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The Kawaiization of Product Design
- foxyv 6y agoThis reminds me of the anime series Psycho Pass. Police officers wear holographic suits to look like theme park mascots so they don't disturb people. Then they end up shooting criminals with a laser cannon that makes them explode like bags of blood flashing to a boil in a microwave.
- milchek 6y agoI noticed this a lot more on signs and posters when I moved to Singapore earlier this year. Back in Melbourne, design seemed a lot more varied, but everything here is the same style. My guess is that a lot of the signage is from government agencies here who hire the same design teams? Anyway, design trends come and go. We have seen this in the last couple of decades with the heavy skeuomorphic designs found in earlier Apple products and then later the “flat design” trend. I’m curious what the next trend will be?
- emmanuel_1234 6y agoThat is one thing that I find concerning about Asia (having lived both in Singapore and Hong Kong). Messages from various government agencies are written and illustrated like kid books. It makes me uncomfortable that either 1. grown-ups are so infantilized that they need to be addressed like that or 2. that governments feel their grown-ups are too stupide to be talked to normally.
- janekm 6y ago3. a lot of the messaging is kid-inclusive (e.g. warnings about getting your hands crushed in subway doors)? At least in Hong Kong and Japan you will see a lot of kids using public transport independently, can't remember about Singapore.
- odkamkfn 6y agoI find it concerning that you either 1. believe these are the only two possibilities or 2. eat babies
- fxtentacle 6y agoHaving lived in Asia and Singapore for a while, I can assure you that they don't infantilize their people. In fact, some of the government reminders can seem cruel to westerners. For example, public signs that count the number of drunk driving deaths per month. The reason why everything important in Singapore has to be in picture language is because they have so many nationalities living together. If I remember correctly, the subway signs were already in English, Malaysian and Chinese. But there's also plenty of Indian, Arabic, Vietnamese, and Thai citizens. And of course Japanese tourists. An 8-language sign starts to be unwieldy, so I applaud their approach of using graphics instead.
- IkmoIkmo 6y agoI do not recall the metro warning signs in France. I do remember them in Japan. It's because the Japanese ones were funny and draw you in to a story. You could have the following without the pictures: https://pradt.co/imgs/poster/pleasedoit02.gif https://pradt.co/imgs/poster/pleasedoit02.gif There's different styles to this, there's variations which are more Disney or Anime like, what's the issue? The point is to draw attention, I don't see what the need is for the ostensible seriousness, if it's not effective at educating and drawing people in to your message.
- janekm 6y agoI'm surprised you don't remember the Rabbit of Paris Metro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_of_Paris_Métro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_of_Paris_Métro (maybe they changed it?)
- swyx 6y agohow are you enjoying Singapore?
- milchek 6y agoI like it. This is our first time moving to live and work in a country away from Melbourne, and we took a while to decide where we would do it with Singapore always topping the list. That said, it hasn't been easy. Grappling with all the usual tasks with getting set up in a new country + dealing with the pandemic and "Circuit Breaker" has been a challenge for our family, but like everyone else, we're doing our best to stay positive and adjust.
- swyx 6y agocool :) welcome and with any luck the CB will be permanently over on June 1. am Singaporean, feel free to ping for advice/pointers. contact info in bio
- voxelghost 6y agoEverything looks like clipart and templates these days.
- Animats 6y agoEven Apple is taking small steps in that direction. See their web site. Until recently, Apple's design aesthetic seemed to be borrowed from Bang and Olufsen audio gear from the 1980s. Hard-edged, stark, monochrome, good materials, barely visible controls. Sony long had a playful look, but lost out. Will Apple go with the playful look, or fight it? So far, Apple has lightened up enough to ship phones that have colored cases, but no decorative artwork.
- kibibu 6y agoIt's older than that. Jony Ive is/was an unabashed Braun disciple
- narag 6y agoI've been trying to remember where I read this word a long time ago, like decades. Was it a well known brand? Music? Electronics? Sports?
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoKawai make pianos. Not the same as kawaii, which means "cute".
- narag 6y agoThank you. My memory is really bad. Guess who owned an upright one for a few years.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoIn Poland there was a video game magazine when I was a kid, and they had a section about Japanese culture, entitled "Kawaii".
