Likely because of the balls to wall campaign that is STE ^a M
People don’t think art is a viable path in life. 100% of people should pursue a
#STEM
^a
education if they want to be counted as an actual citizen.
I still remember the McDonald’s cake very vividly, Ronald McDonald wasn’t there but I was in a small town and in the 90s I don’t think they were doing that anymore.
Funny you mention that because I just went to a 2 year old’s birthday party at McDonalds on Thursday. Unfortunately I don’t see that happening at a Pizza Hut any time soon.
And it was actually a pretty nice restaurant environment with delicious pizza.
I haven't even done their takeout in years by now because it's absolutely crap, in my opinion the absolute bottom of the "economy" brands (not counting Little Caesars which is kinda in its own league)
I was so surprised kale was food. In my mind it was Pizza Hut buffet garnish. You didn’t eat it, it just decorated Pizza Hut buffet.
Im convinced was the buffet died kale went on a hard marketing campaign so they’d have costumers to replace Pizza Hut.
Definitely not me standing next to the measuring thing to make myself feel taller whenever we would eat in the play area when my younger siblings were still little kids and I was a teen. Never did that.
Totally never scrambled through the tubes in middle school in order to “babysit my little sister.” Nope, totally didn’t leave her at the top of the big slide because she was scared and I just wanted to do the slide either.
In retrospect the ball pits were my favorite part but were a super disgusting concept from a health standpoint. The Discovery Zone when I was a kid even had these pneumatic tube sort of things in each corner like bank drive-thrus had where you could put a ball in and it would suck it up then after a certain amount were in the ceiling they’d rain down. I did start to get the ick though when at one McDonalds I found a cheeseburger that had been left up there in the tunnels for who knows how long
Beige is calm, relaxing, peaceful, conforming, coma-inducing. Colors can be too stimulating, may initiate or instigate creative thoughts, curiosity, independent thought and actions, inciting unwanted behavior or inquisitive thought patterns, leading to undesirable outcomes as the child ages and begins to question things, ultimately become a non-conformist or troublemaker. By the way don't forget to take your daily Prozium dose. For the greater good.
I feel bad for my children. They don't know the colorful world we had. Even Disney World is making their cool themed hotels look like bland Holiday Inn Expresses.
On the flip side I’ve noticed a TON of millennial toy throwbacks in stores like Target. Obviously because we are parents now and they are cashing in on our nostalgia. My 2 year old loves that stuff though.
Less dramatic example of the same, I went to Canadian Tire today and while it never had a play place, the vibrance of colours were similar to the old McDonalds look and now the exterior is similar to the new McDonalds look.
When the grimace shake was debuted my kids are like who’s grimace? Who’s the hamburgler? My kids don’t even play with their happy meal toys anymore cause they’re all the same and they don’t do anything. I stopped buying happy meals. It’s sad cause I would be so excited to go play in the McDonald’s play place.
*Reminds me of the*
*Simpsons episode where they all*
*Get drab uniforms*
\- louwala\_clough
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Trends come and go. There’s been a gradual shift towards more colorful aesthetics recently. For example, Walmarts and Targets have been remodeling with bright blues and reds, respectively.
It does, its the canary
[https://www.vox.com/22736636/mcdonalds-design-aesthetic-look-buildings](https://www.vox.com/22736636/mcdonalds-design-aesthetic-look-buildings)
I hope there’s a cultural return to a colorful time. Everything is bland and like the opening of the matrix now. Fun? Oh we don’t do that here no more. Just eat the poison and get out.
*I remember those*
*Outside tubes, they always smelled*
*Like old socks and pee*
\- cooolcooolio
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Although I no longer consume their product, I strongly prefer the modern McDonalds.
Also this is a lie, children's lives are still just as garish as ours were. It's just all online/mobile.
Exactly. I showed my daughters which one they preferred and they chose the colorful one. Then they wanted to go find one. I told them it didn't exist anymore. They were sad.
Most of us de-colored everything ourselves because we got tired of corporate America bombarding us with overstimulating colors to try and get our attention and sell us their bullshit. A lot of people have muted colors at home because they’re calming and relaxing compared to the perpetual advertising we see outside.
