America's Weird Obsession with Lawns

[00:00:00]About 3 years ago, I ended up in a small island off the coast of California.

[00:00:04]Maybe you've heard of it. It's called Australia. And now, having lived here for a while, I've had a realization.

[00:00:10]Pretty much nobody cares about their lawn. At least not like Americans. This was even more solidified just a week ago when I visited America and was instantly bombarded by shorts and Tik Toks of something I can only describe as lawnism.

[00:00:25]>> There's a rock in my lawn.

[00:00:39]I always thought those dead patches in my yard weren't boulders. I thought they were just where the dog peed a lot.

[00:00:45]Turns out I was wrong and Fred Flintstone just parked his car right under the yard. [music] And now it's starting to rain. So, let's go back inside and I'll tell you more about how Americans got so obsessed with their yards.

[00:00:58]I feel like obsession is a fitting word, especially when you see how much different equipment these guys are using. There's a bear spot in my lawn.

[00:01:08][snorts] You know, bro is serious when he's pulling out the kitchen utensils for the yard. I'm not going to be surprised if in the next video he like pulls out a vacuum cleaner or something. The Little Wonder HPV high-performance vacuum gets the job done.

[00:01:30]>> All right. All right. I I'll eat it.

[00:01:32]That seems useful. I definitely would have liked that when I was a kid. Now, the rolling pin I'm not entirely sold on. But maybe there is some crazy thing about it. What is kind of interesting is the undertones of a lot of these lawn talk videos. If you scroll lawn talk for just a few minutes, you'll notice that there feels something almost competitive about this. Here are five tips for mowing your lawn better than your neighbors this year. Tip number one is the 1/3 rule, which means you should never take off more than a third of the grass blade during one mowing.

[00:02:00]>> To be clear, this video is very overt and most are much more subtle about the competition aspect. You can't tell me that it doesn't feel like you're demonstrating how much better you are than literally brooming your yard.

[00:02:17]I showed this in the intro for a second, but it is insane. I I've never seen anybody do this. The reason I say this feels somewhat competitive is because nothing says you're super successful more than being able to waste time brooming your yard. Honestly, brooming your yard feels like a military punishment you get when you're like a private because you refuse to, I don't know, bomb condun's hospital or something. Speaking of punishments, when I was a kid, yard work was just that.

[00:02:42]>> Yeah. This is game called Call of Duty.

[00:02:46]When you you ever played the game Call of Duty before? Well, that's what it's called. It's called yard work. Call of Duty. And that's wrecking leaves, cleaning grass, helping wash dogs, cleaning poop out the cages and all that. So now you got to know what the game of Call [singing] of Duty is now.

[00:03:01]>> Okay, I'm sorry. I literally found that Tik Tok after I had already like done a bunch of this and it was just really relevant to the hospital joke. Moving on, because punishment is relevant is that you might be interested to learn that yards did not come from the United States or at least lawns more specifically. They originated from somewhere. It all depends on who you ask because if you ask the French, they'll say they did it. If you ask the British, [music] they'll say they did it. If you ask a Polish person, well, they'll let you know when they get their turn on the one computer in Poland. All jokes aside, credible academic papers often say that lawns are as old as civilization itself.

[00:03:36]They likely also originated out of the Mesopotamia region. That's because lawns provided a strategic advantage. When you don't have trees or tall grass for the enemy to hide in, you can look out the watchtowwer or use your archers to get them. Now, a few hundred years are going to pass as lawns make their way into Europe. And after they make their way there, they slowly become less of a military thing and much more of a status thing. Fun fact, a grassy lawn surrounding your home has always been one of the ultimate status symbols. As castles were built around Europe, large swaths of treed forest surrounding the castle would be cleared so that enemy force could not sneak up on the castle through the woods. These cleared lands could then be used for farming. In the 17th century, as English aristocrats began converting old castles into countryside manners, they didn't want anyone to think they were farmers. So, they started planting grass lawns on the visible parts of their property so that any passerby would know they were rich because only a wealthy person could afford to waste farmable land like that.

