Why is Everything So Boring Now?

0:00 Hey guys, what's up?

0:00 I am currently on tour in uh Europe right now and uh I got some exciting news.

0:05 I have got more shows to announce.

0:07 This tour is never ending.

0:08 I am going to more cities in the US.

0:10 Okay, I am going to Salt Lake City,

0:12 Denver, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Austin,

0:15 Houston, Dallas, Nashville, Indianapolis, Columbus, Cleveland, San Francisco,

0:19 Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, St.

0:22 Louis, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia.

0:25 Guys, tickets are available right now.

0:28 So, I think you should [Applause] [Music] [Applause] folks.

0:37 I don't know about you guys,

0:38 but whenever I open the Tik Tok application on my portable telephone,

0:41 I am absolutely bombarded with slideshow after slideshow of nostalgic images

0:48 from my childhood that never fail to ruin my entire day.

0:52 Whether it's pictures of strangely designed early 2000s websites,

0:56 old digital camera photographs of the original Xbox accompanied

0:59 by Mountain Dew bottles with the hashtag older brother core,

1:03 discontinued foods or old dead malls stuck in the past.

1:06 It's a nightmare.

1:08 I open Tik Tok thinking I'm going to see a nice

1:10 relaxing video of a guy getting hit by a car,

1:13 but then I'm reminded of the ceaseless passage of time.

1:16 Cringe.

1:16 Cringe, I said.

1:17 Regardless of how sad and old these nostalgic horror videos make me feel,

1:21 I still watch every single one to the very end.

1:24 I have to.

1:24 I I can't look away, dude.

1:26 It's like a car crash that I was hoping I would see on Tik Tok.

1:29 And after watching like literally hundreds of these Tik

1:32 Toks and comparing my childhood to the modern day,

1:36 I've come to realize something.

1:38 Everything's kind of boring now.

1:40 And I don't mean the, you know,

1:41 throw a tennis ball at the wall, twiddle your thumbs type of boring.

1:45 It's quite literally the opposite.

1:46 Somehow boredom used to be like, "Oh man,

1:48 there's nothing to do." But I honestly cannot

1:50 remember the last time I felt like that.

1:52 The traditional feeling of boredom has been replaced by this like

1:56 overwhelming feeling of there being like too many things to do,

2:00 but at the same time, none of the things we're doing to fill

2:03 the time are like enjoyable or personally fulfilling whatsoever.

2:07 It just sort of feels like everything lately

2:08 has kind of been given the landlord special.

2:11 you know, cuz everything's been covered with a boring coat of white paint.

2:15 No thought behind it, no forethought into the future or any of the consequences.

2:19 And lately, dude, I've been feeling like a cockroach

2:21 that got in the way of the paintbrush, forever stuck in a sea of white.

2:26 Just like your mom, not you.

2:28 Whether it's logos, cars, tech, movies, architecture,

2:33 everything has become so muted and bland and colorless.

2:36 And personally, I think it's super boring.

2:38 I'll say off top, it's going to be impossible for me

2:40 to not sound like a boomer throughout this entire video,

2:43 but I swear to God, I remember everything being so much

2:47 more vibrant and colorful and saturated when I was growing up.

2:50 And I'm not alone.

2:51 You can find countless videos of people

2:54 comparing old photographs to current ones, and things do seem less colorful now.

2:58 Obviously, for a few of these videos, there are some logical explanations.

3:02 Like this one for example,

3:03 like this picture from 2020 was taken on a clear sunny

3:06 day and the one taken in 2024 is it's a cloudy day.

3:10 So, you know, obviously the one taken on the cloudy

3:13 day is going to be less bright and colorful, right?

3:15 I think this person just doesn't know how weather works.

3:18 Damn.

3:18 Back when I was a kid, there was never a tornado happening right now.

3:23 Back when I was a kid, I was never getting swept away in a tornado.

3:29 But for this video, I kind of just want to do

3:30 a deep dive and really get to the bottom of this.

3:32 Okay, I want to find out if the world is actually getting less colorful.

3:36 So, let's find out.

3:42 At first, I assumed people were saying the world is

3:45 less colorful now because they were looking through rosecolored glasses.

3:48 Not literally, cuz that would do the opposite.

3:50 But, you know, just in terms of nostalgia, you know,

3:52 it's very easy to romanticize your childhood, even if you had an uneventful one.

3:56 You just had less things to worry about when

3:58 you were younger and everything was new and exciting.

4:00 So obviously when you look back at those times,

4:03 you come to the conclusion that things

4:04 were more exciting than they actually were.

4:06 Like for example, if you're 4 years old,

4:08 the color blue is going to be insane to you, dude.

4:11 Because you've only known about the color blue for 4 years.

4:14 You know how many times I've seen the color blue now that I'm 30?

4:17 Dude, too many times count, dude.

4:18 Blue is not the same anymore.

4:20 I have ruined blue for myself.

4:22 Okay, I blew it.

4:23 You know that meme of James Franco about to be hung and he's like first time.

4:27 That's me at any child being impressed by the color blue first time.

4:30 But it turns out it may not be rosecoled glasses

4:33 and the wave of nostalgia that makes people feel this way.

4:36 There actually is a scientific explanation as to why

4:39 the world looks less colorful as you get older.

4:42 If you feel like the world has gone from 4K to 1080p,

4:45 you may be on to something.

4:46 After the age of 10,

4:47 the clear human lens gradually yellows as a result of absorbing

4:50 UV light to protect the retina at the back of the eye.

4:52 This increasing yellowess dulls the vibrancy of color perception.