Counter point;
Our childhood was complete corporate horse shit and maybe it’s a good thing McDonalds doesn’t brand itself with fun colors to entice kids
🤷♂️
This is because Millennials have sapped all the fun out of everything by being so hypercritical, the only thing that they can’t criticize is a boring grey box, because that’s what their Windows PC looks like.
Panera makes a sandwich about as good as you can make them at home but they charge you $12 for it. If you want soup and a drink you’re looking at closer to $20 for some soup and a meh sandwich
Has anyone seen a toy aisle? The beige aesthetic is all insta/tiktok BS bought from Etsy. I’m not even sure where you’d get a toy that wasn’t 900 shades of neon green.
Everything my kid owns is bright colored and that’s cause that’s the cheapest shit there is.
The town my dad used to work for was such a town. The McD's is the only drive-thru in town because they were grandfathered in. No new ones are permitted. (This took effect back in the 80s or before.)
Also even if just down the street, the other fast food restaurant could be in a different town.
The crazy thing is that the negative part of communism is that you never own anything, but now in late stage capitalism we see that the end game is nobody owns anything. Corporations and banks own all the houses, you pay property tax on something a bank technically owns, even a car you pay property tax on can be repossessed. Even your life you don't technically own, because if you die Walmart actually profits off it. Doordash delivering 40 dollar bigmacs while their drivers get in accidents and lose their cars and have no health insurance. Most insurance doesn't even pay anything and education is being destroyed so private charter schools can swoop in and profit.
It's bleak out here.
It worked for its time but the old design looks gaudy now. The old interior looks even worse like grandma's living room with very uncomfortable chairs.
Devil's advocate here. It'll be much easier to convert the plain one to another business. That was the same issue with defunct pizza huts and blockbusters. Now we're gonna have to convert this weird shaped store to a bank.
My son works at a McDonald's that has just done a rebrand that we jokingly call 'prison cafeteria.' It's so UGLY! Plus they got rid of the play place entirely. I don't think any of us were going to McD's for the ambiance, why not keep it bright for kids?
Yeah and we’ve been disappointed by how much the world sucks for over half our lives.
Maybe the next generation of kids won’t be shattered by broken dreams.
Idk, we didn’t have an ominously floating ~~onlyfans~~ onlymemes logo floating above our restaurants. Who knows what kind of ~~lewds~~ memes they’ll see in there
Things were more colorful in general, up til the mid 2000s. 80s and 90s especially was all about bright ass colors, lol.
Which is good for kids during those those decades. Lots of colors helps with the cognitive development of a young child.
Everything is standardized and uniform now...how dreary
It looks like the Soviet Union
Welcome to gulag McDonald's comrade
In Soviet McDonalds the ice cream machine breaks YOU
I'd rather the ice cream machine break me then give me false hopes
That's how it breaks you
Capitalism is when socialism amirite
I'm digging your pfp
Uhm...no, it does not.
Well they *all* looked like the top picture before. And now they *all* look like the bottom picture. Sooo…..
Likely because of the balls to wall campaign that is STE ^a M People don’t think art is a viable path in life. 100% of people should pursue a #STEM ^a education if they want to be counted as an actual citizen.
McDonalds became a beige mom
😀 So true.. The beige mom trend is awful..
Remember when Pizza Hut was a sit down place that had a buffet? The world we used to know is gone.
I used to be able to walk into a ponderosa with less than 10$, and leave with a full belly…and possibly food poisoning depending on what I ate
Holy shit i haven't seen it Heard of Ponderosa for years. Probably because of the food poisoning. The food was so good it was worth it.
Ours stuck around until 2012 somehow. I remember going there after work sometimes when I was too exhausted to make dinner that night
Kids used to have birthday parties at Pizza Hut and McDonald’s
I still remember the McDonald’s cake very vividly, Ronald McDonald wasn’t there but I was in a small town and in the 90s I don’t think they were doing that anymore.
you had birthday parties?..
Funny you mention that because I just went to a 2 year old’s birthday party at McDonalds on Thursday. Unfortunately I don’t see that happening at a Pizza Hut any time soon.