[00:04:27]>> See, aristocrats, as Europe stabilized, noticed that they didn't need as much manpower fighting, and so they would put it into things that were incredibly useless or things that demonstrated just how much better they were than everyone else. Like they definitely would have built a phallicshaped rocket and shot themselves into space with Katy Perry if they could have. Bro, you know how many people you could feed or like how many diseases you could cure with all that wasted ass manpower? I don't even want to think about it. Time is a flat circle. Uh [sighs] anyways, the real lawn for America doesn't really start till the early 1800s. Thomas Jefferson gets this thing called lawn envy. After politicians had visited Europe in the early 1800s and late 1700s, they come back wanting to recreate those lush green landscapes.

[00:05:11]And Thomas Jefferson pulls it off. In 1806, at his Montichello estate, he has the first American lawn. This is still something completely out of reach for the public. In the 1860s, Frederick Law Almstead will kind of be the urban architect for America, [music] designing Central Park and what becomes the suburban identity. Just 10 years after Olmstead, there is an incredibly popular book called The Art of Beautifying the Suburban Home that's released by Frank [music] J. Scott. He talks about how this lush green front yard open plan demonstrates your communal value, that you are part of being something. This something is American. Even though the dream has kind of been solidified and the image is there, most people are not going to be able to pull it off. It's not until World War II, where [music] we have several technological advancements associated with it, that we are able to have the lawn in our front yard, and we can now maintain it because labor winds have created the 40-hour work week. The three main advancements that allow the American lawn to be a [music] thing are fertilizer, weed killer, and the rotary mower. Yes, you were probably getting cancer, but at least you could maintain that cool non-native grass from like Africa or whatever, which is real, by the way. I just learned that Kentucky bluegrass is not even from Kentucky, [ __ ] It's from like Asia and Europe and just nowhere near Kentucky.

[00:06:26]Now, of course, it being invasive does not stop any of these dudes from telling me that I need some other invasive species to make my yard the best.

[00:06:35]>> This is controversial, but Bermuda grass is just better than fescue for most people. This starts to lead me into the next section of this video, which is where this newer manufactured obsession with lawns is coming from. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not all hurrah America right now as we bomb innocent countries and help facilitate a genocide overseas. Those people do still exist to help with this. I couldn't have done it without Mandel. Check him out. One of my buddies, Cody, he helped us out tremendously also. He helped me both days. Stacy Jones over at One Time Design helped with the stencils for the stars. Thank you very much. Also, Home Depot, y'all helped me out. I had four store managers that really helped me get all the paint that I needed. Shout out to all those list of people, but mainly the ones that work at Home Depot.

[00:07:19]>> Happy birthday, Home Depot. Happy birthday, Home Depot.

[00:07:23]>> Those people are the real ones. All jokes aside, I do want to talk about another big contributing factor. Because if we're not trying to mimic the aristocracy and we're not too prideful about America, what else could be driving this? And it's money. Because of course it is. It always is. The lawn care industry in America is one of the largest. It is nearly $400 billion, approaching 500 billion in the next decade. This is why for pretty much as long as television has existed in the United States, there has been commercials trying to sell you something for your yard.

[00:07:55]>> It [music] cost a little more than those bargain tractors. But >> if you've got better things to do with your money, this Toro is on sale.

[00:08:02]>> Now, what if I told you they've moved off television and got to Tik Tok? You'd likely say, "Yeah, no [ __ ] Carter. It's the internet." And to that, I'd say you're right. But I promise these are a little bit different because a lot of times you aren't even aware that they're trying to sell you a product. Now, just because I think it's insane and [music] it serves a good example, let's go back to our boy who was brooming his yard earlier. Because if we navigate over to his page, we'll notice a few things.

[00:08:30]First of all, he gets millions and millions of views. And second of all, if we go to the link tree at the top of his page and scroll, it's pretty much entirely just trying to sell something.

[00:08:41]This just means that anything he is showing on his page might just be a advertisement. He might be doing it in the hopes that you will go and try to find it and buy it through his links.

