Rants: McMansionHell Going Full Millenial has Lost my Readership

I know nothing about architecture but I found this blog over a year ago and have enjoyed the MS Paint criticisms of modern cookie-cutter homes in HOA communities I’d never live. It’s been entertaining to see what 500,000 USD gets you in one of the dozens of suburbs around our country and how money can’t buy taste.

I also stood behind Kate when she worked with the EFF to stand up against Zillow who tried to get her blog taken down due to copyright claims they had. They dropped their threats and came to their senses and as usual, I’m glad to be an EFF Supporter.

Like most popular content creators, McMansionHell has a Patreon page where over 1800 people give $1-$100 a month supporting Kate’s blog and her McMansionHell projects like an upcoming book. As a student and creator, I think she should be paid for her efforts.

The issue that caused me to remove her blog from my RSS reader is this: https://www.gofundme.com/kates-computer-is-dead

She’s a student presumably using student loans to go to school and needs a computer for her day to day work as well as authoring the blog. I’d argue school work is more important. The money she uses to pay for school, maybe money from her parents and the $1800 – $3,000 a month from Patreon aren’t enough to replace her computer that died.

Her logical step as a millennial is to ask people for more money and use her blog to solicit donations to buy a new computer. If I was a Patreon supporter, I’d be furious seeing a “please buy me a new computer” solicitation on a blog I support already with a monthly contribution.

The problem with my emotional response to this is that her GoFundMe was funded 2 times over the asking amount and she seemingly lost zero Patreon supporters so it’s clear society now is okay with donating money for hardships that honestly don’t really seem like hardships to me.

I can’t think of any life-event where I’d need to ask people for money, nor do I know anyone that would give any money to me. I’ve never received hand outs from family that weren’t 12 month loans that I paid back every time. Once I turned 18, I was completely self-sufficient so to see people asking for money without any social push-back just makes me feel out of touch. I don’t know why sites like Go Fund me exist. I guess there’s no humility anymore of having a steady income stream with no way to buy a new computer even on a credit card and pay it back in a few months with the recurring income stream? Again, I am just out of touch.

I have life insurance, disability insurance and even pet-insurance. Life events that would put me out on the street without a roof over my head or car are simply not possible. It’s called preparing for a rainy day, planning and carrying insurance. The amount of “give me money to cover vet bills” is too damn high. Pet insurance exists for a reason.

I’ve removed Kate’s blog from my RSS reader. half of her posts from the last 3 months have been drama with Zillow, asking for money for a computer and “sorry for the lack of updates” If you want financial backing from readers, you need to keep a regular schedule and maintain professionalism in your editorial content.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.