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I’m tired of the grey. I’m also tired of the cars that are various shades of primer. They just look bad.
You don’t like Glossy Primer either?
For me grey is a nice utility color. Black cars show dirt easy as do white cars. Grey cars, not as much.
If you want to hide dirt, go with paisley, or something comparable.
Honestly, nothing is better at hiding a stain than a Hawaiian shirt, that same principle can be used anywhere.
Some car manufacturers have used WWI-style dazzle camouflage to make it harder to photograph prototype cars.
If it's hard for a viewer to even make out the car's lines, probably hard to make out anything on the car too.
You know what, fuck it, I might consider that, given that my daily driver is starting to become a bit of a project car anyway. Buying a Chinese MPPS clone was a mistake, now I want a front-mount intercooler and a hybrid turbo and I already know what car's injectors would easily spray more than mine if I raise the rail pressure which I can do no problem since I have a CP3 R90 high pressure fuel pump and...
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I like colorful cars more, I really noticed how bland they were on the east coast of the us recently. White, grey, black. Almost all of them.
On the other hand, people seem bizarrely obsessed with washing their cars. I get the idea of removing salt if you live where that's a thing, but otherwise I only wash my car maybe yearly. I just don't care that much.
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The auto industry is dead it seems (in so many ways), it just hasn't been told this fact yet.
They all have the same general shape, why not the same general color? /s
Same with sofas!
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People across the road just painted their house a bright teal. It looks really bad because they painted everything! The siding, the brick, the accents, and "shutters". They left no contrasting lines or spaces, just teal everywhere.
And to top it off they hired someone to do it! So I agree, people dont understand color.
thinks a bit
Is it really true that houses need to have contrasting colors, that that objectively is preferable? Maybe it's just what we're used to, so it feels more "normal".
Like, I can certainly think of architectural styles that don't have much color variety.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Est%C3%A9van_del_Rey_Mission_Church
The San Estévan del Rey Mission Church stands at the northern end of the large plaza that takes up the southern end of the mesa top that houses Sky City, the traditional Acoma pueblo settlement that has been continuously occupied since prehistoric times. It is a large adobe structure, built in a wall and beam construction style.
Brutalism often just exposes the raw color of concrete for the whole exterior:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_Carre%C3%B1o_Cultural_Complex
Architectural style: Brutalist
A lot of modern architecture styles go in for a stark white:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Paul_Poiret
Villa Paul Poiret in Mézy-sur-Seine, Yvelines, France, is an early 1920s Cubism-inspired Art Deco private house originally designed by architect Robert Mallet-Stevens.
The house stands in 48,500 square metres (12.0 acres) of parkland in Mézy-sur-Seine, to the west of Paris, overlooking the Seine Valley. It is constructed in reinforced concrete in a geometric style, has 25 rooms on three levels, 800 square metres (8,600 sq ft) of internal space, an upper terrace with panoramic views, and a 7-metre-tall (23 ft) corner salon with floor-to-ceiling windows.[1]
Greek Revival architecture exteriors tend to have the same sort of uncolored surface. Amusingly, this was based on a misunderstanding of Greek architecture
we often think of classical Greek statues and buildings as white marble, though that's because the paint that was once on there wore away prior to archeologists discovering them. In the early US, we used it a lot in government buildings because it was associated with democracy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Revival_architecture
EDIT: And the styles based on Spanish Colonial stuff are often monocolored other than having a terracotta roof:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Colonial_Revival_architecture
Every single one of those examples does have contrasts though. The mission Church wood is a different color, and the shadows you can see of the ceiling provide a third. The brutality has starkly different windows, the stairwell is accented in beige, and there is a lot of texture in the concrete. villa savoye has contrasted base, window trim, and again the white starkly contrasts with the reflective windows. Idk what this person's neighbor house looks like but solid untextured teal (or any color) would look pretty weird imo without at least some differences in tone, texture, or like natural colored window frames at least.
Okay, but now imagine any of those buildings you cited painted teal.
(They work because they're the authentic color of the materials they're made out of and people interpret authentic as "correct," not because monochromatic is inherently good.)
Hmm, maybe it doesn't work so well when it's bright teal tho.
Nobody will ever know unless some brave soul tries painting the Lincoln Memorial teal.
Actually...you know, I could see Trump deciding to gild the thing. He put gold all over in the White House...
I mean, just look at the garish blue reflecting pool.
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Not the brick 😭 will people stop fucking painting brick? You can never undo it, it's bad for the brick and it's ugly af. Leave brick alone.
Yeah, quite literally, just use a different material if you want to paint. Already have brick but want a different color? Then add another layer of construction material, you don't have to have exposed brick if you don't like the color of bricks.