[00:08:50]Also, I should point out that the boulder guy, >> there's a rock in my lawn, >> he also is doing the same thing, and he has nearly 4 million followers. None of this is to say anything [music] they're doing is bad or nefarious or even immoral. It's just that when affiliate links are involved and shilling your own product is even involved, it's hard to trust what is real and what is just a ploy to get money. Making it as a content creator is hard. So, I'm not going to knock on somebody for selling their merch or getting affiliated. It's just hard as a person watching this and enjoying this content to determine the validity of it. I've talked about a lot of like scams and affiliate type things on [music] this channel. And I don't think Lawn Talk is necessarily like that or just having ring trees and selling a bunch of products is like that at all. I just think it's something that often comes with some murky territory. It's also not really a secret that companies will bot and [music] try to algorithmically boost content that features their products, especially if you're already big, because then it raises less eyebrows. Now, not to like keep [music] ripping into Southern Lawn Daddy more and more, but he has a video where he's like buying a lawn mower that has nearly 2 million views. And I don't know about you, but I don't think this is like riveting content. What are you working so diligently on?

[00:10:03]>> Text my girlfriend. What's up? Checking out all the fees and stuff. I'm about to try to pay >> $1,900 for what?

[00:10:13]>> Well, people talk crap about my grass and I'm taking offense to it. And if I don't do it now, then I never will do it. So, you push it, not me.

[00:10:24]>> I guess I'm going to have to start working the pole.

[00:10:28]Hey, good job. This video sent me down a little bit of an interesting rabbit hole. I zoomed in, did a little bit of enhancing, and found out that the mower he bought is called a Rolex real mower.

[00:10:38]With that information, I went to their website, found their Instagram, scrolled a little bit, and found this reel.

[00:10:43]>> What's going on? Hey, didn't see you there. Didn't see you there [laughter] with TJ the lawn dad. What's up, guys?

[00:10:51]If y'all have been on Tik Tok, been on Instagram, you've seen this man leveling his yard, dominating his yard, dominating the subdivision, maybe even the Southeast trying to.

[00:11:00]>> Now, I don't know whether or not this was a sponsored post, but it was on the Rolex page. And shortly after this, they did post something that was directly affiliated with Southern Lawn Daddy. And to his credit, the video of him buying the mower is about 20 weeks before all this happened. But I'm not saying that he was like given the motor for free or that he was lying about how interested he was in buying it or that he was being nefarious at all. I do however think it's interesting that [music] the video is so popular for just how bland it is.

[00:11:25]Maybe it's just not the content for me.

[00:11:27]And that's okay. It sucks that Tik Tok doesn't provide like view metrics over time or I can't go back and look at the history. [music] These stats would help to identify whether or not the video exploded in popularity legitimately or only after the partnership had occurred.

[00:11:41]This isn't to say that the company doesn't have a lot of eyes on it. It's [music] just companies do get inorganic views a lot for things featuring their product. Something that makes this rabbit hole go even deeper is the fact that he does post eventually a video with him and the mower and he even ats them and talks about how great it is.

[00:11:58]The problem is there is no disclosure of it being an advertisement. This is also not meaning that he is a bad person or that something nefarious is happening because it's very obviously an advertisement. [music] The problem is it's not disclosed.

[00:12:12]>> Rolex S17 17in cut. First one of its kind.

[00:12:18]They've only made five of these. Daddy got one of them.

[00:12:22]>> No, she wants to be choked.

[00:12:26]We ain't cut grass on this thing yet, but I want to show y'all how this thing cuts. We're going to find out together.

[00:12:33]But I guarantee you topnotch cuz that's what they bring. and they bring topnotch quality good stuff.

[00:12:38]>> I don't know if this is illegal because I'm not certain this would count as an advertisement, but maybe it does. We have ad disclosure laws on the internet for a [music] reason. It's meant to instill consumer confidence. I'm not saying that Lawn Daddy is breaking the law. I don't have proof that these are advertisements. I am saying though that there is a reason ad disclosures exist.