4:55 Okay, so as you get older,

4:56 I guess things tend to appear more yellow than they actually are.

5:00 Pretty interesting.

5:00 That explains why my white bed sheets are yellow when I wake up.

5:03 This combined with the fact that the number and sensitivity

5:05 of color detecting cone cells decrease further affects color contrast.

5:09 Even without the natural deterioration of our eyeballs,

5:12 I still think the world is getting less colorful.

5:14 And I know this because I actually have perfect vision.

5:16 Sorry to brag, but I am exempt from all vision problems.

5:19 I took a vision healing master class last year and I stared directly at the sun.

5:23 So, I think I'll be a-ok.

5:24 Okay.

5:24 Hey, the dude.

5:25 The camera.

5:26 It's over here.

5:26 You idiot.

5:27 Jesus Christ.

5:29 So, I think I hate guys.

5:30 You're not going to believe this, okay?

5:32 It isn't just our eyes becoming weaker.

5:34 The world actually has been losing color over the past 50 years.

5:38 The Science Museum group conducted a study where they photographed over 7,000

5:43 various objects from the 1800s to present day in 21 different categories.

5:48 And this was their result.

5:49 From 1800 to 1840, there was a pretty even spread of black,

5:53 gray, white, red, orange, and yellows.

5:56 And then in the year 1860, as everybody knows,

5:58 the colors blue and green were invented.

6:00 So they slowly gained popularity over the years.

6:03 But as you can see in the full graph,

6:04 there's a pretty drastic drop off in color in around the year

6:08 1980 and then an even more drastic one in the year 2000.

6:12 And as you can see here, in the last 20 years,

6:14 objects have been rapidly enveloped by this foroding grayness.

6:19 And it's scary, man.

6:20 How do we stop it?

6:21 Am I supposed to just prey the gray away?

6:23 Dude, we know that doesn't work.

6:24 An obvious contributor to this grayness was

6:27 the switch from wood to plastic in everyday items.

6:30 So, there has been a gradual decline in browns and yellows.

6:35 Can't say the same for my toilet bowl, brother.

6:37 Yeah, that thing only sees brown and yellow, dude.

6:40 and sometimes a little bit of red.

6:41 A good starting point to talk about the ups

6:43 and downs of color and objects is to look at phones.

6:46 Some of you are looking at a phone right now.

6:48 Don't get me wrong, I love my incredible iPhone.

6:51 I stare at this thing all day and if someone took it away from me, I'd scream.

6:54 But I will say I do really miss this cell

6:57 phone landscape before the release of the first iPhone in 2007.

7:01 As far as I'm concerned, iPhone ruined everything, man.

7:03 We were having so much fun.

7:05 There used to be so many options for cell phones, dude.

7:07 So much so that it was like a rare occurrence

7:09 to find someone else with the same cell phone as you.

7:12 My sister had an LG Chocolate.

7:14 One day, my best friend showed up to school

7:16 with a blue Motorola Razor that he got for Christmas.

7:18 I wanted to kick his ass.

7:19 I was so jealous.

7:20 My dad had a Blackberry bowl.

7:22 Sadly, his was always broken cuz that guy never called me.

7:25 And I remember wanting a T-Mobile Sidekick so badly,

7:28 but they were never available in Canada, so I had to settle for an LG Shine.

7:33 I once spent $6 to download a picture of a girl in a bikini

7:37 on that phone so I could have it as my phone background.

7:39 And guess if that $6 was charged to my parents' phone bill?

7:43 And guess if they got really mad at me?

7:45 And what?

7:45 Now pictures are just free to download.

7:47 What the man?

7:48 There was something really cool about having a wide selection of colorful

7:52 cell phones to choose from because each one says something about its owner.

7:56 My LG Shine let people know that I was a horny little freak, I guess.

7:59 But man, looking back on these old cell phone designs,

8:01 it's just so refreshing because each one had character.

8:04 It had an aesthetic.

8:06 They weren't just a black rectangle, dude.

8:09 Sure, some of them were ugly as And yeah,

8:11 sometimes the cell phones would just straight up not work.

8:14 So, you'd have to walk an hour home from your caddying job

8:16 because your cell phone wouldn't let you call your mom for a ride,

8:19 but hey, at least these cell phone companies were trying new things.

8:22 The newest innovations in smartphones over the last few years was,

8:25 hey, you can fold this one.

8:27 Okay, so a flip phone.

8:29 That's a flip phone.

8:30 Those have been around forever.

8:32 I'm also convinced that the abandonment of the home

8:34 phone has done irreparable damage to society.

8:37 Get a lot of this society.

8:39 Dude, the amount of novelty home phones they used to make was staggering.

8:42 But they were incredible, dude.

8:44 They were so much fun.

8:45 They were all unique and silly,

8:47 and it made communicating over the phone like an enjoyable experience.

8:52 Dude, I hate talking on the phone now.

8:54 But if answering my phone revealed Kermit the Frog's naked feet,

8:57 oh, you know, I'm picking that up, dude.

8:59 Modern dads will never experience the joy of getting up off a bottle

9:04 of Jim Beam and then calling their ex-wife on the gym beam.

9:07 And it's not just phones that have lost any semblance of color or creativity.

9:12 Tech products in general have just gotten so boring lately, man.

9:16 My friend Drew just made a very good video called Technology Isn't Fun Anymore.

9:20 And I highly recommend you watch that video if you

9:22 haven't already because I think he summed up this issue perfectly.

9:25 Growing up, technology was so fun and exciting and it was progressing quickly.

9:30 So, anything they put out was like actually intriguing.