- fxtentacle 6y agoI agree with the authors implied reason that Kawaii is a way for people to escape reality. It first became popular in Japan, where there is also Hikkomori (adults refusing to leave the house), Grasseaters (young men refusing to date), and lots of fantasy harem videos on TV. And now that the pressure increases in western societies, we see similar problems and similar escape mechanisms. FYI alcohol is not accessible to people under 21 in Japan, thereby denying them one of the most popular western stress relieve drugs.
- trhway 6y ago>Kawaii is a way for people to escape reality i'd say that our [social/political/economic] reality is getting Kawaiized (that also dovetails with the recent simulacrum discussion), and that Kawaiization of reality is getting reflected in particular in design.
- 7leafer 6y agoAre mortgages, loans, taxes and fines getting Kawaiized, though?
- trhway 6y agoThe "trickle down" political foundation of modern tax laws is definitely Kawaii, the local anti-homelessness laws when for example you can be fined/arrested for sleeping on the street (such laws recently were declared unconstitutional at some state Supreme Court or a federal district court, don't remember exactly) are protecting the Kawaii of the cities self-image and self-feeling, that wannabe black border wall is Kawaii, and even the current President - Cartman from South Park - is Kawaii.
- 7leafer 6y agoThe Blvck Kvwv11 (c)
- saagarjha 6y ago> FYI alcohol is not accessible to people under 21 in Japan, thereby denying them one of the most popular western stress relieve drugs. Well, it’s not supposed to be accessible to people under 21 in my state either.
- duncanawoods 6y agoI thought this would be more about how emojis have invaded products. I recognise their communication value but they are aesthetic disasters (colour, dated cartoon style, cacophony) and they are real lowest common denominator expressions - often the equivalent of a fart noise or a “+1”. To support emoji you hand over a huge slice of product aesthetic and expressivity to something which in all essentials, is very childish. I looked at reddit recently and all the emoji awards that can even apply background animations like flames gave me the strong impression that “this is not for adults”. For something smaller that might be a fine choice but reddit’s opportunity seems to be much larger as the pre-eminent threaded discussion site across all demographics and if anything I suspect longer form discussion skews older.
- haywirez 6y ago> “this is not for adults” That’s a critical feature.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mattlutze 6y agoEmoji are a native part of the vocabulary of a couple generations now. What you might be noticing is a platform signaling that it's supporting those folks as well. Every Millennial is an adult, as are many Gen Z'ers, and these plus the first all-21st century generation are going to have come to expect emoji to exist and existed in digital spaces where emoji are a part of the jargon. Why would it make sense for Reddit to force these people to communicate less completely than they are used to doing?
- duncanawoods 6y agoI fully acknowledge they are part of language now and it’s a much harder decision to not support them, my point relating to the topic is that they aren’t simply new words, or an interaction pattern or a ligature but kawaii design elements that are very viral - driving further spread of poop emoji aesthetic. I hope that they continue to evolve into typefaces that allow for more elegant design decisions. There is a lot of value in the emoji concept if we could separate from their design. For example, I created a reasoning tool prototype driven by emoji - it was just so ugly I had to burn it with fire. It was also inconsistent across platforms.
- whytaka 6y agoI think it’s really just that digital art has become so prolific and cutesy things are just the easiest to make. Every company wanted minimalism but now everyone looks the same so we have to garnish it with cheap art so it’s not too minimal and now everyone is doing that.
- xondono 6y agoI think part of it it’s the “build your design from blocks” mentality that is so dominant nowadays. There’s a lot of ways to do hard aesthetics, but pretty much one way to do kawaii (roundness, pastels, flat appearance). Joining kawaii-sh art from different sources is way easier than joining other kinds of graphics. I would guess that a significant part of the trend is people following the path of least resistance.
- m463 6y agoI can see the other side of "building from a theme" or "building from a template", where you can choose a template that works for everyone, even old people, the colorblind, or even completely blind. It is better than the 90's web pages where people could choose any foreground or background color, and people were free to choose yellow on green.
- js8 6y agoOn a related note, I wish product designers stop to cater to beginners. That is, stop equating easy of use and ease of use by somebody who never used the product. Somebody who sees the product for the first time will have very different requirements than somebody who is seeing it every day. The latter is able to learn some productivity tricks, that might be opaque to beginner, but make the product actually easier to use.