[00:12:57]When you've been in the content creator space as long as I have, you'll be reminded of things like the CSGO [music] lotto scams where influencers took large sums of money or even owned the websites themselves and scammed their young impressionable audiences out of millions of dollars. What's even more insane about this and incredibly frustrating is that I still go on Instagram and get bombarded by one of these scammers who scammed literal children, by the way, posting their lavish lifestyle, traveling, going on cruises, and whatever because nothing ever ended up happening to them. They scammed children and were essentially rewarded for it. So now, let's get back on track and talk about this affiliate thing going on. The FDC actually releases a pamphlet that tells you when to disclose. It says that if you have any sort of financial, employment, personal, or family relationship with a [music] brand, you must disclose this. In my non-legal understanding of this, it sounds like if I have an affiliate [music] link to a product that I'm showing in my content, I should have to disclose that I'm endorsing that product. Because to me, the word endorsement is somewhat big and broad. Me wearing the shirt means I probably like it and therefore if I have an affiliate link and then viewers [music] want to buy it, I get rewarded for that. Should I have to disclose that? To be clear, this is not just a [music] Lawn Talk thing at all. It's kind of a problem with content creation across the internet. For example, if you go to Mr. Who's the Boss, a massive tech YouTuber, and go to his description, you'll see a bunch of affiliate links.

[00:14:17]He claims [music] that it's not sponsored, but he does get a kickback from that affiliation. This is kind of where the problem lies because even though it's not sponsored, it is still a benefit to him. And these products, though maybe not appearing in this video, are his favorite products. I don't have a problem with Mr. Who's the Boss. His content is often fine. It's just this happens across the content creator sphere because defining what is an endorsement is hard. All right, but enough about brands being scummy and content creators who have nothing to do with lawns. Let's get into the psychology around lawns because there is actually psychological reasoning as to why people are attracted to them. There was actually a study conducted in the 70s and 80s that demonstrated babies show more favorability towards savannah and plains environments. This also makes sense with what you learned earlier about the original use of lawns being used to fend off invaders or predators and things like that. Another psychological aspect or at least something I guess relevant to this is how there's a weird overlap between being a man or masculinity and lawns.

[00:15:17]>> And nothing make you feel like a man more than doing some yard work or working on your car. I don't care if you was just cutting the grass. I don't care if you was changing a light bulb. I don't care if you was jumping your car, changing the battery. Those two things that make you feeling masculine as hell.

[00:15:33]I'm really a dad out here, man. I'm really like Hank Hill out here, man.

[00:15:36]funnily enough, Hank Hill is kind of the reason I made this video. I was recently re-watching it and got it, the writers of that knew the conservative Texas man so well because so many episodes are about Hank and his lawn. Look, some people hoist a flag to show they love our country. Well, my lawn is my flag.

[00:15:55]It tells the world, "Here lives a competent, trustworthy salesman of propane and propane accessories. A man who can't keep up a lawn is either inept or stupid.

[00:16:06]>> Like every other episode has some reference to that man and his yard. And honestly, men will do literally anything than go to actual therapy.

[00:16:18]Gway.

[00:16:28]>> That does not look fun to me. But I guess whatever floats your boat or mows your [music] lawn. I guess this marrying of lawns and masculinity is unsurprising due to a lot of things we've already covered in this video. This is because masculinity is tied to wealth and a [music] lawn can be a representation of your wealth. I know I'm repeating myself. It just needs to be said. Okay, back to more psychology because I know you've been yelling at the screen this whole time going, "Carter, it's not that deep. It's just nice to watch somebody lay some really good lines in their lawn or to watch those videos of people doing charity and actually making their communities look better. This scratches that same thing that makes you like pressure washing or like cleaning out a hoarder's house. Honestly, there is probably something deeply psychological about it that makes us enjoy the content. One of the biggest accounts on Lawn Talk is called SP Mowing, and their entire account is pretty much dedicated to doing things just like this.

[00:17:19]>> I was just going to see if I can mow your grass for you. What?

[00:17:22]>> I was going to offer to do it for free.

[00:17:23]>> Let me call my mom and ask her.

[00:17:25]>> Okay. Yeah, let me know.

[00:17:26]>> My mom said she would appreciate that.

[00:17:28]>> Okay. Is the backyard pretty bad, too?

[00:17:30]>> Yeah.

[00:17:30]>> Hey, everyone, Spencer here with SB Mowing. And I knocked on this door after seeing they needed a lot of help with their lawn. But nobody answered at first and I actually came back a few different days in a row because I knew somebody lived here since every time I knocked on the door, the dogs inside would start going crazy. Eventually, the last time I came by, a young girl answered the door and I explained that I'd love to clean the whole place up completely free of charge. Something else that feels kind of good is if you go to SB Mowing's Tik Tok page and you click their link tree, it's not riddled with affiliates. It only links to their charity, their merch, and their website, which is fine.

