Quick Rant on Design Blogs

As much as I love interior design and design in general, this blog will NOT become a generic design blog like so many I've seen recently.

[Sorry for the run-on intro sentence, but I did warn you that this is a rant.]

You know what I'm talking about. They're basically glorified photo wishlists of multi-thousand dollar designer pieces with no critical analysis, content or discussion. I've seen over 10 of these so far while looking for personal design resources.

Know what else bugs me about them besides them being generally less useful than staring at a manufacturer's catalog? The sheer incestuosness of this particular blogging community. You go to one site and then go to another and you'll see the exact same pictures on the same day. The "writers" of these blogs basically browse each other's sites and then cut and paste into their own site. Welcome to the 21st Century: the cut-and-paste dawn of the digital sampling monoculture.

Real design is timeless. Just like the concept of cool is timeless. They are timeless due to their originality. Uniqueness defies and defines eras. It is an insult to ape the scene like so many of these LA/SF/NYC cultural transients that are now termed "hipsters".

As a sidenote, why does everyone in Hollywood and Silver Lake have a goatee now? I know I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but that was the impression I got on my last visit to LA in September. When did these neighborhoods become "hot"? I remember growing up in LA and Hollywood was a dump. There are now million-dollar lofts on Skid Row. Ridiculous. These new residents have never hustled in their lives and now they're living the good life and ignoring their neighbors in the heart of urban misery USA.

The one good thing is that I have discovered http://www.apartmenttherapy.com

Granted, I'm an urban snob and seeing the occassional snapshots of modernist living spaces in Fremont, CA and suburbia USA leaves me amused in a bitter way. It's the equivalent scenario to me of the adoption of rap by white suburban kids. You can ape the words, but you can never feel the pain. It's soulless mimicry.

I think if I was black, I'd be angry all the time.