9:32 But in the last 5 10 years, it feels like nothing has really changed that much.

9:36 And the new technology they actually put out is just AI that nobody wants, man.

9:40 Dude, the most recent tech craze is people

9:43 stealing the artwork of one of the most

9:45 beloved iconic artists of all time by just

9:48 lazily forcing a computer to generate an image.

9:51 That sucks.

9:52 That's bad.

9:53 That's boring and not good.

9:54 Okay, to be fair though,

9:55 not all tech products were brimming with color and interesting design back then.

10:00 So much of the tech in the 80s was just straight up beige.

10:04 Like just so beige, dude.

10:06 Even the original NES was straight up a gray box.

10:09 And that was a product specifically designed for kids to have fun with.

10:13 Tech products in the '8s look like if someone built a computer out of khakis.

10:17 It was either that or some wood paneling.

10:20 Dude, I need that, man.

10:21 Give me an iPhone made out of wood.

10:22 As much as I'd like for Apple to put out of wooden iPhone,

10:25 I don't know if they would.

10:26 But by the time the '90s came around, computers were becoming a household item.

10:30 Internet Explorer launched in 1995,

10:32 and this widespread embrace of the internet brought upon

10:35 a tech explosion unlike anything we've ever seen before.

10:38 Technology was fun and exciting and the feelings

10:41 people had for technology and its potential were

10:44 positive and hopeful and the average age

10:46 of a tech consumer was also lowering at this time.

10:50 So, how did companies capitalize on that feeling of excitement

10:54 and happiness as well as appealing to a younger audience?

10:57 Translucent colored plastic.

11:00 Oh my god, man.

11:02 This looks so cool, dude.

11:04 You ever want to kind of see what's on the inside your N64 controller?

11:08 Well, here you go.

11:09 Look at all those things you can just vaguely see.

11:11 What do they do?

11:12 Who cares?

11:13 H, what's the inside of my Game Boy look like?

11:16 Just kidding.

11:16 I already know because my mom got me the purple see-through one for my birthday.

11:20 And that's the most impressive thing about that design trend, dude.

11:23 If my mom got me a regular purple Game Boy,

11:25 I'd be mad as hell because I would have been like,

11:27 "Hey, mom, that's a girl color." But when I got the purple Game Boy,

11:30 you could kind of see through.

11:31 Oh my god.

11:33 coolest of all time.

11:34 Genuinely, this is one design trend that I miss so much every day of my life.

11:39 I want all of my to look like this, okay?

11:41 I want my skin to look like this.

11:43 It not only looks cool and fun,

11:45 but like that design choice made me appreciate my tech products a lot more.

11:50 You know what I mean?

11:50 I look at my iPhone, I see a black rectangle.

11:53 I don't know what the hell is inside this thing.

11:54 And I also don't care.

11:55 But when I see a translucent N64 controller and I can see

11:58 that there's a bunch of inside of it that I don't understand,

12:01 I'm like, you know what?

12:02 Dang.

12:02 This is actually really impressive.

12:03 I have a newfound appreciation for this piece of hardware.

12:06 I was about to throw this controller as hard as I could

12:08 at my best friend for making me slip on that banana in Mario Kart,

12:11 but I'm not going to do that anymore.

12:13 I'm still going to throw it at him, but not as hard.

12:17 This clear trend of the '9s/2000s was inescapable.

12:22 And it wasn't just with tech products.

12:24 This was like a movement with like clear cleanly stuff, right?

12:28 Like there was a lot of aquatics, right?

12:30 Frutiger arrow type stuff.

12:31 This was like a a big stylistic movement of the time.

12:35 There's a lot more clear packaging, right?

12:36 There was clear furniture, clear Pepsi.

12:39 Even back then when doctors were using defibrillators, they would yell clear.

12:42 And I actually didn't know this before researching for this video,

12:45 but apparently the creation of clear tech products

12:47 can be traced back to the prison system.

12:50 I guess tech products in jails need to be uh clear

12:53 so people can't hide any contraband inside of the tech products.

12:57 Jail tech be like, "Let me be clear." And then I guess people realize

13:00 it looked sick as So they started making tech products like in the real world

13:04 or not not the real you know what I mean not the real world you

13:07 know like not in prison that's also the real world but it's you know you

13:10 know what prison doesn't seem so bad

13:12 anymore man they got see-through tech products okay

13:16 sign me up I'm sure there's tons of millennials itching to go to jail now

13:20 what are you in for I'm innocent yeah that's what they all say the only

13:23 thing I'm guilty of is being a '9s It's a sharp toothbrush you got there.

13:33 As much as I miss the transparent tech trend,

13:35 I do understand why our iPhones aren't made with see-through material.

13:39 Inside every iPhone,

13:40 you'll be able to see a little help me message from the child who assembled it.

13:43 But when it comes to tech becoming more boring and bland and colorless,

13:47 I think the biggest changes I've seen have been on the actual internet.

13:51 As technology advanced and the amount of people

13:54 using the internet on a daily basis increased,

13:56 as well as the dependence on companies

13:58 generating revenue online increased as well,

14:01 the internet stopped being a place to go and like hang out and have fun.

14:05 Over the past 15 years, the internet has kind of just become the mall.

14:09 It's just a it's just a big mall now.

14:10 And since the internet is now the new mall,

14:13 the technological world needed to appeal to a broader

14:16 audience so companies could generate more revenue.

14:19 And that's why you see these like highly stylized and optimized

14:22 websites designed to give you all the info you need.

14:25 They direct your eyes to the right parts of the website.

