Alex Murrell

Alex Murrell has a great piece on this: https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average

He covers music in a follow up article, https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average-encore: "Chart topping tracks are becoming shorter, less melodically diverse and more lyrically repetitive". According to him, it is not just tastes, it is the way musicians get paid: "Streaming platforms pay artists each time a track gets listened to. And a “listen” is classified as 30 seconds or more of playback. To maximise their pay, savvy artists are releasing albums featuring a high number of short tracks."

Gotta love that globohomo convergence in the age of average. https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average

In an objective sense, more new releases today are continuations of existing franchises than they were in the 90s. See https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average, which was on the front page earlier this week. Subjectively, the few teens I interact with seem hyped for new installments in old franchises, updates to existing games with more content, or remakes of old classics. I don't think there's as much excitement for new franchises, because of a wave of overpromising over the last decade.

I made a comment related to this recently (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45486391) and I got a lot of helpful responses that I think help explain some of these trends: 1. With the Internet, things "converge to an optimum" much faster than before where you had more regional variation. Dominant design, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_design, explains part of this trend. 2. This article from earlier this year, "The age of average", https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average, makes many of the same points but links to other good posts that help explain the change, particularly as it applies to business consolidation and risk aversion.

this post which mentioned in the OP has far broader examples https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average

I think it’s a mix of social media and risk aversion, this article touches on the broader discussion as it impacts many kinds of design https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average

In some narrow sense, this headline reminds me of this Alex Murrell blog post from 2023 called "The Age of Average": https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average (HN discussion from that time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35355703). Covers the strange phenomenon of cultural homogenization, with all designs (cars, buildings, brand logos, websites, etc) reverting to a mean. In some sense, I'm not surprised now that AI (or 'thought' more generally) is doing the same.

You'll like this: https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average

It's not coffee shops, it's everything. I read an essay last year on this topic, "The age of average" by Alex Murrell ( https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average ) and it's stayed in my mind ever since. Cars, home interiors, instagram photos, skylines, self help books, franchise movies. The design of everything in our lives has become so relentlessly optimized we have a global culture that's stuck a risk-free local maxima.

Related (and one of the most interesting articles I've read the last few years): https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average

How Silicon Valley helps spread the same sterile aesthetic across the world[1], Discussion:[2] The age of average[3], Discussion: [4] 1: https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/3/12325104/airbnb-aesthetic-global-min… 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33520414 3: https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average 4: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35355703

Why not put some other generative AI oon top of that to further fuel the age of average? https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average

The video is pretty slick, however i can't help but be reminded of the other story that hit the HN frontpage earlier today: "The age of average" https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average These designs are not new and exciting, quite the opposite. I'm happy to be proven wrong!