- AmericanChopper 6y agoI think the product designers have the right approach here. Having worked in a lot of large corporates, you find a lot of people who are just experts in using some over complicated piece of garbage software. If I have to attend a 3 day training seminar just to figure out the basic functionality of your app, then I think you’ve done it wrong. Software should make it as easy as possible for people to immediately start doing something useful with it. Make advanced features available via the API, and make sure logs and APM are easy to ingest. Advanced users likely won’t have any interest in your web interface anyhow.
- swiley 6y agoI’d disagree. Some things are hard and the ergonomics makes it worth a little confusion. CAD software like xcircuit is a good example of this (although they definitely could stand to make the save dialog a little more intuitive.)
- AmericanChopper 6y agoBecoming an advanced photoshop user is difficult too. But I can still fire it up and doing basic image editing with about 2 minutes worth of figuring-out. Excel is almost a full RDBMS, but the basics don’t really need any training.
- swiley 6y agoI don’t think excel can do joins which is a big part of the “R” in RDBMS but I don’t use excel often so I could be wrong.
- type-2 6y agoWhy did he decide to call it kawaiization? I don't think this kind of design is inspired from japan, even though the rounded corners, soft color palette can be considered "cute", they exist because they are perceived as "modern web design". I put it in quotes but honestly I don't hate it. It is pleasing to the eyes.
- knolax 6y agoAgreed, there's no additional meaning to the world kawaii that isn't already captured by the word cute. Actual Japanese websites look nothing like what the author describes.
- type-2 6y agoPretty much. Though it is a very international thing, I think chinese websites in general look more "kawaii" if we use the world like the author(?). For eg. take look at www.ui.cn
- jotm 6y agoIt got you to read it. It got it to the front page on HN.
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago> I don't think this kind of design is inspired from japan It's almost entirely a west coast US style if anything, nothing to do with kawaii. I even find it weirdly similar to 90s software illustrations, the ancient Adobe Acrobat branding comes to mind [0] [0] https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51wSPfBcRRL._SX385_.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51wSPfBcRRL...
- sandov 6y agoIf clay figures are the price to pay for clean, spaced user interfaces and readable text, then bring it on. This is the first time that I actually like a design trend in the web. Thank god we got rid of those barely readable thin grey fonts on white backgrounds.
- wirrbel 6y agothat was the worst. Don't get me started on the trend for large line-spacing that makes text as unreadable as the duoble-spaced preprints I just refuse to read.
- m463 6y agoYou have forgotten 90's web pages, not from templates and designed by edit-in-the-browser where you can choose any color for foreground and background (and people usually did)
- knolax 6y agoAuthor could've just called it cutification without wasting a paragraph to explain a common loanword. It's not like these trends actually come from Japan. Look at some of these top 20 Japanese sites[0], none of them look like what the author's describing. [0] https://m.yahoo.co.jp/ https://m.yahoo.co.jp/ https://smt.docomo.ne.jp/ https://smt.docomo.ne.jp/ https://www.rakuten.co.jp/ https://www.rakuten.co.jp/
- spyckie2 6y agoThe author is probably referring to a general trend in Japan where simple, cute, slice of life ambience is becoming very popular in various media like video games and anime.
- knolax 6y agoThe general trend of Kawaii things also looks nothing like the websites he's talking about. For example, they lack the distinctive hand-drawn cartoon art style like this site has[0]. [0] http://www.mitchiri-neko.com/ http://www.mitchiri-neko.com/
- carrolldunham 6y agoThe deformed, grotesque, inflated humanoids they use in flat design are opposite to 'kawaii', and opposite in motivation. Instead of hitting your instincts with a supernormal cuteness/sweetness stimulus, it's supposed to desensitise you to 'differences' in humans. It's ideologically tinged
- thih9 6y ago> it's supposed to desensitise you to 'differences' in humans. Why did you put differences in quotes? Do you mean something else than just differences?