14:28 They force you to spend money,

14:30 grab your information so they can put you on a mailing list,

14:32 and then they try to lure you back in as much

14:34 as they can to get every last dollar out of you.

14:36 It's just the way it goes, man.

14:37 In my uh video gear command center video last year,

14:41 I used the Wayback Machine to see what this old

14:44 website for an obscure gaming chair looked like in 2002.

14:47 And it was so much fun, man.

14:49 The website had so much character.

14:51 It reflected the aesthetic of the gaming chair.

14:53 The gifts were charming and campy.

14:56 It was so refreshing to see that instead of a pastel website

14:59 with the same types of product shots over and over and over and over again.

15:04 It's boring.

15:05 I'm bored.

15:06 I'm bored.

15:06 I'm officially bored.

15:07 And I know there's a reason for that popular aesthetic.

15:10 It works.

15:10 It's designed to keep people engaged and it entices them to spend money,

15:15 but like where's the sauce, man?

15:17 This is a personal opinion of mine,

15:19 but I think UX design needs to be eradicated.

15:22 Okay?

15:22 As far as I'm concerned, the user's experience.

15:25 How about you just make the website cool?

15:27 Make it fun to look at.

15:28 All right?

15:28 Don't get me wrong, old internet pages probably

15:30 would have benefited greatly from some smart design,

15:33 but that just wasn't on people's minds back then.

15:35 And I feel like the internet was more fun and enjoyable and memorable for it.

15:39 Like modern-day websites feel like the internet version

15:41 of a selfch checkckout line at a grocery store.

15:44 Don't do anything.

15:45 Don't screw around.

15:46 Don't talk to anybody.

15:47 Check out your items.

15:48 Put them in the bag.

15:49 off.

15:50 Like, it's a bummer, man.

15:51 At the very least, websites got to bring back glittery gifts.

15:54 Can we at least do that, man?

15:55 Glittery gifts of like kittens and I always

15:57 think about this quote in terms of the internet,

15:59 and it low-key gives off like fake deep vibes,

16:02 but it's also just really true at the same time.

16:04 So, I'm going to reference it.

16:05 15 years ago, the internet was an escape from the real world.

16:09 Now, the real world is an escape from the internet.

16:11 And I have to agree.

16:12 The internet used to be an entirely separate place that was thrilling and fun.

16:16 And it also only existed in one corner of my house.

16:20 And now it's everywhere.

16:21 It's in my hand and it's in my pocket at all times.

16:24 And I hate it, man.

16:25 It feels wrong.

16:25 It's like, yeah, roller coasters are fun, but if I was on one all the time,

16:29 I'd be praying for a Final Destination 3 incident.

16:32 So, I'm trying to balance my praises of early internet with some negatives,

16:36 too, because obviously early internet was not all good, dude.

16:40 One time I downloaded this toolbar in my Internet Explorer back in like 2004,

16:45 and it let you like change what your mouse cursor looked like.

16:48 I don't know where the I downloaded this thing,

16:50 but I changed my mouse cursor to a skateboard.

16:53 Pretty cool.

16:53 And then my stepdad actually had to factory reset

16:56 the family computer because my skateboard cursor gave us a virus.

17:00 Cool like that just doesn't happen anymore, man.

17:03 Truthfully, websites used to suck, but at the same time, they were a lot of fun.

17:08 For example, look at this Tik Tok that I saw of someone

17:10 showing what the Panic at the Disco website looked like in 2000.

17:23 So fun, man.

17:24 Looks like but it's so fun.

17:26 What does the Panic at the Disco website look like now?

17:32 This is my first video on Instagram.

17:35 I'm not wearing a shirt.

17:36 It's a shirtless jam.

17:38 Media in general has kind of just lost a lot of its wonder and excitement.

17:41 Probably because we're consuming way more media

17:44 than we should be on a daily basis.

17:46 And since we're consuming so much,

17:47 everything has kind of just lost its luster over time.

17:50 Prime example, dude, I watched The Dark Crystal from 1982 for the first time.

17:55 What the It was like literally breathtaking.

17:57 the music, animatronics, story, set design,

18:01 and overall atmosphere was something that you

18:03 straight up could not accomplish today.

18:05 Like, even if you genuinely tried to, a movie studio would never allow

18:09 it because it would be way cheaper to just do everything with CGI.

18:12 And when movie studios do everything with CGI to cut costs,

18:15 the end result is usually a jumbled mess of weird lighting and muted colors.

18:20 Not saying all CGI now is bad.

18:22 Not at all.

18:22 It's the stuff I've seen lately has been I Dude, Godzilla minus one.

18:26 I lost my mind.

18:28 That was insane what I was looking at.

18:29 But CGI works the best when they have a significant devoted

18:33 budget towards it and enough time to ensure that it's done properly.

18:37 And I'm sure you've seen criticisms online towards

18:39 modern lighting and color grading or lack thereof,

18:43 especially towards superhero films.

18:44 You can look back on old superhero movies like X-Men,

18:47 Iron Man, Avengers, especially the Sam Ramy Spider-Man films,

18:51 and when you compare those to modern superhero movies,

18:54 pretty plain to see they used to be

18:56 much more colorful and saturated and vibrant.

18:59 One could argue that with modern superhero movies,

19:02 there's a lot of, you know, different characters in them with different colors.

19:05 So maybe it would get confusing or overwhelming

19:07 and there wouldn't be a cohesive color scheme.

19:09 But I'd rather have that than a dimly lit

19:12 mess of gray that's like boring to look at.

19:15 You know, the only time a movie studio goes crazy

19:16 on their color grading is when a movie takes place in Mexico.

19:20 That's the only time movie studios remember how to color grade stuff.

