Vindication for the cheap white refrigerator! Those fancy appliances break — and are so expensive to fix.
Basic, cheap white refrigerators, often in rental apartments, have been maligned unfairly.
New and fancy appliances have electronic parts that break down more easily.
Maybe the humble white fridge deserves our respect.
In a scene in "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," Nene Leakes goes to visit her castmate Kenya Moore, who is living at a long-term hotel.
Leakes looks around the place, barely hiding her disgust. "I was shocked, honey. I was in tears, almost. And they have a white refrigerator," Leakes says later in a taped confessional. "I was like, 'Uh-huh, ooh, not a white refrigerator.'"
The reaction became a viral TikTok sound, often for people showing off their own homes with a white fridge. Being budget-friendly, the white fridge is something of a "landlord special," like painting over an electrical outlet.
But the humble white fridge deserves our respect. Unlike fancier stainless-steel refrigerators with digital buttons and ice makers, a white fridge is built to last.
Lately, The Wall Street Journal reported, some homeowners are complaining that their fancy home appliances — washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, fridges — are breaking down faster than the cheaper, older models, which lasted decades.
The main culprit is the fancy electronic panels and other high-tech parts, which are more prone to breaking. The Journal wrote:
Mansoor Soomro, a professor at Teesside University, a technical college in Middlesbrough, England, says home appliances are breaking down more often. He says that manufacturers used to rely mostly on straightforward mechanical parts (think an on-off switch that triggers a single lever). In the past decade or so, they've transitioned to relying more on sophisticated electrical and computerized parts (say, a touchscreen that displays a dozen different sensor-controlled wash options).
A top-loader washing machine with a knob may look less sleek than one with a digital display, but you may get more years out of it. Similarly, a fridge custom-designed to blend into your walls may end up with a busted ice maker.
And do you really need a fridge with a 32-inch screen that lets you watch TikTok on it?
Plus, those stainless-steel fridges? Fingerprint city. Justice for the white fridge!
Read the original article on Business Insider