- mdre 6y agoYeah, I'm wondering from time to time, what's going on with the strange cult of the small head. I've seen that illustrators call this trend 'big limbs', but I call it 'small head'. As in 'Let's not focus on this big head of yours, shrink your head, just go with the flow'. Get rid of your brain, your thoughts, your personality, everyone is OK. Looks like it's the millenial's equivalent of the boomers' large nose cartoony characters (or maybe a shitty pastel family-friendly castrated version of Robert Crumb's body fantasies) and it will pass. However, I think this one's still in its prime time and gonna keep pissing me off for quite a long time. Maybe I should try harder to propagate the style I enjoy- giant head, no body, tiny limbs.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- GregarianChild 6y agoSee also the recent related HN discussion [1] about "Corporate Memphis" which is orthogonal in principle from Kawaii, but in practise often overlapping. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22890877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22890877
- scottishcow 6y agoThis is tangential to the author's argument but it's amusing to see how the word "kawaii" has taken a life of its own in the West. In Japan we often make gratuitous use of English words (yokomoji, lit. "sideways-written characters") to make things sound more interesting than they really are, seems like it works the other way around too.
- GuB-42 6y agoIn France too, English words are commonly used to make things sound more interesting, more modern. Especially hilarious when management uses English words, often improperly, when a perfectly adequate and commonly used French word exists. Maybe it is a global trend all over the the world since English became the de facto international language.
- Befterriager 6y ago> In France too, [...] hilarious when management uses English words Recently (well... back when going to the office was still a thing) I had a meeting with a senior manager at our company. At the end of the meeting, he grabbed his iPhone and said "I am going to take a selfie of the whiteboard" (in French except for the word 'selfie') thinking that meant any kind of picture.
- f1refly 6y agoWe got the same thing happening in germany as well and i don't know a single person who thinks it sounds good. The (typically) senior PMs seem to be oblivious how everyone's making fun of them behind their backs because of how ridiculous they sound.
- satvikpendem 6y agoAlso hilarious is the opposite, French being used in English feels more sophisticated. It just has un je ne sais quoi about it.
- marcusjt 6y ago"or we see a puppy and have an urge to squeeze it" - stroke or cuddle perhaps, but SQUEEZE?!
- hellofunk 6y agoThat’s actually just a natural response, have you ever seen how a child impulsively and strongly squeezes a teddy bear?
- anotheryou 6y agomention swiss design too maybe? https://creativemarket.com/blog/swiss-design-history-examples https://creativemarket.com/blog/swiss-design-history-example... It's just less soft and round
- tobr 6y agoRecently discussed, an article with an almost synonymous title: “On Infantilization in Digital Environments (2015)” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22490089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22490089
- everdrive 6y agoI’m not sure I’d call this “kawaii,” as that has a particular (and often cringey) connotation. But, there is something deeply unappealing about this style. I’m not sure I can even describe it properly. It just reminds me of the most boring parts of my childhood: the aesthetic of dentist office waiting rooms, and middle school pamphlets aimed at teaching kids about sociology. My past association with this sort of aesthetic is so innoffensively boring, I almost can’t even stand to look at it. And, as and adult, it no longer strikes me as just boring, but also insidious in the way that all marketing is insidious: it promises one thing, and behind the marketing is something else. A pleasant and inoffensive advertisement is in actuality just a regular old business who wants your money. There’s (usually) nothing evil the business, but of course the feeling portrayed by the marketing is a lie.
- enriquto 6y ago> I’m not sure I can even describe it properly. It just reminds me of the most boring parts of my childhood: the aesthetic of dentist office waiting rooms, and middle school pamphlets aimed at teaching kids about sociology. But you just provided an excellent description of that style!
- thedanbob 6y agoI think you've nailed it. It's the business version of "let's make learning fun!" Even the article mentions this: > Bank interfaces use pastels, rounded corners and soft drop shadows to make mundane or unpleasant tasks more "fun.” I think I lean more toward your position than the article's. I would probably refer to this trend as the infantilization of product design. Edit: I was wondering why I had that particular word in my head. A comment further down: > Recently discussed, an article with an almost synonymous title: “On Infantilization in Digital Environments (2015)” > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22490089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22490089
- ComodoHacker 6y agoYes, infantilization is the right term. And it's main function is to suppress critical thinking of the product.
