Comment by nothis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nothis | Hacker News Reader

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>The Wrong Type of people were getting the chance to design and build large houses, and of course they're applying their Bad Taste that's neither Genuine nor Authentic. They don't know about the traditions of Fine Architecture so of course they were doing it all wrong...how embarrassing for them!

Leave out the "wrong type of people" part and you got pretty much every criticism ever. Bad movies, bad books, bad food...

The thing is, I don't believe McMansion owners need our pity. They're clearly well off and not afraid to show it. Speaking of "elitism", I'm pretty sure the author of the McMansion blog is poorer than any of the reviewed houses' owners. It's not like we're making fun of homeless people for having dirty clothes. Plus those damn houses are visible, they're part of our environment and not something you do for fun in your hobby room.

I can't get myself to feel sorry, even though I can understand a general opposition against "calling out" private individuals so publicly on the internet.

Poorer people can still be elitist. Expressing cultural or artistic superiority is a form of elitism that doesn't require wealth.

Yeah, poorer people can be elitist, but that doesn't necessarily make what McMansionHell is doing some elitist sort of enterprise. It's a guy/girl pointing out architectural flaws in buildings and discussing why they are flaws. It's as elitist as movie critic talking about a new film, and in that sense it's ridiculous that the site is being pulled down over this. You aren't entitled to have somebody agree with your taste.

Edit: You're right, nobody is arguing that it was pulled down for that and I didn't realize until I read a bit more. My point about entitlement still stands though.

I don't think very many (or any) people are defending Zillow's attempt to take down the site. Most of the critiques expressed in this thread specifically address the content of the site itself not whether it should stay up.

One big difference between McMansion Hell and media criticism in general is that the former relies much more on appeals to canon, e.g. "You should never put one of /these/ next to one of /these/."

> It's not like we're making fun of homeless people for having dirty clothes.

Ok.

> Plus those damn houses are visible

Like the dirty homeless people? At least with homes they are on private property.

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