---
title: "People & Content #7: Platforms"
date: "2024-02-07T15:57-08:00"
tags: ["tech"]
description: "I grew up in central Ohio, which had the distinction of harboring an exceedingly average populace.Auxiliary characters in books, movies, and TV shows are from Ohio so they won’t be too splashy.Large retailers would pilot stores and products there to sample average America.It’s how I got to have McDonald’s pizza as a kid.One of my high school jobs was at the trendy and oppressively-perfumed mall clothing store, Abercrombie & Fitch. Not as the shirtless entryway model or a cashier or anything useful, but one of thirty or so youths that worked overnight to fold, arrange, and photograph store displays.How could this take thirty people, you might wonder? It didn’t. Most of us sat around hoping to fold something, to do something. To feel something. There was a huge backup pool because this particular store was Very Important and photos of it would be used across the country to model how other stores should set up.A shopping mall sameness prevailed in my childhood suburban environment.I didn’t realize this until I live..."
link: https://garden.mattstein.com/notes/people-content-7-platforms
---
