysing changes in marketing, and using it to stroke your ego's.
The shit looks depressing. How does that stroke one's ego?
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.
Well this adult wants a colorful, fun, whimsical eatery to forget the humdrummery of daily life, is that too much to ask?
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)
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).
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.
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.
This was a McDonald's next to the Dallas Zoo...
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.
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?
How would making food at home be more expensive than McDonald’s ?
Time is money and if you can't afford the time to cook and clean, you're stuck brown-bagging it at a fast food restaurant.
Is this some sort of an American thing I’m too European to understand?
It's a consequence of American suburban life. Transit time costs are enormous. If you're throwing an hour+ into your commute, you often don't have time to cook. Fast food lets you grab a meal and eat in the car on the way home.
Okay that's an explanation with some logic in it, but like unless they have your order ready when you drive into the parking lot, there's several dishes I could cook as fast as it takes for you to go pick up a brown bag.
Granted time is a luxury I find myself having too much of often so maybe I'm like one of those super rich guys who doesn't understand the cost of a milk carton.
But nah, I don't think I am here to be honest.
If you said "doesn't have the energy to cook" I'd get it but time/energy, eh pretty interchangeable.
It isn't faster but what it is, is more convenient and that I can see.
I gave up fast food a few months ago after relying on it when my weeks got super busy. Now I meal prep and plan ahead, and I'll be honest, while I'm much healthier and more full of energy, fast food absolutely saves time. If you know what you want you just walk in, say what you want, sit for 5 minutes while you work or decompress, get your food and leave. It's like a 30 minute process including eating and cleaning. There is no meal I can make, eat, and clean in that amount of time. If you can, I think you're exceptionally efficient and I would like some pointers lol
Pasta water on the boil and the kettle on (because the combined effect is a large boiling pot of water a few min sooner), take pasta sauce out of freezer, pop it in the microwave. Take out your cutting board make something green like a few tomato's and cucumbers and a piece of lettuce. Drop some dressing/vinegrette/mayo idk your preference on. Takes literally less time than the kettle takes to boil. Spaghetti in, stir (I have a really good round pasta pot which makes spaghetti swirl really well by itself when it's on a roiling boil).
Sit for five min.
Go back to the kitchen (also remember to defrost somewhat mild), put salad on plate, cutting board away, strain pasta, bit of salt&pepper, drop of oil. Plate it next to the salad, put sauce on it (and I'm talking more like ragu than marinara), and put the freezer box in the freezer. Pots away (I never wash my pasta pot as its boiling water and when poured empty the rest evaporates or maybe a bit of oil which is fine imo). Strainer away.
Eat. Put plate in washer.
Done.
I never order in anymore. Can't trust the "gluten free" stuff and I'm also avoiding dairy so been cooking a fair bunch.
If you don't want a frozen sauce, a basic marinara takes five min to make. A tuna thing I like is a can of chili tuna in oil on a skillet (whatever flat frying thing you want to call it), a large red onion I just take the outer layer off, make one or two large slices but not so it breaks the stem, then I mandoline (if you ever get one use the finger guard/veggie holder or lose the tip of a finger) it to the pan. You can do other veggies as well, I often add jalapeños. Bell peppers aren't that good imo because they take longer to cook, but that's prolly because I rarely chop them finely. A few min to get a nice browning in the chili oil for the onions. Garlic. Then cream of some sort (I use plant based creams now), maybe a bit of tomato paste for umami, flavour as you go. Takes less than 10 min to make and if you don't make too much and serve it all at once the pan is just a rinse and a paper towel and it's clean. For carbs I like going rice noodles, they're really fast. Or if you like healthy, you could cook rice and freeze/refrigerate it. There's some sort of crystallization that goes on when you cool rice that much and it improves the hypoglycemic index, so keeps blood sugar more stable longer. Good for diabetics and in general.
Anyway warm one of those and serve the sauces over that.
Dishes in washer, done.
But yeah, those are if you've prepped at least one part.. Just microwaving is imo kinda meh often, but carbs or sauce reheated isn't bad.
I also eat kinda fast maybe because I was in the army as a kid and it kinda stuck. I've grown out of it a bit now that I do have time.
Meal prep is what really takes a long time. For instance mirepoix/soffritto style long cooked veggies are a base for lots of doses but takes ages to cook. So I freeze boxes of those as well, so then making even a bit more complex food like a nice ragu (made one with reindeer a few weeks ago, delissshious), you can just quickly flash the meat, add the veggies, tomato base, some red wine. Boil pasta at the same time.
Not exactly a 30min thing but not hours long.
But yeah I don't commute so I just really didn't understand. I wasn't making fun. Just trying to widen my empathy.
Although I have to mention my kitchen often isn't the cleanest, I'm not too fussy about that.
Idk what sorts do you like making? Some things keep longer some not. Basically having just like boxes you put into microwave like a risotto or something would a few min in the micro and use one plate and the box that could even be disposable.
Idk.