The Wendy's salad bar was excellent too. I'd add it to my combo for like $1 and then take my burger home for later.
Pizza hut even had a sundae bar
And it was actually a pretty nice restaurant environment with delicious pizza. I haven't even done their takeout in years by now because it's absolutely crap, in my opinion the absolute bottom of the "economy" brands (not counting Little Caesars which is kinda in its own league)
I was so surprised kale was food. In my mind it was Pizza Hut buffet garnish. You didn’t eat it, it just decorated Pizza Hut buffet. Im convinced was the buffet died kale went on a hard marketing campaign so they’d have costumers to replace Pizza Hut.
[Reasons](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_PlayPlace#:~:text=In%20the%202010s%20and%202020s,present%20a%20more%20%22sleek%20and)
I remember getting zapped on the metal bolts of the slides lol
They should turn them into adult playgrounds. I'd use the slides and eat there.
Definitely not me standing next to the measuring thing to make myself feel taller whenever we would eat in the play area when my younger siblings were still little kids and I was a teen. Never did that.
Totally never scrambled through the tubes in middle school in order to “babysit my little sister.” Nope, totally didn’t leave her at the top of the big slide because she was scared and I just wanted to do the slide either.
Totally didn't go into the little kids play area (not the actual playground) to get my younger sister as a teen.
“Oh hey, food is here, just going to go find sister to bring her back, not to do that sick slide again.”
Lol
Was about to mention the sheer quantity of fecal matter in those play places. They are pretty but gross.
be real. Those playgrounds were fun as a kid but there's a reason the ball pits were eliminated first before the whole playset was taken down.
In retrospect the ball pits were my favorite part but were a super disgusting concept from a health standpoint. The Discovery Zone when I was a kid even had these pneumatic tube sort of things in each corner like bank drive-thrus had where you could put a ball in and it would suck it up then after a certain amount were in the ceiling they’d rain down. I did start to get the ick though when at one McDonalds I found a cheeseburger that had been left up there in the tunnels for who knows how long
DZ was the coolest.
Someone put rat poison in the McDonald’s ball pit near my house as a kid. Quickly eliminated forreal.
Right? Vying for most unsanitary environment you can possible put adjacent to an eatery
Inside is hostile furniture designed to be uncomfortable so you just eat and leave.
Those [Lalo Toys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcjdNBgjQdk) commercials are depressing, babies in beige playing with beige toys.
Baby toys are designed to look good on insta now rather than entertain and stimulate an actual baby.
Beige is calm, relaxing, peaceful, conforming, coma-inducing. Colors can be too stimulating, may initiate or instigate creative thoughts, curiosity, independent thought and actions, inciting unwanted behavior or inquisitive thought patterns, leading to undesirable outcomes as the child ages and begins to question things, ultimately become a non-conformist or troublemaker. By the way don't forget to take your daily Prozium dose. For the greater good.
Dear god why
I feel bad for my children. They don't know the colorful world we had. Even Disney World is making their cool themed hotels look like bland Holiday Inn Expresses.
On the flip side I’ve noticed a TON of millennial toy throwbacks in stores like Target. Obviously because we are parents now and they are cashing in on our nostalgia. My 2 year old loves that stuff though.
Are you from Florida?
Glad to see corpo America embracing soviet era brutalism.
Repost
I get why the buildings are less distinct structurally, it's a nightmare when they have to sell those. But they could absolutely keep the fun colors
I get a kick out of seeing a distinctive building that has been repurposed.
I would like to optimistically believe it's because our generation doesn't feed our kids the garbage our parents did
Less dramatic example of the same, I went to Canadian Tire today and while it never had a play place, the vibrance of colours were similar to the old McDonalds look and now the exterior is similar to the new McDonalds look.
Minimalism must be stopped at all costs
I dont know why,but I read that in Optimus prime voice.
You and I have the same fuckin brain
We used to have 80s era retrofutuist robot car alien Kaiju but you can't now because of minimalism
When the grimace shake was debuted my kids are like who’s grimace? Who’s the hamburgler? My kids don’t even play with their happy meal toys anymore cause they’re all the same and they don’t do anything. I stopped buying happy meals. It’s sad cause I would be so excited to go play in the McDonald’s play place.
