Type of site | Blog |
---|---|
Editor | Kate Wagner |
URL | mcmansionhell |
Launched | July 2016 |
McMansion Hell is a blog that humorously critiques McMansions, large suburban homes typically built from the 1980s to 2008 and known for their stylistic attempt to create the appearance of affluence using mass-produced architecture. The website is run by Kate Wagner, an architecture critic who holds a master's degree in audio science with a specialty in architectural acoustics from Johns Hopkins University's Peabody Conservatory. [1] [2] [3] [4]
A standard entry consists largely of photographs from real estate listings for a particular McMansion juxtaposed with Wagner's commentary, using arrows to note features she finds questionable or in poor taste. [1] In addition to individual homes, the website's commentary often extends to the broader perceived material culture of wastefulness represented by McMansions, [5] providing anecdotes of situations when McMansions have been a poor financial investment [6] and offering stand-alone essays on urban planning and architectural history. [7] The blog offers subscriptions with bonus content. [1]
The blog has acquired many fans, with 65,000 followers in July 2018. [1] [8] [9] Wagner has been interviewed about McMansion Hell by publications including Paper , The Washington Post , Slate , Business Insider , The Hairpin , and Der Spiegel in Germany, and has appeared on the 99% Invisible podcast. [3] She has gained wide name recognition in architectural circles [10] and has written for publications including The Washington Post , [11] Bloomberg , [12] Architectural Digest , [13] The Baffler , [14] The Atlantic, [15] Jacobin , [16] and The New Republic , [17] currently serving as architecture critic for The Nation . [18]
In June 2017, Zillow sent Wagner a letter claiming that McMansion Hell violated Zillow's Terms of Service by "reproducing, modifying, and publicly displaying" content from Zillow listings. The letter also suggested that McMansion Hell was in violation of copyright law, was unprotected by fair use, and by interfering with Zillow's business interests may have been violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. [19] After Wagner obtained legal representation from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Zillow declined to pursue legal action against McMansion Hell. [20]
A blog is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. In the 2000s, blogs were often the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject or topic. In the 2010s, "multi-author blogs" (MABs) emerged, featuring the writing of multiple authors and sometimes professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, advocacy groups, and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into the news media. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
McMansion is a pejorative term for a large, "mass-produced" house in a suburban community that is marketed to the upper middle class in developed countries.
Gracie Mansion is the official residence of the mayor of New York City. Built in 1799, it is located in Carl Schurz Park, at East End Avenue and 88th Street in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan. The federal-style mansion overlooks Hell Gate in the East River and consists of the original two-story house and an annex built in 1966. The original house is a New York City designated landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
SCOTUSblog is a law blog written by lawyers, law professors, and law students about the Supreme Court of the United States. Formerly sponsored by Bloomberg Law, the site tracks cases before the Court from the certiorari stage through the merits stage. The site live blogs as the Court announces opinions and grants cases, and sometimes has information on the Court's actions published before either the Court or any other news source does. SCOTUSblog frequently hosts symposiums with leading experts on the cases before the Court. The blog comprehensively covers all of the cases argued before the Court and maintains an archive of the briefing and other documents in each case.
Zillow Group, Inc., or simply Zillow, is an American tech real-estate marketplace company that was founded in 2006 by co-executive chairmen Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, former Microsoft executives and founders of Microsoft spin-off Expedia; Spencer Rascoff, a co-founder of Hotwire.com; David Beitel, Zillow's current chief technology officer; and Kristin Acker, Zillow's current technology leadership advisor.
Benjamin Domenech is the Editor at Large of The Spectator World. He is also a television commentator, radio host, and publisher of The Transom, a daily subscription newsletter for political insiders. In 2013, he co-founded The Federalist, where he served as publisher and hosted The Federalist Radio Hour. He earlier had been a co-founder the RedState group blog. He joined Fox News as a commentator in 2021.
Ezra Klein is an American journalist, political analyst, New York Times columnist, and the host of The Ezra Klein Show podcast. He is a co-founder of Vox and formerly was the website's editor-at-large. He has held editorial positions at The Washington Post and The American Prospect, and was a regular contributor to Bloomberg News and MSNBC. His first book, Why We're Polarized, was published by Simon & Schuster in January 2020.
Tumblr is a microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by American company Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog.
Curbed is an American real estate and urban design website published by New York magazine. Founded as a blog by Lockhart Steele in 2006 to cover New York City real estate, it grew by 2010 to feature sub-pages dedicated to specific real estate markets and metropolitan areas across the United States. Steele once described Curbed.com as an "Architectural Digest after a three-martini lunch". The site hosted an annual contest, the Curbed Cup, to pick the best neighborhood in each city.
Megan McArdle is an American columnist and blogger based in Washington, D.C. She writes for The Washington Post, mostly about economics, finance, and government policy.
Cameron Slater is a right-wing New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. He edited the tabloid newspaper New Zealand Truth from November 2012 until it ceased publication in July 2013. Following the closure of WhaleOil in 2019, Slater launched a new political blog called the BFD, which was succeeded by The Good Oil in July 2024.
Barnett, Haynes & Barnett was a prominent architectural firm based in St. Louis, Missouri. Their credits include many familiar St. Louis landmarks, especially a number related to the local Catholic church. Their best-known building is probably the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. A number of the firm's works are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Reblogging is the mechanism in blogging which allows users to repost the content of another user's post with an indication that the source of the post is another user.
Babak"Bobby"Samini is an Iranian-American trial attorney and the managing partner of the Samini Firm. Samini has been described as a "celebrity attorney". He has represented many high-profile clients, including serving as lead counsel to former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling in the highly publicized litigation with the National Basketball Association, TMZ, and V. Stiviano. Samini has also represented Grammy Award winning rapper T-Pain and DJ Paul of the Oscar winning hip hop group, Three 6 Mafia.
David Olshanetsky is a British-Israeli Tumblr blogger and entrepreneur. He is also known and posts under TheShitneySpears, the name of his Tumblr blog, which is described as the "most popular LGBT blog in the world".
Matthew Bruenig is an American lawyer, blogger, policy analyst, commentator, and founder of the left-leaning think tank People's Policy Project. He was a blogger for the American think tank Demos covering politics and public policy and has written on issues including income distribution, taxation, welfare, elections, the Nordic model, and funds socialism.
Rey Joseph "RJ" Pengson Nieto, known also by his alias Thinking Pinoy, is a Filipino blogger and opinion columnist. He writes an op-ed column for the Manila Bulletin and also owns a blog site, where he publishes his opinions on Filipino politics. A well-known and vocal supporter of Rodrigo Duterte, he has drawn controversies and faced legal proceedings for allegations of libel and spreading disinformation, as well as his counter-criticisms against he and the administration's critics.
Pillowfort is an American social media networking service and blogging website. The website was launched in 2017 in open beta. It grew to 20,000 members in the first two and a half years then more quickly in 2018. As of October 2020, the site had more than 100,000 users.