[00:18:02]Look, I don't think you should have to disclose an ad for your own company that you are doing it because very obviously your content endorses yourself, otherwise you wouldn't make it. Funnily enough, I discovered SB mowing also has SB powering because of course they do.

[00:18:15]Like I said, it's the same itch.

[00:18:17]>> Hey everyone, this is Spencer with SB Pressure Washing, and I saw this huge driveway that was caked with dirt. I knew I had to knock on the door. The homeowner told me she's wanted to get it done for a while, but her husband didn't care too much for it, so they'll go ahead and pass, but I told her I'd love to take care of it for free, and she changed her mind pretty quick. This is the biggest driveway I've ever done, and it took me about 6 hours to do, but it turned out beautifully. Sorry for leaving this type of content till towards the end of the video because look, this is the majority of lawn talk.

[00:18:47]Most of it is good and feels good and is about making your community better. I also want to say that this feeling good is probably also driving views to them.

[00:18:55]As much as rage bait works to get people, so does really good communal things. Not everyone likes to watch bad news. And to be fair, the creator I showed at the beginning of this video with the boulder, his name is the lawn tools. Yeah, he is doing big community projects as well currently, like renovating a soccer field by removing boulders and getting it up to snuff.

[00:19:14]There's a rock in this soccer field.

[00:19:18]We're actually doing a whole renovation on this local soccer field here, including putting a couple hundred tons of sand out there and digging up a bunch of these rocks. I'm not actually 100% sure that it's not all one huge rock.

[00:19:32]That's where the good vibes stop rolling because we can't talk about lawns without talking about their real world effects. And contrary to my anecdote at the beginning of the video, lawns are growing all over the world or at least in the west and it's having real ramifications on the environment. Yes, lawns are making the world worse. Head over to YouTube and watch any of the countless videos from people much smarter than me, especially like Climate Town, who has an entire video about the ramifications ecologically from lawns.

[00:20:02]And if you want even more information, there's a very good video from a smaller YouTuber called The Simple Environmentalist, who also breaks down the ecological ramifications of lawns being normalized. There is kind of this joke that everything gives you cancer, but really, when it comes to lawns, it all does. Fertilizer was a chemical weapon, literally, and it's in the water now and in the environment. And a lawn mower that you're pushing around is spitting out toxic gas that is less regulated than your F450 Superduty that you run over small children with. It's insane how many levels of bad this stupid grass patch is. Also, it's like one of the most common allergies. Even grass doesn't want to be around us. Did you know you can be allergic to grass?

[00:20:42]Grass allergies are one of the most common allergies people experience. All right, I think it's time to move on and answer some questions you may have had throughout the video. Specifically, one kind of at the beginning when I talked about my observation as an American. Was it correct? And well, no. You see, I found a video by The Backyard Naturalist, which I'll put a link to down below, that goes into detail about Australia's problem with lawns.

[00:21:02]Australian gardens are still very much influenced by the classic English style, roses, hedges, lawns, its cultivar colonialism. There's still a lot of Aussies who live in denial about the fact that they're no longer British.

[00:21:15]Look, Cobbs, you're not in Shittton anymore. You're in Titty Bong.

[00:21:22]In that video, the Backyard Naturalist never actually gets into care the same way I talk about it at the beginning.

[00:21:27]You know, Americans caring and all. And to be fair, it's hard to quantify. I did find an article that says, "If anyone cares as much about their lawns as Americans, it's Australians." And I kind of agree. If I really sit down and think about why I had this thought, it's because right before moving to Australia, I had moved to Texas and I was living in suburbia, surrounded by boomers with way too much time on their hands. So, they made their lawns a 10 out of 10. Now, when I came to Australia, I originally lived somewhere more rural and then went to the city.

[00:21:56]And going to the city, I found out there's the same boomers in the same suburbia [music] caring just as much about their lawn.

[00:22:02]Anyways, it's time to go throw shrimp on the barbie, have a meat pie, and like pray to the king or something. And see you in the next video.