The ol “landlord special” method
We have someone here that did the same, but with white. Siding is white. Brick foundation and walkway-white. Chimney shutters windows doors, everything white. Also hired someone and they did a terrible job, you can see all over spots where they didn't put enough paint. It genuinely looks like a monstrous bird took a shit on it.
I painted my house purple
A friend of mine painted his old red farmhouse cherry red with purple accenting on the eaves, doorframes and such. the doors are orange. It all looks really good, partially because he got a degree in art that included a lot of color theory work.
I'd love to see that, because your description of red, purple, and orange makes me think of a clown house lmao
My house is a darker shade of purple, the trim is a lighter shade of purple, and the doors, garage door, and eaves are all white with the slightest hint of pink. I definitely don't have that sort of formal knowledge, but I think it looks great
Orange is a highlight of red and purple a lowlight or shade of red, both analogous colors to red, so honestly that sounds genius. (I'm not an artist, I'm just sitting next to a color wheel and see it all the time: I'm trying to work on my own color theory.)
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Article needs a LOT more pictures.
I don't know if its validating or disappointing to be seen so thoroughly by an article like this. On the one hand, I absolutely identify with the memes that are like "men will live like this without issue" and it's just an arm chair and TV in an otherwise empty room. Aesthetics, while noticeable to me, are simply never much of a priority. However, at the same time, I also feel like taking ownership of your living space and having the confidence to imprint aspects of your personality on it is a mark of maturity in some ways.
So, I find myself stuck in an increasingly silly feedback loop of not caring about aesthetics -> feeling bad for not caring -> trying to brainstorm some ideas for how to spruce things up -> having anxiety over the infinite combinations of possibilities without a "correct" answer -> throwing my hands up and returning to not caring.
We work on it in therapy, I guess, lol.
I also feel like taking ownership of your living space and having the confidence to imprint aspects of your personality on it is a mark of maturity in some ways.
I'm in my forties and I've never been in an apartment I've been allowed to alter or paint. Some of us are in that situation because it's pointless to lose your damage deposit over it, and with rental prices increasing endlessly, living in one place longer than 2-3 years is really unlikely, and I got sick of trying to decorate just to have to tear it all down constantly.
That’s the reality for a lot that people don’t t understand. Landlord white and don’t hang pics. The second aspect is not really collecting anything as you may have to move fast. It’s unfair and soul destroying.
Yeah, because I actually do like painting and decorating and unique color schemes. Color theory isn't fucking hard or something. There's free complementary colors tools online.
Anyway, just was annoyed that someone thought that doing this was a sign of "maturity" as if that's not just one more aspect of "adulthood" that has been denied to every generation from millennials on downward.
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There's a big factor that i didn't see in my skim of the article: painting and repainting costs time and money. In the 60s, 70s and 80s consumers had the money to mess around with colors on a whim. You had the money to buy a new car and keep it in whatever condition you like. If you changed your mind later, nbd, just change it back.
These days I don't know anyone with a house (of those who can afford them) who can spend money on anything but the safest and most conservative options. Even if you put aside resale value of a home or vehicle, a daring color will probably fade or your tastes will change or it will clash with new surroundings or become hard to match as it's phased out of stock.
In 10 years I'll probably feel exactly the same about my off-white wall as I do now. It will look the same with basically any furniture. It might fade to a slightly different shade of unobtrusive white. Why would I spend my limited money to give my future self headaches? Just for a different vibe?
As someone lucky enough to have been able to afford a house, the best thing we did was paint the main level no less than 4 different colors including a bright fuchsia in the bathroom. an upstairs bedroom/bathroom each got their own color & in the other bedrooms we’ve left the colorful blobs & rainbow that the prior owners painted bc they were kids bedrooms.
The basement was out of our budget to paint, & it’s def the saddest room in the house with its off white walls
In the 60s, 70s and 80s consumers had the money to mess around with colors on a whim.
Maybe rich people did. This is a really wild take and I don't think it's grounded in reality at all.
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My internal conspiracy theory is that McDonald's deliberately chose the boring, gray and block redesign for nearly every location now BECAUSE it's less inviting.
They don't want people to eat in, or even stop by to go to the drive thru. What they want is to push the fast food market towards delivery, because the profit margins are so much better. They can't just close dining rooms and drive thrus entirely, because that would scare consumers and drive down stock prices. So instead they're using boring shades of gray and hostile design to make people not WANT to go to McDonald's, and instead just order it through DD.
I have a different theory.
McDonald's is a real estate company. The parent company in the US owns a lot (most?) of the locations of the franchise restaurants.