19:23 They just throw like a yellow filter over it for some reason and they go,

19:26 "Yep, that's Mexico." Now, this is Mexico in the TV show Breaking Bad.

19:32 This is Mexico in real life.

19:34 That's actually a fun like travel hack.

19:36 I know plane tickets are expensive.

19:38 You know, this economy, it's pretty getting pretty hard to travel these days.

19:40 So, if you ever want to feel like you just took a trip to Mexico,

19:43 you just throw on a pair of yellow tinted glasses and voila,

19:47 I'm swimming in the ocean, drinking a margarita right next to a shark.

19:53 Oh, there's lemonade coming out of my arm.

19:55 It's not just superhero films that have lost their color over the years.

19:58 Look at this comparison from first season of Dexter from 2006

20:02 to this screenshot from Dexter New Blood from the year 2021.

20:05 The one from 2006 is lit properly.

20:08 The colors are perfectly saturated.

20:10 The contrast and shadows are all balanced well.

20:12 Looks great.

20:13 The one from 2021 looks like a poo.

20:15 Dexter, I hardly know.

20:17 Seeing stuff like this reminds me of of a meme I saw recently.

20:20 Men in LA, get off your phones and stop becoming influencers.

20:24 We need gaffers.

20:25 These shows dark as hell.

20:26 I can't see It's true, man.

20:29 The going on?

20:30 Another video recommendation here.

20:31 I watched a really good video from Patrick

20:34 Tomaso called Why Don't Movies Look Like Movies Anymore?

20:37 And I highly recommend you watch that because he does

20:39 a great job breaking down uh the key reasons behind this phenomenon.

20:43 But in short, filmmakers didn't always have the luxury of shooting

20:47 everything on a green screen and then just fixing it in post.

20:49 That just like wasn't feasible up until recently.

20:52 For most of history,

20:53 like most of the things they did while producing a film in terms of lighting,

20:57 costumes, and set design, it was all meticulously planned and there

21:01 was a clear intentionality behind every decision.

21:04 And I feel like that just doesn't happen anymore.

21:07 Might get into post and that room won't even be the same room anymore.

21:10 They're going to say, "You know what?

21:11 That window, we don't even want that window anymore.

21:13 The light doesn't make any sense.

21:14 We got to reshoot this whole thing." So, what do we do?

21:16 We shoot it bland.

21:17 We shoot it boring.

21:18 We light it flat.

21:20 We don't commit.

21:21 There's a lack of intention in the way

21:23 we are creating so many things these days.

21:26 But I don't want to on filmmakers for putting out movies that look

21:28 like this because most of the time I don't think it's their fault.

21:31 If a film's CGI is bad or if the lighting

21:34 is poorly planned or if the color grading is lacking,

21:37 99% of the time it's because the studio

21:39 gave the production companies an impossible deadline.

21:42 So these people who are overworked and underpaid,

21:45 they have to cut corners or do half-ass jobs

21:48 just so they can get the work done on time.

21:50 And it's either they do that or they lose their job.

21:53 So, I understand why it happened because if they lose their job,

21:56 then they got to sell their gray car

21:58 and then sell their newly built gray and white house.

22:01 Like, it's a slippery slope, man.

22:02 And now that I mention it, man,

22:04 I got to talk about architecture cuz what the is happening?

22:07 What is going on?

22:08 What are they doing to us?

22:09 I don't know if it's like this where you guys live,

22:10 but whenever I drive around Toronto and I see a new house that they built,

22:14 it's always the ugliest, most boring I have ever seen.

22:18 It's either white or gray, just a series of cubes with a flat roof.

22:23 That's not nice to look at, you know?

22:25 I don't feel like that would be a home.

22:27 Straight up, it looks like something I would build

22:29 in Minecraft really quickly because I'm too lazy to put

22:31 in any actual work because I want to go

22:33 find some diamonds and have sex with a creeper.

22:35 And it, dude, it's never just the exterior.

22:37 The interior of some of these people's houses, man.

22:40 Oh my god.

22:41 So much gray and white.

22:43 It's blinding.

22:44 Every time I look at a house on Zillow, I get flashbanged by the living room.

22:47 Dude, the interior of houses now look like that weird

22:51 scene in Deathly Hollows when Harry like dies or whatever.

22:54 Like this weird purgatory white room, right?

22:57 I I expect there to be a weird Voldemort corpse under all these couches, dude.

23:01 And dude, I'll see all these cheoogy ass weirdos, man,

23:04 make these videos like updating my boring old bathroom to a modern bathroom.

23:08 in the video is them destroying the most beautiful,

23:12 charming bathroom you've ever seen in your life just because it has a little bit

23:16 of color and they totally ruin it by making

23:18 it look whiter than a Morgan Wallen concert.

23:21 It's heartbreaking, man.

23:22 My wife and I try our best to make sure our house looks as colorful as possible.

23:27 And I am much happier than I would be

23:28 if my house was just white and gray all over.

23:31 I I know my walls are white here, but wait, walls are white.

23:36 Walls are white.

23:38 The white and gray is inescapable, though, man.

23:40 Apartment buildings, office buildings, hospitals, banks, churches,

23:44 literally anything being built right now looks the exact same, and it sucks.

23:48 This may be a personal preference,

23:49 but I'd rather the world around me reflect the human spirit of charisma,

23:54 uniqueness, nerve, and talent other than a bunch of boring gray cubes.

23:58 Man, the slow envelopment of boring gray

24:01 and sad beige is very apparent in North America,

24:04 but you notice it way more if you walk around a city like Florence or Paris.