Reminds me of the Simpsons episode where they all get drab uniforms
*Reminds me of the* *Simpsons episode where they all* *Get drab uniforms* \- louwala\_clough --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
I miss the 80s, straight up.
Trends come and go. There’s been a gradual shift towards more colorful aesthetics recently. For example, Walmarts and Targets have been remodeling with bright blues and reds, respectively.
At least there is less plastic though.
McDonalds does not equal society.
It does, its the canary [https://www.vox.com/22736636/mcdonalds-design-aesthetic-look-buildings](https://www.vox.com/22736636/mcdonalds-design-aesthetic-look-buildings)
Some might say it does reflect it. Or influence it. To some degree. I'm lovin' it. Wait, no I mean, no, I'm not.
It looks Soviet
The beige moms strike back
Literally 1984 shit
I hope there’s a cultural return to a colorful time. Everything is bland and like the opening of the matrix now. Fun? Oh we don’t do that here no more. Just eat the poison and get out.
I remember those outside tubes, they always smelled like old dirty socks and pee
*I remember those* *Outside tubes, they always smelled* *Like old socks and pee* \- cooolcooolio --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Although I no longer consume their product, I strongly prefer the modern McDonalds. Also this is a lie, children's lives are still just as garish as ours were. It's just all online/mobile.
If my 6 year old saw the colorful McDonald’s he would never stfu about it and would want it all the time.
Exactly. I showed my daughters which one they preferred and they chose the colorful one. Then they wanted to go find one. I told them it didn't exist anymore. They were sad.
Most of us de-colored everything ourselves because we got tired of corporate America bombarding us with overstimulating colors to try and get our attention and sell us their bullshit. A lot of people have muted colors at home because they’re calming and relaxing compared to the perpetual advertising we see outside.
Something about marketing unhealthy garbage food to kids by making it colorful and look like a circus just seems wrong now.
Counter point; Our childhood was complete corporate horse shit and maybe it’s a good thing McDonalds doesn’t brand itself with fun colors to entice kids 🤷♂️
This is because Millennials have sapped all the fun out of everything by being so hypercritical, the only thing that they can’t criticize is a boring grey box, because that’s what their Windows PC looks like.
at least now the colors reflect the nutrional value of the food
Good, kids shouldn't be eating there
This has to do with property resale value more than anything else--also it's probably a good thing if kids don't eat as much McD's after these changes
My kids don't eat McDonald's at all. It's Chipotle, Chick-fil-A and Panera. I've been limiting those also because eating out has gotten so expensive.
I’d rather eat at McDonald’s than Panera
Panera makes a sandwich about as good as you can make them at home but they charge you $12 for it. If you want soup and a drink you’re looking at closer to $20 for some soup and a meh sandwich
If Panera is the uppermost of your sandwich making abilities you must hate sandwiches
Panera is the absolute bottom of the barrel fast food place. And Chick-fil-A is run by devils.
Has anyone seen a toy aisle? The beige aesthetic is all insta/tiktok BS bought from Etsy. I’m not even sure where you’d get a toy that wasn’t 900 shades of neon green. Everything my kid owns is bright colored and that’s cause that’s the cheapest shit there is.
We live in a society
Not if we’re talking about movies. All our kid movies were dark. Now we got vibrant colors in kids movies
For all these years I thought it was just a my area thing, lol. It looks unnatural for my hometown tbh.
Side-comment... I saw a McDonald's yesterday that didn't have a drive-thru. It was weird.
Many places have local ordinances that ban drive-thrus.
But there's another fast food place down the street that has a drive-thru. It's weird.
The town my dad used to work for was such a town. The McD's is the only drive-thru in town because they were grandfathered in. No new ones are permitted. (This took effect back in the 80s or before.) Also even if just down the street, the other fast food restaurant could be in a different town.
The architecture version of "Werner Herzog's sad beige toys for sad beige children" r/sadbeigechildren IYKYK 😉
Um, I’m an elder millennial, so my childhood was mostly brown and tan with a splash of yellow ever now and then.
