Tuesday, August 13, 2013

ROK: HGTV Poisons Women's Minds

Return of Kings had an interesting post today about HGTV and women.

Having been a Realtor, and been married, and watched the housing shows on HGTV, I concur with their assessment.

I can't comment on the entire article, but here's the part that stood out to me the most:

4. Minimalism is not an option
 So you’ve signed away 30 years of your future and updated everything to remove the stink of the early 2000s. Now fill it with crap! Rooms designed by the Property Brothers and backyards on Yard Crashers are stuffed to the brim with useless trinkets. Every shelf needs to have fake books, every table needs to be draped with cloth, every open space needs to be filled. Do you have a wall without a picture hanging on it? You must be poor.
A constant, subversive theme here is that men’s desires don’t matter. When a couple has to make a decision, the woman typically gets her way. These shows often focus on wall-bound women searching for some societally-approved talisman of their status. Straight, unattached men are less likely to possess this elemental desire to buy more things and own more space than they can afford, rendering them bad investments as customers.
The whole concept of the "man cave" drives me nuts. The self-depreciating "man stupid primate; woman smart and noble" has gone too far and I want to see it eradicated in my lifetime.
As for the men who get excited over a "man cave", you're morons. You're a tenant on your own land. How well would it blow over if you told your woman "You can put your sewing machine on the kitchen table, but I want it removed before dinner"?
Whenever people ask me if I have a "man cave", I try to figure out the most polite way to say "No, because I'm not a flipping retard. Do you have a man cave? Should I talk slower? Should I just point and grunt? It's very nice of your wife to be so gracious and give you a shelf in your own house to put your football on. How kind of her."
I also have to grit my teeth in every House Hunters when the woman looks at a closet bigger than some apartments I've had and says to her "man" "Where are you going to put your stuff?" Yeah, so smart, witty, and original. I think if a woman said that to me, I'd reply "If you take that entire closet, I'll just throw my stuff on the floor on your side of the bed".
I'm still curious when the "American dream" became debt slavery. I am not in a hurry to own a house again for a LONG time.

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