My understanding is there are several related things at play:
The jello effect. So, once upon a time, serving gelatin was reserved for the wealthy because making gelatin from scratch means rendering animal bones. You’ve got to be rich enough to pay servants/own slaves enough to do that for you. Then after WWII, there was suddenly a mass-produced easy to use product on the shelf called Jell-O. So in the 50’s and 60’s you saw an explosion in popularity of jello molds because serving gelatin was, to quote a Redditor I once read, “an impressive feat of housewifery.” Fancy dishes were similar; prior to WWII, fine decorated porcelain dishes were expensive, after WWII there were factories churning them out, and now Gladys from Topeka could have a floral print gilded gravy boat.
Fancy dishes, and housewares in general, were marketed HARD to young women. Macy’s popularized the wedding registry, supermarkets started offering catalogs…it was common for young women to receive a portion of a china set for most of her adolescent gift-receiving occasions; Christmases, birthdays, high school graduation…this was the era of the hope chest, an entire industry sprang up for manufacturing pieces of furniture designed for young women to squirrel away a physical dowry in. You just weren’t a proper middle class lady unless you could come up with a fancy set of dishes to serve a Christmas dinner worthy of a Norman Rockwell painting on.
So these damn dishes that can’t be machine washed were manufactured in the quadrillions; Gramma got really protective over them, she was taught to value them from a very young age, and they’re delicate, easily broken, her particular set hasn’t been manufactured since the Truman administration so in a way they’re irreplaceable, and they must be hand-washed. So only a few Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners, “special occasions” were served on them, and then by the 80’s gramma got sick of washing them, boomer dad “remembers that from when he was a kid” and thus they’re more sacred than God, God’s brother Jod and God’s nephew Zhod. To a boomer, there is no occasion special enough to break out gramma’s china, it’d be like eating dinner off of the original copy of the Declaration of Independence. Unthinkable.
Millennials, who eat a lot of meals out of paper and plastic takeout containers, have no attachment to those damn dishes and haul them to thrift stores by the truckload.
That makes sense. I suppose it’s similar to me buying an anime figurine but at least I’m not under any pretense it’s going to be worth something someday and it’s up in the air whether anyone want to inherit it. It kind of sucks how much marketing has manufactured stuff out of thin air that we’re all just supposed to go with despite it being totally artificial.
Oh there’s gonna be Gen Alpha or Gen Beta kids filling dumpsters with Stanley cups, anime figurines, gundam models and retro consoles in the 2060s. “Why did my grandmother think this was cool?”
Stanley cups are just cups that people are way too excited about for some reason. Anime figurines, depends on if.they like the anime too. If not, they’re not worth anything. Retro consoles are cool but there are emulators
I saw a video a few weeks back of a woman cleaning out layers of “decent quality insulated cups” from her cupboard, several each of a decade’s worth of fads. Those are going in landfills en masse before the 21st century is out.
We actually got a full set of wedding china, and we got married in 2018. We’re elder Millennials. While I tell people that they should probably skip the hina, I actually enjoy it. Growing up my parents had a set of china that only came out for company and holidays, and it had a certain charm to it. And I’ve found our set serves a similar role. I actually keep it in the very same cabinet my mom had when I was a kid (she’s long since used a fancier cabinet that matches their dining set.)
But even in 2025, it can be nice to have a set of China. There’s just something special about having people over, either for social occasions or holidays, and being able to offer them a really nice place setting that isn’t part of your normal repertoire. I do got out of my way to use it though. You could just be stopping by my house for a chat, and if I offer you coffee, I’ll probably give it to you in fine china.
Oh yeah none of it matters, gramma’s china is mass manufactured catalog crap.
why did they collect all that? was it for fancy dinners that almost never happened?
My understanding is there are several related things at play:
So these damn dishes that can’t be machine washed were manufactured in the quadrillions; Gramma got really protective over them, she was taught to value them from a very young age, and they’re delicate, easily broken, her particular set hasn’t been manufactured since the Truman administration so in a way they’re irreplaceable, and they must be hand-washed. So only a few Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners, “special occasions” were served on them, and then by the 80’s gramma got sick of washing them, boomer dad “remembers that from when he was a kid” and thus they’re more sacred than God, God’s brother Jod and God’s nephew Zhod. To a boomer, there is no occasion special enough to break out gramma’s china, it’d be like eating dinner off of the original copy of the Declaration of Independence. Unthinkable.
Millennials, who eat a lot of meals out of paper and plastic takeout containers, have no attachment to those damn dishes and haul them to thrift stores by the truckload.
This comment is a piece of art
That makes sense. I suppose it’s similar to me buying an anime figurine but at least I’m not under any pretense it’s going to be worth something someday and it’s up in the air whether anyone want to inherit it. It kind of sucks how much marketing has manufactured stuff out of thin air that we’re all just supposed to go with despite it being totally artificial.
Oh there’s gonna be Gen Alpha or Gen Beta kids filling dumpsters with Stanley cups, anime figurines, gundam models and retro consoles in the 2060s. “Why did my grandmother think this was cool?”
Stanley cups are just cups that people are way too excited about for some reason. Anime figurines, depends on if.they like the anime too. If not, they’re not worth anything. Retro consoles are cool but there are emulators
I feel Stanley cups will still have a small amount of value, they’re a decent quality insulated cup after all.
I saw a video a few weeks back of a woman cleaning out layers of “decent quality insulated cups” from her cupboard, several each of a decade’s worth of fads. Those are going in landfills en masse before the 21st century is out.
We actually got a full set of wedding china, and we got married in 2018. We’re elder Millennials. While I tell people that they should probably skip the hina, I actually enjoy it. Growing up my parents had a set of china that only came out for company and holidays, and it had a certain charm to it. And I’ve found our set serves a similar role. I actually keep it in the very same cabinet my mom had when I was a kid (she’s long since used a fancier cabinet that matches their dining set.)
But even in 2025, it can be nice to have a set of China. There’s just something special about having people over, either for social occasions or holidays, and being able to offer them a really nice place setting that isn’t part of your normal repertoire. I do got out of my way to use it though. You could just be stopping by my house for a chat, and if I offer you coffee, I’ll probably give it to you in fine china.
I heard that a lot of that stuff had lead in it, making it useless for eating with
That’s simply not true. Or you’re confusing antique century-old porcelain with finishes not used today with contemporary pieces.