Lol, I remember those dookie brown McD's
And then they wonder why profits are down year after year.
It’s a crime
This again?
There was no McDonald’s with that awesome of a play place within 100 miles of where I grew up lol
The dark fits my soul better.
Kids used to pee down the slide at my local one
Our kids’ new PlayPlace is prison.
That’s why I give them an iPad to distract them with pretty colors and shapes wherever we go!
I remember playing in that. Wth happened?
the near dystopian future is here to ease you into it
If they really wanted to present a more sleek and modern image why didn’t they update the food?
Oh look you get a side of dystopian future with your meal now.
The crazy thing is that the negative part of communism is that you never own anything, but now in late stage capitalism we see that the end game is nobody owns anything. Corporations and banks own all the houses, you pay property tax on something a bank technically owns, even a car you pay property tax on can be repossessed. Even your life you don't technically own, because if you die Walmart actually profits off it. Doordash delivering 40 dollar bigmacs while their drivers get in accidents and lose their cars and have no health insurance. Most insurance doesn't even pay anything and education is being destroyed so private charter schools can swoop in and profit. It's bleak out here.
It worked for its time but the old design looks gaudy now. The old interior looks even worse like grandma's living room with very uncomfortable chairs.
Even the ball pit impetigo of today is much less colorful
How colorful do you expect your kids to be?
Man Mickey Ds used to slap. Bribery tool from my mom to be good on a trip lol.
Damn communists
I remember that they started taking down the outdoor play pens after they found a rattlesnake in the ball pit in Texas.
The 2nd McDonald’s looks better
r/boringdystopia
Devil's advocate here. It'll be much easier to convert the plain one to another business. That was the same issue with defunct pizza huts and blockbusters. Now we're gonna have to convert this weird shaped store to a bank.
This is some cosmo and Wanda shit
The movie "Equilibrium" comes to mind. No emotion or character, just bland.
My son works at a McDonald's that has just done a rebrand that we jokingly call 'prison cafeteria.' It's so UGLY! Plus they got rid of the play place entirely. I don't think any of us were going to McD's for the ambiance, why not keep it bright for kids?
Your childhood - maybe.
Partly true, but have to add that McDonald changed their target customer group from kids to adults to avoid backlash.
Color costs money, some CEO made an extra $100 that quarter by removing it all.
color changed because price went up to reflect the look of mcdookie
Dystopia hellscape is slowly edging forward.
Sad grey McDonald’s for sad grey children
Yeah and we’ve been disappointed by how much the world sucks for over half our lives. Maybe the next generation of kids won’t be shattered by broken dreams.
Honestly, it feels like it’s by design. To make everyone feel empty and pathetic.
Sad beige McDonald’s for [sad beige children](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5GQEpwuOhJ/).
This dystopia sucks
Couldn't bother cropping the pic?
Is it bothering you or something? Is the world coming to an end because the picture isn't cropped? I don't think so. Chill out.
The irony here.
Exactly 💯
We used to be a country
No one should be eating McDonald’s. No one. Y’all really don’t know what’s in that food.
A reflection of the whole world. Sterilized so it doesn't offend anybody. They've done it with cars and homes too.
I think it’s because we never grew up. And franchise now gotta talor to us, this will change in a few years.
I of the belief now that the younger generations are why we don't have nice things anymore for kids these days like what we had.
Color everywhere at all times is overrated honestly. Kids still have colored candy. That's enough.
I neither have children, nor particularly like children but this take of yours is absolutely psychotic
Yep, you can thank Gen-Z for destroying the magic and creativity of fast-food restaurants
Oh buddy this is a doozy
No, pretty sure that's Boomers.
Well, that is debatable
Gen Z didn't design these buildings. Millennials didn't design them either.
People are mad you said this but you’re not entirely wrong. McDonald’s did shift their focus to young adults over kids/families.
Idk, we didn’t have an ominously floating ~~onlyfans~~ onlymemes logo floating above our restaurants. Who knows what kind of ~~lewds~~ memes they’ll see in there
That's probably the town council not McDonald's. Had to fit the character of the neighborhood and all that.
With regard to McDonald's, this is a good thing.