The People vs. HGTV

How Fixer Upper and the rise of house-flipping made things worse for everyone

Earlier this week, I sent out a little survey. I asked about a dozen residents of Texas what their thoughts were on the city of Waco, the home of Dr. Pepper, Baylor University, and the Branch Davidians. I had my doubts about the city, but I figured actual Texans should be the ones to cast judgment.

Because this was an unscientific survey meant only to confirm my own biases, the respondents had similar thoughts about Waco. Here are some things they said:

“Boring and ugly.” - Steve from Houston

“Basically just full flavor Plano.” - anonymous from Arlington

“Baylor sucks. Driving through it is terrible because of construction on 35.” - Caroline from Fort Worth

“They have a museum dedicated to Dr. Pepper, so that’s nice, I guess?” - Annie from Houston

All in all, it’s hard to not think of Waco as anything more than the home of cult shootouts, baptist universities that cover up sexual assaults, and lots of concrete. But we know all those things suck, and there’s one local specialty about Waco we’re forgetting…

Chip and Joanna Gaines, owners of Magnolia Realty and host of the popular doctor’s office waiting room show Fixer Upper are often credited with helping reform the image of the city. Doing PR work for Waco could be a crime in and of itself, but to be fair, locals had probably grown tired of being asked “wait, you’re from the city with the cult?” The Gaines’ worst sin was in trying to “fix” Waco, they helped advance a revolution of conformity and whiteness in the New South that will take generations to undo.

---

Part of the reason why the Gaines family appeals to the white upper crust of the New South is their individual personalities. Each of them fulfills a classic archetype in suburban social groups: Joanna is the white-passing multiracial woman, Chip is the gay-passing straight man, and their five kids serve bear the WASP duty of being named Crew, Drake, Duke, Emmie Kay and Ella Rose. They both graduated from Baylor and used all their capital (which I’m sure they got all by themselves through nothing but hard work) to make a career in real estate and home design (but mostly real estate) back in Waco, stickin’ to their roots instead of movin’ to the big city.

Whether you know it or not, you’ve probably been somewhere decorated or modeled after their farmhouse chic style. Shiplap exteriors, exposed brick and wainscotting, and little twee signs that celebrate Jesus all can trace their boom era back to the Gaines family. Basically, imagine if Hobby Lobby furnished a Zaxby’s, and you’ve got yourself a post-remodeling Fixer Upper house. The popularity of the show as well as Magnolia Realty’s expansion into a small nation-state have made Waco into a hajj destination for young Baptists and Methodists who want to live the upper class suburban life for Christ.

If that sounds like gentrification and neocolonialism, it’s because it is. Nowhere in Fixer Upper or its contemporaries do you see eviction proceedings to clear the space, or the labor performed by probably underpaid, possibly undocumented workers to help make the buildings presentable. When you hear criticisms of the show from Waco residents, it’s always from the perspective of other well-off white people who complain about higher property taxes, or from residents of Magnolia houses who are uncomfortable with the “loud” (read: BIPOC) neighborhood they moved into.

As much as I’ve enjoyed ragging on Chip and Jo, it might be unfair on my part to say that the New American Dream they peddle is unique to them. The enemy is HGTV and house-flipping as a whole; it’s farmhouses all the way down, my friend. HGTV is far and away the most viewed non-news channel in America, and it absolutely has an influence on American culture and perception of issues like gentrification and race. People that move into flipped houses in so-called “up and coming” neighborhoods don’t interact with their neighbors and consider themselves victims of circumstance despite having outrageous housing budgets. If you personally like these shows, I won’t say you’re a bad person, but remember you aren’t immune to propaganda, and do some critical thinking about the content. Especially because house-flipping is often done at the expense of long-time residents in gentrifying neighborhoods.

Gentrification is an insanely deep and complex issue, one that goes way beyond the scope of this piece. It’s continually ruined the lives of poor people, particularly poor Black and Brown people, and it’s only going to become more dangerous as the COVID-induced housing crisis continues. If you want to learn more about it (and I strongly recommend you do), this podcast episode (which was an invaluable source for writing this article) or this explainer using the video game Cities: Skylines are great places to start. Neither the Gaines family nor HGTV are wholly responsible for the existence of gentrification, but the amount of rehabilitation they’ve done for its image is immeasurable and, frankly, unforgivable.

Fixer Upper and its contemporaries—as innocuous as they may seem—create an aesthetic that is inherently exclusionary. One that at best ignores and at worst dehumanizes poor BIPOC to whom the real estate industry have been continually hostile to. The Gaines family, their fans, and Waco oligarchs will probably say something along the lines of “well, they didn’t mean to hurt all these people,” (because if there’s one thing WASPs love doing, it’s giving people who look like them the benefit of the doubt), but when you zoom out to the damage done at the structural level, intent is irrelevant. It’s almost too on the nose that the farmhouse style that Chip and Joanna popularized is celebrated by well-off white people while America’s actual agricultural economy has always thrived off of the labor of underpaid Black and Brown people.

But then again, what would you expect from a couple of folks from Waco.

Screw Waco.

---

Thanks for reading this edition of Hayseed Heresy! You can support my work by subscribing, sharing this post, buying merch from my storefront, or sending me a tip via Ko-fi. You can also join the Hayseed Coalition’s official discord server for book clubs, movie nights, and general shooting of the shit. Take it easy, y’all.