MarkFiend

Loony lefty. Code monkey. 184 years old (in tumblr years).

[historicity-was-already-taken]

I just want to take a moment and tell my non-Jewish readers how much I appreciate you. You’ve been listening to Jewish users talk openly about the their complex emotions about complex issues, and there hasn’t been any nonsense. And when you do disagree, you are doing so respectfully.

Thank you for being good allies.

[markfiend]

I figured the best way I can help is to shut up and listen

[mcmansionhell]

chud atlantis

Hello everyone, sorry to go so long without posting something. I caught covid in August and it's taken me months to start feeling relatively back to normal. I am still struggling with fatigue and some neurological problems, so thank you for your patience!

It is rare that the McMansion ever approaches the mythical, though it is, of coursed, steeped in its own mythology -- of bootstrapism, castle doctrine and, importantly, a total commitment to individualism. No one bereft of a sense of personal mythos would build some of the houses I've posted about on this site throughout the years.

However, rarely do those houses sincerely believe their own myths, express them so utterly. Often, there's a bit of cheek involved in all those Corinthian columns, even among the knockoff Rolex set. Whenever one does swallow the (blue) kool aid, well, it's very important to me. And so, from the forgotten underwater past of the greater Houston suburbs, I bring you: Chud Atlantis

(it is always more fun to quote the front bit of that Shelley poem, because the second bit has been misappropriated by Reddit.)

Atlantic in size (8 bedrooms, 9 baths, 10,000+ square feet), and in price ($2.8 million), Chud Atlantis is proof that, for better or for worse, we used to build things in this country. (Just kidding, this house was built, astonishingly enough, in 2023.) Its existence is baffling to me not only because it is anachronistic (it belongs in the Bad 70s) but because it is Texan. This house is, in the fullest sense of the word, a transplant. Orlando is that way.

(Shall we enter, then, the eye-watery depths?)

It's important that you understand that the most significant thing about this house is that it is blue. In an age of gray supremacy, it is nice to know that tacky can still come in more unconventional shades. No one prior to this has ever looked at a piece of dyed marble and thought: I need to make this my entire personality. Not even in the 80s!

Like many McMansion owners, these do not know how to decorate. One can only presume that the furniture involved is so heavy that staging also wasn't an option. This makes the house a historical document because from this point onward such rooms will henceforth be yassified with AI.

this kitchen begs for a concept food. it begs for 'gold leaf hamburger.'

I'm not entirely convinced that the Rococo period was ugly, but its imitators commit crimes unerringly and without fail. Furniture like this sits in a room like a big glob of meat. Instead of saying 'i'm rich' what it actually communicates is: 'i'm heavy.'

I don't know how you can make so much money and yet have everything you do look like the bootleg Chanel rugs they sell outside of the subway. Like, can't you buy the real thing, dawg?

This may also be the first house whose broad aesthetic is executed by way of direct to consumer printing. The FedExification of art. Or something like that. After all, the internet loves a neologism more than it loves its elaboration.

"What should we put here to fill out this room" all-time bad answer.

Anyway, without further ado, the back:

The suburban mind yearns for the miniature golf course. The suburban mind yearns for water while it all dries up.

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams. (Don’t worry! This doesn’t adjust for inflation! Now’s the perfect time to join!) By the way: new subscribers can buy a year of McMansion Hell for just $12!

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar! McMansion Hell stocks, much like mortgage-backed securities only ever go up! For non-architecture stuff I also have a substack where I write about things like the ring cycle and going to the eye doctor.

[byjove]

I hate anti-vaxers now. Actively loathe them. There was a time where I had a modicum of empathy and understanding for people being distrustful of the medical establishment, even though every study has shown that vaccines are safe and effective and beneficial, I know some wounds are hard to heal. Now? If you’re seeing the people regurgitating anti-vaccine misinformation and witnessing their agendas, reading the news reports of diseases that were nearly eradicated coming back to kill children again, hearing the distress and fear from medical professionals and parents of immunocompromised children and still saying “Hmm. Fuck you.” and deciding not to vaccinate your children and yourself, there is no excuse for you. You’d like to see me dead. I’m not tiptoeing around you. You’re a horrible person and a terrible parent.

[wastedjackpot]

[markfiend]

Yeah that movie is all kinds of fucked

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Tumblr being the "piss on the poor" reading comprehension site makes sense when you realize that 79% of adults in the US are functionally illiterate. Same goes for Twitter and TikTok.

that's a real high number, sport. where'd you get it?

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hey anon

please tell me you didn't google "US literacy rates" and then make the funniest possible mistake one could make in that situation

[ingdamnit]

WELL WELL WELL NOT SO EASY TO AVOID URINATING ON THE IMPOVERISHED IS IT?

[cosmicretreat]

[ingdamnit]

Nah man that's him he just looks like shit

[markfiend]

Yeah don't get our hopes up

[radicalgraff]

"If you saw someone stealing food, no you didn't"

Poster spotted in Manchester, UK

[depsidase]

[wilwheaton]

[zombilenium]

Dimitri Bourriau Photography

[wilwheaton]

“What makes me finally start to think Trump might really be in trouble — like trouble in a way we haven’t seen in the Trump era, in a possibly existential way — is that he’s doing his same old thing but it’s not working. “It’s fake. Obama did it. I’ll sue.” Yada yada yada. But none of it is working. And despite that, he keeps doing the same thing that isn’t working at a higher volume. He doesn’t have any second angle. The “release all the (none of the) documents” ploy is just another version of the same. He’s trying to fast-forward the thing that already didn’t work — something that only makes it more obvious that he’s lying and that actually releasing everything is impossible for him. (Only that can explain why the current spectacle is somehow his better option.) Each time he does it, he just underlines how damaging the information must be — how much he fears it. So the water to put out the fire is actually just gasoline to make it bigger. Everything is accelerating. The whole story is just Trump testifying against himself in TrumpSpeak.”

—

Trump Is Failing and Flailing—No One’s Ever Seen Anything Like It!

I love this for him.

[rylandsgrace]

Superman (2025) // The Boys (2019 - )

[thememedaddy]

[historicity-was-already-taken]

That thing the Trump Fascists are doing in the Everglades?

It’s a concentration camp.

And may be a death camp.

I’m sad and confused and angry.

[marisatomay]

It’s so infuriating that teen smoking rates were at an all time low in the US and we were on track to basically eradicate smoking and nicotine addiction in teens like it was flat out uncool to smoke and then They came out with nicotine injector flash drives that light up and taste like cotton candy. And have lead in them.

[markfiend]

Vaping makes you look like you're giving R2-D2 a blowjob.

[dailyrothko]

I'll just mention, for no reason in particular, that Mark Rothko was an immigrant, a refugee, a socialist and an anti-war protester.

[saywhat-politics]

“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” - G.M. Gilbert