I think for me the most infuriating thing about these delivery robots is how much space they take up and how much they fuck up the normal flow of foot traffic. It takes up more space and is more disruptive than most people walking, but it isn’t a person walking, it’s a private company’s product delivering one person’s order and also serve as a rolling advertisement for the delivery service and restaurant. Granted, if it was apparent how many cars on the road were just Uber Eats drivers, I’d probably find that infuriating too, but at least they aren’t more disruptive than a typical car. Can you imagine if these things took off? If there were dozens of these things rolling down every sidewalk? It’d be a pedestrian hell, especially for those with mobility issues.
I think this genre bugged me more than any other bad genre because I really liked the previous era of indie rock - early Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Wolf Parade, Neutral Milk Hotel, Animal Collective, The Unicorns, Stars, Final Fantasy/Owen Pallett, The Microphones, ahhh, I’m getting powerful nostalgia just listing them out. Not that all these bands sounded similar to each other, but there was this weirdo/folko/p4k-zone that they all occupied that I found really moving and relatable, I think cause most of the people making it were depressed and anxious or otherwise mentally ill like me.
When all this stomp/clap “indie” bullshit started it felt like they took music I love, stripped everything interesting from it, and gave it to the rich kids with no problems that were often CAUSING me mental illness. It felt like some cruel ironic punishment from Greek mythos.