'90s-'00s McDonald's primarily appealed to kids, as the colorful characters and Happy Meals were a big part of the draw.

'10s-'20s McDonalds has pivoted to marketing towards adults, in part because they had come under fire for marketing greasy, oversalted calorie bombs to children as the US obesity epidemic took off. The other reason is that mid-to-low income adults became a much more lucrative demographic after decades of wage stagnation basically created an entire generation that's too tired and overworked to cook for themselves but too poor to go out to eat anywhere else.

No, it doesn't look like a prison. It looks more like a school or a factory.

......wait a minute.

~~OP~~ the original creator has never seen a prison

I've don't think this person has seen prison.

I grew up with this McDonald's, it had a jukebox. My sister had life threatening food allergies, so we only ever went there to get orange juice, but I still loved it.

You say that but dear god, that tree has seen some shit

Old MacDonalds was a trip gone bad

I miss everything having distinctive features, personality, and allowing themselves to use colors and shapes.

Restaurants, business logo and branding in general, apps, everything getting normalized to the death. I know a large part of that is accessibility and cost reduction, but it's a bit sad.

In my town, subway stations where all themed around what's above them. No two stations where the same (there isn't a lot, so there's that). Now that the network is getting extensions and the old stations are remade, they're all flat, white walls with square lights, flat uniform labels (harder to see, since they're lined with the walls). If you were dropped in one without indication, it'd take some time to even know where you are.

Probably good that a junk food merchant isn't marketing to kids to heavily.

A Finnish prison? That's way too nice for an American one.

Gotta love the bottom picture.

Gigantic displays that can theoretically put whatever message you want on there before people interact with them.

Each has two printed leaflets taped to the sides.

I was so confused when the lyrics didnt rhyme
E I E I O

That tree looks like the stranger on the street who offers to babysit your daughters for free.

Idk if other countries had this period, but there was a time where mcdonalds in sweden all had these semi-transparent glittery green glass mosaics on the walls and that is 100% the nicest it has ever been, it was actually nice to look at and the generally dark interiors made it very comfortable to be there.

The current interiors are.. okay, but so fucking uninspired.. At least they have some wood panels here and there, but christ would it kill them to tone down all the stark white?

Top one looks like from a horror movie...

Old McDonald was more fun, E-I-E-I-O

Neither of these looks good

Old McDonald’s looks like an „okay“ bad trip in this case

And the old style chairs which you could "twist" the seat on lol 🤣

I'm missing the ashtrays in the 90s photo

And that's why I hate everything and everyone

A youtuber had a good take: MacDonald's used to be cheap cheap cheap. Then they slowly tried to become fancier. So I think now they're stuck in a weird middle ground. Great opportunity for a new chain to go back to cheap cheap cheap.

McDonalds is a reflection of the zeitgeist.

I'm guessing it's for more efficient cleaning. Bummer.

The world is not McDonald's though. But yes, there is a trend towards sterile clean environments with muted colors.

My old McDonald's in my hometown had a GameCube / N64 hooked up with 2 controllers. Was pretty dope. I think they got rid of it though, haven't been in years.

Compare to the Carl's Junior kiosks in Idiocracy.

The kiosks are great. I can more easily customize my McChickens, and they almost always come out boiling lava hot.