- Hokusai 6y ago> It could be just a trend, or it could be we are becoming more human, more childlike because we're tired of being grownups. This conclusion completely misses the point. What has changed is what "growing up" means. I see that many people around me in their late thirties care more about the environment, care more about the mental health of their children, are more playful and are better at their jobs that previous generations. Suffering is part of adult life, that is a sad truth. But, to make life dull and hard to look like an adult is plain wrong and inverts cause and effect. A somber life without enjoyment does not show that you are "being a grownup". To be playful, to enjoy life, to want to learn and grow are characteristics not just of children but of balanced smart adults. > Given the context of the world around us, we are searching for positivity and comfort, and that's why we add emojis to our spreadsheets. Like any human being before us, like any living organism that has reproduced on Earth to look for comfort is the natural and responsible thing to do. Do you see lions hunting more that they need? Do you see plants growing away from the sun? Sometimes there is trade offs and you choose the lesser evil, but suffering when not needed is a dangerous stupid idea.
- jeegsy 6y ago> A somber life without enjoyment does not show that you are "being a grownup" Was there ever really a time when ppl thought this was what growing up meant?
- diffrinse 6y agoIt's the "boomer" fantasy of what their parents and grandparents were doing before them. Hence why movies in the 60s/70s began to carry anti-authority "live your life" messages more and more until we're saturated in them at this point generations later.
- GoblinSlayer 6y agoRound corners, nice. Hope next they will figure out 3d buttons and how to draw humans.
- whywhywhywhy 6y agoLiterally nothing in this article could be described as "kawaii", kawaii is meant to invoke the same feelings you'd get from looking at a cute kitten. None of these illustrations do that or set out to do that. "Corporate Memphis" is one way I've seen this described more accurately [0]. [0] https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-illustrations-look-so-similar-these-days/ https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-illustrations-l...
- fomine3 6y ago+1 as Japanese. I never heard this type of styles called as "kawaii".
- Invictus0 6y agoI think the reason the cuteness is unnerving is because these sites are selling tools. It would be weird to buy a hammer covered in some soft fuzzy material, so why are these digital tools designed to look like children's sites? Moreover, why do they obfuscate key product specifications and functions in favor of vague promises of increased productivity (more goodness as one comment said)? I think the answer is that the low hanging SAAS fruit has mostly been taken and all the new SAAS apps have an increasing smaller niche and therefore increasingly smaller value proposition.
- satvikpendem 6y agoSee related, the Dribbbilization of design (2013): https://www.intercom.com/blog/the-dribbblisation-of-design https://www.intercom.com/blog/the-dribbblisation-of-design
- omnimus 6y agoThis is it more than anything. Author is complaining about cute trend comming up that he probably dislikes yet the bigger problem is almost complete unification of design that follows trends. It's the maximal safe choice, ultimate lack of imagination and fear of experimenttion. I guess makes sense business wise? By the way its not like van Schneider (author of the article) is some kind of daring pushing the envelope designer. He might not make things cute but overall makes pretty trendy dribbly stuff.
- 7leafer 6y agoIt's all design for hordes of mediocre cheap designers
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- yowlingcat 6y agoAs other commentators have mentioned, the analogy to "kawaii" is inaccurate and inappropriate; it's much closer to what's been termed Corporate Memphis[1] than kawaii. Key differences: - Corporate Memphis uses an abridged contrast ("flat") full range palette that is meant to a) be legible and b) not stand out. Human forms are flattened, with intentionally minimized, abstract differentiation between entities. This makes sense because the emphasis is on legibility and universal visual communication, not flair. - Kawaii uses uses an expanded range palette with a lot of emphasis on pastels and cel shading to create a 2.5D world that is probably aesthetically closer to Surrealism. Kawaii human forms are caricatures, full of cartoonish distortions. The whole point is expression, quirkiness, flair and alternate reality building. [1] https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-illustrations-look-so-similar-these-days/ https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-illustrations-l...
- tompccs 6y agoArguably Google started this trend - it had a multicoloured logo, their head office was called a "campus", they had beanbags, etc. It has defined a generation of corporate messaging: non-threatening, childlike simplicity. Compare and contrast companies called things like "INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES", built at a time when corporations wanted to exude power, scale, financial strength, and technical brilliance.
- aikinai 6y agoDoesn't negate the rest of your point, but just for your information, business parks have long been called campuses; that's not a Google or infantile thing.