I'm not trying to tell people what to do just felt interesting to me. I used to live further from the city as a kid in another town and yeah if I'd pick up a bag of Hesburger (shameless plug for the Finnish competitor for McD. Even international to some extent. From my city, I was once at the owners grandkids house, it was in the middle of the factories. Had a pool inside lol. Spoiled brat. They make great mayos though.) then I could just eat it on the drive back home and then I needn't bother at home.
And one can't really cook while driving, so...
Also I used to drive a taxi for years. So yeah, I think I'm starting to get it.
I had just forgotten.
"Fast food & eating in your car?"
(I haven't even had a car in years)
unless they have your order ready when you drive into the parking lot, there’s several dishes I could cook as fast as it takes for you to go pick up a brown bag.
Sure. When you've got a stocked fridge and a clean kitchen and a working knowledge of home economics, its can work.
If you said “doesn’t have the energy to cook” I’d get it but time/energy, eh pretty interchangeable.
There's also the simple addictive quality of high salt, high sugar, high fat foods made to order.
Yeah.
Well, "well-stocked" is kinda subjective, but yes, it's a valid point. I'm sort of talking about boiling pasta / making rice and you van either have some simple protein like tuna or fishsticks or meatballs with it, or you can take 20 minutes (and you need 10 anyway for the pasta to cook) to make some basic dish to go with it.
Mince, onions, garlic, stock/sauce of your choice. Doesn't need to be fancy.
Add a few cucumbers/tomatoes to the plate and you've made a decently healthy meal in 10/20min.
But like yeah sure I understand the points I'm just, uh, accustomed to different things. Different isn't wrong, it's just different. (IDIC)
Doesn't going to McD cost quite a lot compared to the amount of nutrition you get? Although they still make it up on calories with so much fat and sugar. And doesn't it also take a bit of time? Or are the drive throughs really that fast and you save time by eating in the car on the way back home? Your traffic and commute times are sort of hard to grasp. I understand, but... don't really feel it.
Ugh, I just made myself kebab and fries and haven't had McD for ages because I can't really anymore (celiac). I'd love a double QP with cheese and a large strawberry (or pear if available) milkshake.
The longest part of making this was waiting 15 min for the fries to cook in the airfryer.
Fries in the airfryer, kebab from the freezer, toss it on a pan with some onions and jalapenos. That, fries, tomatoes and a buttload of cucumber mayo and garlic mayo. (But also a bit of this sort of aioli I make, olive oil, habanero loads of garlic cloves and one fresh jalapeno and blend with a machine. To me It's to kebab what wasabi is to sushi)
Doesn’t going to McD cost quite a lot compared to the amount of nutrition you get?
Heavy in calories, light in fiber and vitamins and the like. Also, the heavy sugar/salt content dehydrates you, leading to further food cravings. Its trash. Very bad for you for a whole host of reasons. But its a full meal that can go straight into the trash when you're done. No cooking, no cleaning. You don't even have to leave your car.
Ugh, I just made myself kebab and fries and haven’t had McD for ages
Hey, far be it for me to criticize the kebab shop. Definitely preferable to the crap McDs turns out, and arguably cheaper/faster to get your hands on while somehow being healthier to boot. I don't think its a coincidence that kebab shops are all over the Houston downtown and underground, while the last McDs pulled out years ago.
Good street food is a blessing. But its also contingent on a dense walkable neighborhood. Far easier to find some good gyros in NYC, LA, or downtown Houston than out in the white boy 'burbs and exurbs.
Average american parent works (2) 40 hour jobs. So a 2 parent household is working 160 hours a week, and still cannot even afford their 4 car payments on top of the $349 espn sports package.
Anyway, no one has time to cook! Or even knows how to! Now hang on, I just pulled into chic fil a we’re going to be in line for about 30 minutes before i can get my order in.
CONSUME
The death of Skeumorphism, the rise of brutalist minimalism.
Personified into the real world.
Thats not brutalist, brutalism involves large scale raw concrete forms.
This is just cheap boxitecture.
What is the skeuomorphism here? Because I don't think that word means what you think it means.
In this case literally a Zoo.
But I was speaking for the physical manifestation of the transition of our software personified onto McD buildings.
Slowly all colour and fun is being removed from our world it seems.
If we can't have fun while torturing and murdering non-human animals... I guess we're decent people.
Only on overcast days
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
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.
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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.
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.
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One is makeup the other one is the ugly truth
Not entirely, the food and price was also way better back in the day, especially the 90s
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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.
I'm my country they made it illegal to market fast food directly to kids. It may not be a choice, it may be regulatory.
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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.
McDonalds isn't a fast food company. They are a real estate investment company. Their former CFO said as much "we are not technically in the food business. We are in the real estate business. The only reason we sell fifteen-cent hamburgers is because they are the greatest producer of revenue, from which our tenants can pay us our rent." - Harry J Sonneborn
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Typical family with kids can no longer afford to eat here since the business model is to maximize shareholder value. So it makes sense to rebrand to the only people who can afford it.
the menu prices are insanity.
last time i was in there, they wanted 3 bucks for the shitty little burger they used to sell for 99 cents.
Not even getting started on 10 dollar bigmacs and other stupidity.
Dude those ball pits were special, they don't exist anymore. Disease infested suffocation hazards, but special.
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