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A couple of weeks ago I revisted the McMansion Hell blog[1] for the first time in probably a couple of years, and boy was it as "fun" as I remember.
I think the reason I enjoy this blog so much is because I've come across these kinds of houses essentially my entire life, but it wasn't really until I discovered this blog years back that I began to really LOOK at them and see them for what they are: hideous demonstrations of white middle-class decadence. It seems so obvious now, who else would find these monstrosities appealing? Well, trick question, because I once found them appealing.
I've never lived in such a house, thank goodness, because I've always lived in the poor neighborhoods and in apartments or small houses. But because I've lived in the poorer areas, visiting the middle-class areas made me associate these McMansions with beauty, "fanciness", and money. So I had a warped idea of these houses being what one should aspire to, and thus they had to be appealing.
Obviously I've changed my tune since those times, and have actually been able to visit the insides of McMansions and see them through the McMansion Hell blog. The first thing I tend to think is, "what the hell does anyone need all this space for?" Seriously, so many of these houses have so much empty space that I feel like I'm in some kind of sensory deprivation tank. Are the people that live here afraid of touching things? It's so odd. If a house isn't full of empty space, then there's chairs strewn about in every space possible. It's like these people lost a game of musical chairs once and became extremely paranoid for the rest of their lives.
This obsession with having as much space as possible really gets to me. I just don't see the necessity, but the desire is there. Maybe someone can make me understand, but I doubt it.