24:09 Nothing will make you hate North American architecture more

24:12 than like an hour walk in any European city.

24:15 Dude, you're telling me a bunch of dudes built this humongous,

24:20 stunning cathedral out of perfectly cut bricks of pink, green,

24:24 and white marble and then went on to finish off the cathedral by building

24:27 one of the largest dome structures ever made without the use of scaffolding.

24:32 Oh, yeah.

24:32 And then some named Giorgio Visari went ahead and painted so hard that he died.

24:37 And then his apprentice had to finish the painting

24:40 and they were able to build all that 500 years ago.

24:43 And yeah, maybe it did take them over 140 years to build that cathedral,

24:47 but that's neither here nor there.

24:49 Sometimes when they're doing construction on these new condo buildings,

24:52 I'm sitting in traffic for 140 years.

24:54 The Duomo in Florence is a pretty drastic comparison, I know,

24:58 but even if you look back as recent as like 20,

25:00 30 years ago, there's a massive difference.

25:03 My wife and I are actually re-watching Beverly Hills 90210 right now.

25:07 And dude, every single episode we're like,

25:09 man, stuff used to look so much cooler.

25:12 Cars were cooler.

25:14 Clothes were more colorful.

25:15 There was glass bricks everywhere.

25:17 Stores had carpets.

25:18 Bring back the carpets, man.

25:19 I know it's way cheaper and easier to clean concrete floors,

25:23 and carpets start to stink like crazy after a while, but come on, man.

25:28 More and more physical stores are closing

25:30 every single year because of online shopping.

25:32 But the physical stores that do stay open

25:34 are just boring and drab and just a bummer.

25:38 So, it's like, yeah, f I might as well just stay home, I guess.

25:40 Dude, I saw the saddest picture of all time recently.

25:43 You guys know the McDonald's play place, right?

25:45 Big playground inside of McDonald's.

25:47 Ton of slides and tubes.

25:49 It was actually mostly tubes.

25:50 McDonald's Playplace is a series of tubes.

25:52 Well, take a look at the new McDonald's Playplace.

25:59 [Music] This broke my heart, man.

26:08 That's the play place.

26:09 Two little chairs with some tablets on the wall.

26:11 We're cooked.

26:12 We're so cooked, man.

26:13 And then who the is this guy?

26:15 The Happy Meal box is sentient now.

26:18 This is no play place, and I'm not playing.

26:20 I know there used to be N64s at McDonald's, and that was awesome,

26:24 but there also used to be the actual play place as well.

26:26 Dude, I have so many fond memories of going

26:28 down a huge slide in a McDonald's play place and landing into a huge ball pit

26:32 that smelled like little kid pee cuz, you know,

26:34 maybe a kid was having too much fun in the play

26:36 place and he didn't want that fun to end

26:38 and he didn't want to go all the way to the bathroom

26:40 and pee and then go come all the way back.

26:42 So, he decid decided to, you know,

26:44 just let it go cuz no one's going to find out, right?

26:46 I'm just assuming.

26:47 Now, what is a kid supposed to do if he has to go pee in the play place?

26:50 Stand on the chair and piss on the tablet?

26:52 Turn the iPad into an iPad?

26:53 Like, come on.

26:54 Why is this happening?

26:55 Why is the world losing its color?

26:58 It's a good question.

26:59 Sadly, it all goes back to money every time.

27:01 Like actually, every time.

27:02 It's capitalism.

27:03 It's capitalism every single time.

27:04 I saw this great example on Tik Tok.

27:06 I lost a Tik Tok, but I will regurgitate it poorly.

27:09 Let's say, for example, someone wants to open a coffee shop in their town.

27:12 Obviously, they'd like this coffee shop of theirs to be profitable.

27:14 So, maybe they go online and they

27:16 research what successful coffee shops look like.

27:18 What do they see?

27:19 A lot of minimalist design choices, a lot of grays and whites.

27:22 if they're crazy, maybe a neon sign that says,

27:24 "Give me coffee or I'll kill myself." But you know what?

27:27 No.

27:27 Maybe they think that's too boring.

27:29 Maybe they're like, "Fuck it.

27:29 I don't want this boring gray countertop.

27:32 I'm going to get a bright yellow countertop for my coffee shop." So,

27:35 they call a bunch of coffee counter

27:37 companies inquiring about a bright yellow countertop.

27:40 And they find out that it is significantly cheaper and quicker to just

27:44 do a gray one because that is what 99% of people usually want.

27:48 So, those are the materials that the counter companies buy in bulk.

27:51 Sure, they could make a bright yellow countertop,

27:53 but it would cost twice as much and take three times as long,

27:57 so it just wouldn't be worth it.

27:58 So, at the end of the day, the coffee shop owner is probably just going

28:00 to end up going with a boring gray countertop.

28:02 The cost of goods and manufacturing has become way too high,

28:06 especially with all the tariffs.

28:09 I'm terrified.

28:10 Okay, topical.

28:11 And also, just risk aversion is of paramount importance to business owners.

28:15 So, you know, I don't blame a small

28:17 business owner for just going with the cheaper,

28:19 more popular option, but at the same time,

28:22 it doesn't change the fact that it sucks.

28:23 You know, I want the Global Village coffee house aesthetic again, man.

28:26 I want Norah Jones bumping on the speakers, man.

28:29 I want to feel cozy and relaxed in a coffee shop.

28:31 I don't want to feel like I'm in a nameless

28:33 concrete warehouse about to get my ass kicked by Spider-Man,

28:36 a desaturated Spider-Man.

