Ville

I have spent few summers getting paid to cut grass with a diesel-powered lawnmower that made big noises. The society wanted short grass, so I gave them short grass. Back then I questioned it quite a lot and wrote the Lawn Mower Manifesto back in 2022.

The question is so simple and boring that we do not even realise to ask it. We assume someone else has already thought about it and solved it. “It’s just how it is and will be.” And so the matter is considered solved. Out of my frustration, I wrote Lawn Mower Manifesto, and I confidently expected it to reshape the civilization as we know it. It did not exactly create a grass roots movement.

But if grass cutters actually thought about why they do what they do, there would be no grass to cut anymore.

Short grass supposedly makes an open, spacious, inviting-looking city. It is a message that we take care of things together. Throughout history, spaces with short grass were associated with prestige and power—signature mark of the elite.

But here is the thing: people do not actually care about grass length unless it causes problems. They are used to short grass, sure. But when you are driving past, you see a blur of yellow. Sometimes green. You are not thinking about how clean the roads are. Not at all.

Success, in grass cutting, means staying hidden from awareness. It is the same for creative artists; go where the fence is short. But those people doing city planning have not thought about grass or fence. A specifically comfortable grass length in a particular place may not elicit thoughts bubbling up into the consciousness—and that is the goal. Once it enters people’s consciousness, we have failed. Even then, how many people reeeally care in the end? It is mere grass.

There is the critical length—a psychological threshold—where grass suddenly becomes “too long” and people complain. Like money and hyperinflation, things work until they do not (that is why you save in Bitcoin!). Yeah, I received complaints on grass length. Get a life!

But this threshold is not universal. Grass next to roads and forests has different priority than grass on playgrounds. Parks and areas near people’s houses demand attention. Lonely streets by industrial areas? Nobody cares. Main roads are only of interest to the subcontractor’s employer’s boss’s dog, not to any individual. I know because I have smelled dog poop when I cut it to smithereens.

So why do we treat grass the same everywhere? It should not be. We should adjust based on location and actual need, not some blanket obsession with uniformity that the public sector does.

If nobody cares about grass until it is “too long,” why not let most of it grow wild? We’d have richer biodiversity. We’d save the environment from accelerating climate change. We’d stop shredding trash into atoms with our mowers (yes, we do not always pick up trash before cutting).

We would not need lawnmowers. We’d save taxpayer money. We might even discover that people appreciate roadside ground that is more diverse in color and species than just green grass.

Of course grass cutting is not the biggest problem in the world. There are wars, poverty, inequality. But that is exactly the point—we waste resources on something nobody truly wants or needs, simply because we do not ask why anymore.

It is not whether yellow grass is wrong or whether biodiversity matters. Simply, if people only notice grass when it becomes a problem, why not just cut the grass in problem areas—playgrounds, parks, near houses—and leave the rest alone?

We should at least think about alternatives to our way of living. But alas we do not.

Would someone please think about the grass?