For a cultural sphere that is hard to opt out of, design criticism is strangely absent in the zeitgeist. Art, film, fashion and architecture are adjacent creative fields that have vibrant and mainstream ecosystems of analysis. Major newspapers, from The New York Times to Milan’s Corriere della Sera, employ critics in these fields, meaning that readers are informed of new ideas and can engage in withering takedowns. 

And yet design, the most ubiquitous and inescapable of creative spheres (you’re probably sitting on a chair, reading this), is left woefully bereft of rigorous discussion in mass media.

Indeed, there’s no Rotten Tomatoes for Daniel Arsham’s collaboration with Kohler. A new Kelly Wearstler collection for The Rug Company floats blithely through the vacuum of Pinterest boards, unfurled and unquestioned. Perhaps the need for mainstream media to stay on the “good side” of design brand advertisers casts a pall over what should be a vigorous and open debate among the field’s foremost practitioners. How the design community really feels about top designers and new outdoor deck collections is relegated to whispers at Salone dinner parties.

And yet the wild popularity of design content on social media points to a deep need for critique, currently unmet. Yes, splashy high-end furniture is out of the reach of some consumers but the decisions made by premium brands and star designers filter down to us through Youtube home tours, glossy magazine spreads and social media, making their way into trend cycles and mass-market dupes. To quote Meryl Streep, chewing out a sceptical Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada, “It’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room.”

Switch sweater for chair, sofa or table and the analogy holds. It means that if we, the un-open-kitchened masses, end up drowning in the trends that filter down to us, it is vital that there be a robust, critical ecosystem that contextualises what’s going on upstream.

Already we see many creators on social media and self-publishing platforms filling in the gaps. The result is a discourse that is providing a desperately needed counterbalance to the bland excess of mainstream design coverage. It was through them that millions have become wise to the scourge of the millennial grey aesthetic, the insipid luxury of ivory boucle love seats and the cold vulgarity of industrial minimalism. Here, comedy and satire – perhaps too base for the pages of a newspaper – can be deployed to puncture the bloated ostentatiousness of the algorithm. Fire must be fought with fire and only an irreverent platform-native response unencumbered by industry incentives can counter the assault on good taste. Here’s hoping that, in doing so, such a response might show the way for mainstream media to find confidence enough to hire that design critic.