28:38 And more often than not,

28:39 you need to like spend more money to get a colorful version of an item.

28:43 It's like a weird color tax.

28:44 Again, I understand why that is from an economical and logistical standpoint,

28:49 but again, it doesn't change the fact that it sucks.

28:52 For example, I remember when I bought my Toyota Corolla back in 2019.

28:55 I was test driving a white one, and I really like the car.

28:59 I really enjoyed it.

29:00 But to me, the color was very boring because everybody has a white car.

29:03 So, I asked if I could get the blue one instead.

29:05 And they had the blue one,

29:06 but they told me it was going to be an extra $500 just for a different color.

29:10 It's the same man.

29:12 Like, this is why everything sucks, man.

29:14 Like, since when has color become a luxury?

29:16 What are we doing to ourselves, guys?

29:18 pisses me off, man.

29:19 It makes me so makes me so mad I'm turning red and now I'm worth more money.

29:23 And trust me, I could and moan all day.

29:26 I can go on and on about how the world isn't colorful anymore,

29:28 and I can cite comparisons until the cows come home,

29:31 but I won't because I told those cows not

29:33 to come home until they're a little more colorful.

29:36 All jokes and nostalgia aside, I am genuinely concerned and sad for the future

29:40 because I think this is only going to get worse.

29:44 And we haven't even begun to see the long-term effects of this.

29:46 Take this article for example titled the sad beige aesthetic.

29:50 Why has the world suddenly turned to?

29:52 In this article, they interview a self-proclaimed sad beige mom.

29:55 If you've never heard the term sad beige before,

29:57 uh it may be a little confusing.

29:59 It basically just means something is sad and beige.

30:01 I hope that helps.

30:02 You'll see a lot of sad beige Christmas stuff pop up,

30:05 which is super upsetting to see because Christmas is like

30:08 the most colorful time of year for a a reason.

30:11 Christmas is so colorful and warm to get away

30:13 from how sad and bleak and colorless it is outside, right?

30:17 But yeah, there's a lot of moms out there that'll incorporate

30:19 a lot of sad beige stuff into their kids' lives because

30:22 they care more about their aesthetic than their kids being actually

30:24 happy and excited about their life that they didn't ask for.

30:27 Well, it's not that 39-year-old Mina Trin

30:30 wants a life completely devoid of bright colors.

30:32 She just doesn't want them anywhere near her home or her children's wardrobe.

30:36 Can't avoid them, says the doctor and mother of three from Texas.

30:39 They creep into areas of my life that I can't control.

30:42 You go outside and the grass is green.

30:45 Yeah, man.

30:45 I accidentally dropped the knife on my kid's head last

30:48 week and he got a bunch of bright red blood everywhere.

30:51 So, yeah, he's been grounded in his room ever since.

30:54 I actually haven't heard from him in a few days.

30:56 It's It's been kind of nice.

30:58 She is an unabashed sad beige mom.

31:00 A woman determined to keep the garish influence of childhood

31:04 at bay and instead foster a sober palette of beige on beige.

31:08 "You won't see my kids in primary or secondary colors,

31:11 unless it's pajamas," says Tran.

31:13 "Okay, why are colorful pajamas okay, though?

31:15 They're going to be so deprived of color at that point.

31:18 Every night they're going to be staring at their pajamas

31:20 like a bunch of dudes at Dan Flashes.

31:22 How are they going to get their color fixed, dude?

31:25 They're going to end up going to some back alley color dealer.

31:27 They're going to get mixed up in the wrong crowd and totally ruin their fuchsia.

31:31 Oh, brother.

31:32 This guy seriously is very funny and I love watching his videos.

31:37 Sorry.

31:37 Polychromatic plastic toys.

31:39 Forget about it.

31:40 A technicolor playroom even.

31:42 We have one play area and that play area is also the living space.

31:45 I don't want to stare at something hot pink and neon green every day, she says.

31:49 So, that is also a resounding no.

31:51 Okay, got it.

31:51 So, since the mom doesn't want to look at bright stuff all day,

31:54 then I guess her kids aren't allowed to.

31:55 I think that's bad parenting.

31:58 Straight up.

31:58 If this is the hill she's dying on, how would

32:00 this sad beige mom deal with other issues in her kids' life?

32:04 Mom, I have something to tell you.

32:05 Okay, what is it?

32:07 I'm gay.

32:08 Hey, that's great.

32:09 Okay, I support you 100%.

32:11 You know, actually, deep down,

32:13 ever since I saw you kiss that boy last week, I think I knew.

32:17 My god, you saw that?

32:19 Oh my god, that's so embarrassing.

32:20 That was That was my boyfriend.

32:22 Okay.

32:23 You seem very nice.

32:24 I like the beige sweater he was wearing.

32:26 I taught you well.

32:27 What's his name?

32:28 Oh, his his name's Tyler.

32:29 Tyler.

32:30 Okay.

32:30 What's his last name?

32:31 His last name?

32:32 It's uh Green.

32:38 Green.

32:40 Green.

32:44 Get the out of my house.

32:45 Obviously, it's fun to goof on people like this because

32:47 loving beige is such a weird thing to be passionate about.

32:50 But I am genuinely worried about how this inescapable blandness

32:53 is going to affect children who are growing up right now.

32:57 There's been actual evidence to back this up.

32:59 This article titled the psychological cost of boring buildings says

33:03 in one case physicians have linked

33:04 environmental deprivation to ADHD in children.

33:08 Homes without toys, art,

33:09 or other stimuli were a significant predictor of ADHD symptoms.

33:13 Worldrenowned designer Thomas Heatherwick wrote in his book humanize,

33:17 "Boring is worse than nothing.