- beager 6y ago> Our app designs have become soft, sweet, inoffensive. Bank interfaces use pastels, rounded corners and soft drop shadows to make mundane or unpleasant tasks more "fun.” Animojis have taken over our chats, and our productivity tools are starting to look like Animal Crossing. This is the part of this that galls me the most. Weaponizing UI design as a substitute for UX simplicity, and using that weaponized design to bluster past the UX shortcomings of your service in your service's marketing.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago"Weaponizing UI design" is a perfect description. These designs aren't meant to be thought about, they're meant to push emotional buttons in your head. They're meant to make you feel safe, make you shut down critical thinking, in order to make you more receptive to the marketing message.
- webwielder2 6y agoBy “product design” do they mean “visual design of marketing sites”? Anyway, trends come and go. I don’t think there’s any meaning to be derived here beyond “attractive marketing collateral is appealing.”
- aj7 6y agoI actually actively ignore this kind of marketing aesthetic. It screams lightweight, throwaway, fake. I’m probably wrong sometimes.
- slx26 6y agoeverything is kawaii until you actually start using the products ^^
- sbruno 6y agoThe author uses what look like Dribbble screenshots to prove his point. Dribbble does not represent the majority state of product designs.
- karaterobot 6y agoThis is an important point! Dribbble shots are usually not from actual products, so you can't use them as evidence for a real world trend. Another point is that you should not generalize about the design of a product based on marketing pages. Often, the design for these pages is contracted out to studios who don't touch the rest of the product. How often do the products look and feel like the home page? Almost never. Maybe this is a trivial point, but what I mean is: he shouldn't state this as if it were a product design trend, when (if it is a trend at all) it's a marketing trend.
- motohagiography 6y agoThe cute'ification of design is definitely a thing. When you think about what something is supposed to signify, it appeals to certain aesthetic reference points. Within a particular critical framework, all design is to signal alignment to perceptions of power, and reflecting the ones from your customers minds is how a product succeeds. Personally, I find this kind of design originates in those corporate retreat exercises where you co-operate in infantalizing play-time and people are forced to compete to demonstrate submission and remove indicators of individual quality or personality as "edges" that create friction to the dynamic flow of power. In the design language, removing edges and clear lines that might signal "either/or, black and white" thinking in the design reflects this value of passive, liquid, flexibility - which is the opposite of decisive, directed, or forceful aesthetics of 80's, 90's and 00's coroporate design languages. Compare it to the 90s-00's Italian Futurist corporate design language of some major internet companies, which was perhaps in hindsight an unfortunate choice, and was the polar opposite of the unthreatening startup languages of today. The values implicit in the design are fascinating to consider, but a critical view of them would take the topic into more controversial territory.
- lunias 6y agoNot kawaii, but good callout nonetheless. This is just what designs end up looking like when you consider 7 billion people your target audience and want to market to them all simultaneously. It's for everyone and also for no one; it's soulless garbage.
- popup21 6y ago> and our productivity tools are starting to look like Animal Crossing. bada-bing!
- knolax 6y agoI don't know what kind of art you guys grew up with, but when I was a kid all the art I was exposed to (in cartoons and textbooks and whatnot) used saturated colors and was shaded. This is the exact opposite of the art style I associate with "infantilization". It's abstract and flat and uses pastel colors, like something out of a mural.
- annoyingnoob 6y agoCartoon humans in advertising is a big turn off for me. Are you serious or just playing around?
- elischiff 6y agoThis talk about "kawaii" a lie meant to erase the work I did on @humansofflat until designers canceled me: https://twitter.com/HumansOfFlat https://twitter.com/HumansOfFlat
- kgin 6y agoThe kawaii style was a few years ago. It’s all about the blob people now.
- dingo_bat 6y agoWhy is my cursor invisible on this page?
- _bxg1 6y agoThis is a really insightful way of framing the trend. I hadn't thought about it this way before but it makes perfect sense. However: I think there's a more sinister aspect that's not covered in the article. Think about how dystopian so many software products are today - the privacy violations, the toxic social interactions, the dark patterns. It makes perfect sense that the companies behind these products would lean as hard into kawaii as they can, to mask the bad stuff and make the user more receptive. Who could be worried about the personal information they're giving away when there's a cute little cartoon animal shyly asking for it?