Real estate appreciates over time and grey is easy to sell to another business (since it's all commercial real estate anyway) since it doesn't require a major remodel like some other colors might.
Because IMO at least, McDonald's interiors went boring before the delivery thing really kicked off.
Interesting theory, but like someone said it's cuz they're also a real estate company. Easier to sell someone a building that's a grey "blank slate" instead of a red and yellow playground with a giant "M" on it.
Well considering up until the 1960s everything was in black and white, this just seems like another one of those fads that becomes popular again years later like JNCO jeans.
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My wife yelled at me for getting the wrong red, because I got crimson instead of ruby. So yeah I get it.
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Like so many proclamations that some particular cultural shift is permanent, this will only be true until it isn't.
The article goes into reasons that this is more than just a matter of consumer tastes, like how 70% of new house construction are within an HOA, and the way people who might otherwise choose a unique car or house color can be convinced otherwise based on perception of hurting resale value.
the way people who might otherwise choose a unique car
IMO the problem with cars is that people don't "choose" the color at all. They buy what's available on the lot, and what's available on the lot is almost entirely shitty neutrals because that's what dealers/manufacturers think sells because that's all that people could choose from because that's what was on the lot...
I don't normally buy new cars, but in 2019 I was going to bite the bullet and get myself a "BIFL" Toyota Tacoma. I knew exactly what I wanted: a manual transmission TRD Off-Road in Voodoo Blue -- that color specifically. But guess what: I do not have a Tacoma because Toyota could not and would not sell me that car. There wasn't a single one in that color available anywhere in the entire Southeastern US, and they would not take an order to build one for me. If I wanted to settle for some random boring color they had plenty, but not Voodoo Blue.
I ended up deciding that if I couldn't get exactly what I wanted it defeated the point of buying new at all, and got an old 2nd-gen 4Runner instead.
Anyway, point is that Toyota tanked the sale entirely by refusing to provide a bright color^with^ ^correct^ ^trim^ ^level^ ^and^ ^transmission^, and because I'm that stubborn. Most people are not like me and will settle instead, and that's how all the cars end up being boring, shitty colors!
Example of the truck Toyota wouldn't sell me
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Calling bullshit on this. Color will make a comeback. I give Wet Paint Grey 2 more years before people have had enough of it as a favorite car color. I think interior and exterior house paint colors might not improve until the fall of global fascism which admittedly doesn't seem likely anytime real soon.
isn't this a well known thing? in times of economic downturn people purchase less colorful stuff as it depreciates slower
It's a lasting long term thing. Not just a recession thing
We were looking used car earlier this year. At the dealership there was one beautiful green car that was a different model then we wanted but was discounted because "it was a weird color". We looked for a few weeks to find the car we wanted to a color that wasn't white or black. We couldn't find one so we went with white.
Nothing to stop you from painting the car whatever color you like. I've always painted my cars.. Once I had a Celica with a yellow hood, sunroof, back hatch and flat black bumpers, and lower panel body, with one red and green door. Painted it with a mohair minipaint roller. Satin finish. Drove it like a madwoman and once it was all "field mark" oddly enough, cops stopped pulling me over. LOL! (Didn't want to be seen near the "circus-mobile" I guess..)
TBH, the issue with a lot of things being painted monotones of black gray and white is down to the cost of pigments. Just getting a gallon of Ben Moore paint tinted a deep shade of the green or blue can add up to 5 bucks for the cost.
We have considered painting the car. It's just shows that the market doesn't have any real options.
Our house is over 100 years old so we have painted with historical colors which are jewel tones or various colors. People always comment about how nice it looks and I'm like it's because we have color in there. You can do the same with your modern grey house
Since the late 2000s, Buckter has watched with dismay as essentially colorless colors—think white, beige, gray—have taken over. “It’s not even three shades, or four shades, of gray. It’s just one dark gray,” he said.
The share of new cars in grayscale colors rose from 60 percent in 2004 to 80 percent in 2023. Production of purple cars dropped 93 percent over that period, gold by 97 percent.
So, that's certainly true for cars in the US
I've read articles about that and was amazed when I realized rhe shift myself. I can believe that it's true for houses in San Francisco, though I'm not certain that that's true nationwide and the article doesn't cite data supporting that other than in Washington, DC.
But I'm not sure that it's true in, say, clothing, and the article doesn't cite figures there. I'm wearing muted earth tones, but the next person over in the restaurant I'm in is wearing a bright green shirt, and the guy bicycling by outside is wearing yellow.
And I'm not sure that it's true globally.
I'm pretty confident that at least in menswear, the US is more colorful than it was, say, a century back. Maybe not if you compare to the 1970s.
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this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2026
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