33:18 Boring is a state of psychological deprivation.

33:21 Just as the body will suffer when it's deprived of food,

33:24 the brain begins to suffer when it's deprived of sensory information.

33:27 Boredom is a starvation of the mind.

33:29 Okay, skinny.

33:30 A boring colorless surrounding affects you, obviously.

33:33 And this has been proven in a study

33:35 by a cognitive neuroscientist named Colin Ellard.

33:38 He conducted an experiment that featured sensors attached to people's

33:42 skin that would track something called their conductance response,

33:46 which is used to measure emotional arousal.

33:49 Um, I wish they used a different word than that.

33:52 And when people in this experiment walked by a boring building,

33:55 their bodies went into quote unquote fight or flight mode.

33:58 I will say that wording seems a little dramatic.

34:01 Um, I don't know if it was that bad.

34:02 I don't know if people were punching the buildings or running away from them,

34:05 but there was a real measurable visceral

34:07 reaction to being surrounded by boring architecture.

34:10 We are what we're surrounded by.

34:12 So, if you're surrounded by a bunch of boring you're going to be

34:15 bored as I feel very grateful because when I look back on my childhood,

34:18 it was so bright and colorful and vibrant.

34:20 And I feel bad for these kids growing up in a all

34:23 beige house because they're going to be catatonic by the time they're teenagers.

34:26 And not to mention the countless study done over the years

34:29 regarding color theory and how different colors can evoke different emotions.

34:32 So if colors make us feel different emotions,

34:35 we can then infer that a lack of color makes us feel nothing at all.

34:39 And not to go all tinfoil hat, but having the general population feel absolutely

34:44 empty inside and totally devoid of emotion is

34:47 probably the ideal mindset for them to be

34:50 in if a bunch of corporations want them

34:52 to stare at a tablet on a wall in a play place all day or buy

34:56 every beige thing they see on the internet to fill the emptiness inside of them.

35:00 Going to be honest, I really did not plan on talking so long about this.

35:04 I just wanted to make a quick video complaining about this phenomenon.

35:06 The more I started researching this, the more upset I got.

35:09 I also just can't shut up cuz this is frustrating, man.

35:12 This is not the future we were promised.

35:14 There's supposed to be an exotic fish swimming out of my computer

35:17 screen right now with a huge diagram of a globe in the sky.

35:21 Okay, this is And I really don't want to end this video

35:23 on such a bleak note because it's not like color has completely abandoned us.

35:27 I think we just need to look a little harder for it.

35:30 We need to seek it out as often as we can for our own well-being.

35:33 Tech may be boring and gray now,

35:35 but you can always pay more for a colored variant or spend

35:39 more money to get a colorful phone case with Kermit's pose on it.

35:43 Logos and branding in general have become very minimalistic and boring,

35:47 but some companies are starting to get a little

35:49 more colorful and fun and daring with their rebrands.

35:52 So, there is a little bit of hope.

35:54 At the very least, if you want to see any bright packaging or logos,

35:56 just go into any weed or vape shop.

35:58 Holy And when it comes to the internet,

36:00 a lot of websites are boring and gray and white and simple,

36:04 but there's a lot of cool websites doing a lot

36:05 of interesting stuff that is very fun and refreshing.

36:07 And yes, movies and TV shows can look bland and dim these days.

36:12 But simultaneously, some of the most visually stunning

36:15 media of all time is being created right now.

36:18 Severance is a terrific example of that.

36:20 That is a show that is shot almost entirely

36:22 under fluorescent lighting and it takes place mostly underground.

36:26 Yet, it's the most visually stunning show I've seen in years.

36:30 And they hardly even use color in that show.

36:32 But when they do, it's intentional and gripping.

36:38 They use color narratively and emotionally.

36:40 And when there is a colorful scene in the show,

36:42 it kind of stops you in your tracks because you're so starved of it.

36:45 I just love Severance, man.

36:46 It's so good.

36:47 Things look bleak right now, okay?

36:49 But there is hope.

36:49 I don't think we need to accept this boring gray lifestyle.

36:52 They tried to convince us that Frosted Tips was a cool thing to do in the '90s.

36:56 Together, we said no.

36:58 We rejected that.

36:59 And we can do the same thing now.

37:00 Right now, we're all a bunch of little

37:02 cockroaches that got painted over by a landlord.

37:05 In this situation, the landlord is corporations

37:09 and the white paint is is capitalism.

37:12 If we work together, if we keep wiggling our little cockroach legs hard enough,

37:16 we can finally break free from that white paint on the wall and ultimately

37:21 fall to our death and and die alone in a pile of our own blood.

37:27 But at least that blood will be bright red.

37:31 Wow, what a nice message from our friend

37:33 Kurt or yellow if you're going to Mexico.

37:35 All right.

37:36 Uh, thanks for uh listening to me complain if you're still watching this.

37:40 Again, sorry I talked for so long.

37:41 And I'm sorry if this video wasn't funny,

37:43 but I just wanted to complain for a while

37:45 because this is something that uh you know, my wife and I talk about a lot.

37:48 And um like it if you enjoyed it.

37:50 Leave a comment.

37:50 Let me know what you think about this.

37:52 I feel like this is a good discussion that we can have in the comments.

37:54 A lot of people are going to have some good opinions better than mine.

37:57 Yeah.

37:57 Subscribe if you want.

37:58 Keep rocking out.

37:59 That's it.

37:59 I would stick around, but unfortunately I really have to pee.

38:03 So I got to go find the closest ball pit.

38:06 See you.

38:07 [Music]