The powerful aura of throwback places that defy the algorithms
Until recently, I’ve never had a near-religious experience — a spiritual sense of profound awe and contentment — when dining. No, I didn’t get into a three-star Michelin restaurant. I’m talking about an old family-run hotel that serves simple and delicious food.
When I discuss this obsession with friends, family, and my students (who are much younger than I), they aren’t surprised at all. They, too, light up and talk about being moved by throwback places — greasy spoon diners, used bookstores, vintage bowling alleys, drive-in movie theaters, and dive bars. Being philosophically inclined, I’m curious about why these kinds of places have such a spellbinding aura, and I think it’s because they are analog outliers, stubbornly refusing to follow the imperatives of efficiency, convenience, and profit at the expense of deeper values.
The place where I’ve been making pilgrimages, the American Hotel, is in a small Western New York town. Once the state throughway was constructed in the 1950s, it stopped being a practical destination for weary travelers looking to spend the night. Now, customers mainly come for meals. I stumbled upon it by chance, which is rare these days. Like many others, I’ve come to rely on internet searches and algorithmic recommendations.
The building dates to the 1800s and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has a tin ceiling, vintage cash register, and walls lined with old photos and newspaper clippings. The same family has owned the hotel for over a century, and super-friendly senior citizen siblings from this clan cook the food and serve the drinks.
For lunch and dinner, they offer at least six of their 400 (!) homemade soups, a few sandwiches and burgers, and drinks that include local craft beer. The prices are affordable even at a time when inflation has made dining out a big-budget affair. You’re treated like family and never
rushed to meet table-flipping demand. And before you leave, you’re served free, delicious homemade cookies. If the hotel were located in Brooklyn or Allston-Brighton, it would have hipsters lining up out the door, and the soups would be sold online and packaged with ironic labels.
Sadly, because no one in the owner’s family wants to keep it going, this one-of-a-kind place is up for sale. I fear that a new owner will ruin it. Mind you, the tragedy won’t be their fault. There’s almost no way to recover the expense of making longdelayed renovations without raising prices and making changes to pack in more customers.
Because I know the end is near, my joy in eating there is mixed with a wistful feeling. When I walk out the door, I feel like I’m witnessing an extinction, hugging the last remaining panda.
Is the hotel’s aura just nostalgia? Would I feel the same way eating in a different place with the same vintage decor, delicious food, and friendly staff ? No. This is not just about a sentimental yearning for a simpler past. What I am responding to, I think, is the way this hotel is rooted in its place, with its own unique history.
Precedent for this way of thinking is Walter Benjamin’s 1935 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” According to Benjamin, any work of art has an “aura” that emanates from its singularity and authenticity, features that are tied to its specific history and the traditional ways in which it is experienced. The aura gives the work a commanding presence — an authority and mystique that inspire reverence and awe. Living at a time when photography and film were creating disruptive cultural and economic change, Benjamin argued that technological reproduction was making the aura vanish.
In a nutshell, here’s Benjamin’s thesis: Once art becomes easily reproducible for mass distribution, it loses its uniqueness and its connection to the customs and other contexts in which it arose. It becomes a commodity. For example, seeing countless images of Michelangelo’s David online, on T-shirts, and on postcards and being exposed to all the silly memes featuring the David may diminish the astonishment one feels when encountering the actual sculpture in person. Ubiquity makes the original seem less remarkable.
(Note: I’m only presenting a snapshot of Benjamin’s ideas. He had a mixed reaction to the aura’s decline. While I’ve emphasized the downside, Benjamin was also excited by the political possibilities of democratizing cinema and photography.)
Though Benjamin focuses on art, his ideas apply to the hotel. Its character stems from its irreplaceable nature. In a world increasingly dominated by standardization and replication, the hotel’s aura is a testament to the enduring value of authenticity.
My students, however, raised a critical question about the hotel’s aura. What if our beliefs about authenticity are misplaced? Imagine, they suggested, that the hotel is a clever facsimile, a new building designed to look old, and that the owner spins tales about its history to cynically manufacture an illusion of quaintness. While this sounds like standard philosophical skepticism, the question was motivated by a “Friends” episode, “The One With Apothecary Table.” In it, Phoebe is over the moon about an apothecary table that she believes is an antique original that Rachel bought at a flea market. In reality, Rachel got it at Pottery Barn and lied about the purchase. She fabricated this story because Phoebe thinks Pottery Barn’s mass-produced faux-crafted designs are “everything that’s wrong with the world.”
Phoebe’s reaction, and my students’ question, suggests that aura arises from our expectations rather than anything inherent in a work itself. Because if I found out I had been hoodwinked, I’d be profoundly disappointed — not just because I was suckered but because the hotel would be like the Vegas replica of the David. It would become a simulacrum lacking the depth and substance of the genuine article. As such, it would deprive me of something precious.
The digital is eating the analog
People have been lamenting the spread of chain restaurants and cafes for some time. What’s received less attention is how internet culture homogenizes such spaces. As Kyle Chayka, the author of “Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture,” observes, cafes around the world look remarkably similar despite regularly being called “authentic”: subway tiles, exposed brick, massive wooden tables, natural light cascading through large windows.
In this case, the digital is eating the analog. The digital nomad lifestyle created a desire for ample spaces to plop down and plug in laptops. Instagram aesthetics motivate cafes to offer selfie-optimized decor. When travelers share their reviews and photos online, the information signals the market about how places should look and what they should serve.
The American Hotel in western New York, by contrast, bucks these trends. There’s no Wi-Fi password to be found and no sea of patrons looking down at glowing phones. Face-toface conversation takes precedence over virtual communication, and the sensory pleasures of a meal and a cold beer are savored without the mediation of screens. It’s a temple of the analog, unreachable by algorithms and recommendation engines, and it feels like a shocking revelation.
In our book “Re-Engineering Humanity,” Brett Frischmann and I argue for the importance of carving out spaces of refuge from the constant surveillance, manipulation, and exploitation that characterize our online lives. We contend that having access to such spaces is crucial for our well-being and for maintaining our autonomy. The hotel is a compelling realworld example of the kind of refuge we advocate for. And crucially, its affordability makes it accessible to a broad range of people, not just a privileged few. Unplugging and recharging should not be reserved solely for those who can afford luxury digital detox experiences. The democratic ideal of making such experiences widely available is something Walter Benjamin would surely appreciate.