Journal Entry 10/29

"The Good Room"

Frank Chimero

This was a nice talk that traversed through a whole bunch of topics that I think about a lot. As for the architectural woes, I found this relatable as I am deeply entrenched in online interior design discussions and controversy. I’m interested in our current trends in architecture and how they seem to be much more focused on simplicity and affordability rather than grandeur or just fun (the old vs. new McDonald’s buildings come to mind). Every day I seem to stumble upon another viral video of someone painting the brick in their home, only to receive a million digital lashings from commenters. While I agree that painted brick is visually assaulting, I disagree with the way some people treat the material as a sacred building block of decades past, when in reality, it was often just another cheap and accessible way to build homes (and that’s why so many homes of the ~70s are, indeed, brick). This is all just a big tangent, but I think being realistic about how and why we got to where we are is helpful. Maybe I’m also just tired of the ubiquitous “things were better when ___.”

The topic of advertising is very prevalent in my life. I often find myself tuning out advertisements to the highest possible degree, so much so that I get thrown off when I witness someone else, typically one of my family members, earnestly be influenced by an ad. To me, any ad is evil. I will immediately fast forward through a youtube sponsorship or just mute whatever I am watching if I run into a commercial that I cannot skip. I’m not sure when this distrust grew, but I when I catch a glimpse of a traditional, uninterrupted cable television commercial break, the language used in that style of advertising seems foreign to me. However, I must admit, I am probably still influenced in ways I am unaware of, such as coded product plugs in the other content I am consuming. And, every once in a while, a good ad will grab my attention.

I think my biggest takeaway from Chimero’s talk is that forging a better internet space for all first requires us to be aware of what we want, and to make deliberate choices to pursue it. I think this is difficult when the large tech companies (Google, Meta, etc.) actively seize the ability to choose from the user. This is what makes them so successful. They auto-feed us personalized content and ads in such a bombardment that we turn completely numb to any other possibility of what we could be using our phone for. I think it is a nice coincidence that Chimero touched on the usefulness of meditation apps, because cultivating an active awareness of my body’s senses through meditation is something that has helped me in developing a positive digital diet. I have more thoughts on this that I will probably use for my final site.