I’m weird, but I like colors and real wood tones. It just kind of hurts me to see literally everyone it seems, live in this ‘aesthetic’ where everything is pure white walls and grey fake wood floors. And how this scheme has taken over every home, office, and retail space.
I guess it’s the equivalent of how all 80% cars are gray scale now? (black, white, or a gray/silver shade). Why has color become so ‘offensive’ the past decade?
It’s so bad that I’ve had folks tell me my blue car is ‘weird’. and my home, which is wood trimmed/floored with maple stained wood, and off-white tints in each room, is ‘gross’. My bedroom’s are robin’s egg blue, and my kitchen and living room are an off white yellow. I love it, especially at night when I use the low-temp lighting and it’s warm instead of HARSH. Folks keep telling me how ‘old’ it looks and that i need to repaint everything BRIGHT white and then put that shitty grey flooring over everything. I hate them.
Part of it will be the ‘blank canvas’ look. When people want to sell a house, they are told to remove any trace of personality or uniqueness. It presents the idea of a ‘blank canvas’ onto which prospective buyers (if human) can project their imagination, saying ‘This grey is dull. I’d paint it blue.’ For some reason, painting walls, say, red tends to lead to them thinking the room is ‘finished’ with the red colour, so they think ‘I don’t want this house. It has red walls.’ You can paint both, but the unconscious brain is incredibly stupid.
The other element is imitation of wealth. Wealthy people have ‘clean’ (can be read lifeless) space as a show of wealth. Many people, especially Western European and American people, have a bit of a Calvinist bent that leads them to imitate the wealthy. Knockoff luxury items is a big industry.
I’m a big amateur of history and anthropology, and as far I can tell, people in all civilizations have been trying to imitate the wealthy to an extant.
There does seem to be a kind of ‘big hat=important’ idea that might be kind of innate to humans. It’s a problem.
This is a large part of it, TBH. Completely clear spaces mean you have space. Lots of large houses have kitchens that are almost barren with cooking tools, because they actually have space to properly store everything. And that means they have a large kitchen. It’s not that they have fewer things; they just have more places to put the things they have.
Also, modern “influencer style” minimalism is actually fairly expensive. Minimalism is usually focused on having high quality items that can last a long time, work well, and can do multiple tasks. And it also means you’re okay re-buying things that you may only occasionally need.
They’d never dream of using the rusty hand-crank can opener that is older than your grandparents. The thing takes a whole 30 seconds to open a can, and your wrist is tired afterwards. Instead, they’ll use an automatic can opener, jar opener, jar re-sealer, soda can crusher, vacuum sealer, and sous vide cooker, all in one. It is an essential part of every minimalist kitchen, and you can have it for the low low price of only $5000. Oh, all of those things can be independently purchased for a fraction of that cost? Well now your kitchen is full of single-use tools that all take up space. Not very clean and tidy, is it? Now all of your storage space is full, and your kitchen is messy because you couldn’t afford the all-in-one tool that takes up less space.
Really rich people give their servants tiny galley kitchens.
I suspect the influencer type wouldn’t know there was more than one kind of can opener. The well-off influencer lifestyle is a consumer lifestyle, paying others to handle work. The person they pay to make the food probably knows all about it, but their focus is on how best to make shocked faces for thumbnails.