The Tenth Pile of Stuff
I'm getting writer's block on this newsletter subtitle. Please just open the email and read it anyway.
Toddler’s Bauhaus
You’ve doubtless seen these blob people on every piece of Silicon Valley marketing for years now. And if you’re like me, you hate them. Loathe them. But what on Earth are they and where do they come from?
The name for this art style—given by a man who sold shares of himself for $1 each—is Corporate Memphis. It’s supposed to be a reference to an Italian design group from that 80’s that blah blah blah I don’t know, it’s too much insider baseball of the art world for me. I much prefer a name for the style that I saw on Twitter: Toddler’s Bauhaus.1
Whatever you call it, this style that started with large Silicon Valley companies has become dominant in online marketing. These pastel people are easy to draw and too bland to cause offense.
Part of me hates these rotundities because, once upon a time, I was a graphic designer myself. And I can already imagine how awful it would feel to be hired again and again to draw these things because “it’s what everybody is doing”.2
But I also hate it because it’s a weird, soulless veneer over the problems of technology in our era. Anyone with the vaguest awareness of recent history would hesitate to claim that the tech companies employing these friendly designs are making the world a better place™. Many of these companies have created platforms that waste your time at best and drive people mad at worst.
Corporate Memphis feels like tone-deaf propaganda. “Look how soft and friendly we are! Don’t our products make you feel comfy? Huh? Oh, don’t pay any attention to the fracturing of society over there in the corner—focus on these happy pastel colors!”
I miss the promise of 80’s cyberpunk. Those dystopias didn’t paper over how gritty they were with cutesy corporate art.
Ask Me Anything (Except to Reset Your Password)
Despite spending many years on Twitter, I don’t have much of a following. No one to blame but myself—I’ve put no effort into “being a brand” or whatever gets you an audience. But I’ve been thinking it would be nice to boost my followers so I can i̶n̶f̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶s̶u̶s̶c̶e̶p̶t̶i̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶d̶s̶ connect with more interesting people.
So I started reading up on how to grow your audience. I’m using materials by Daniel Vassallo, and this is step number one in his method to growing your Twitter audience:
Start by taking notice of what people in real life ask you about. Chances are that if your friends are interested in something you're doing, the internet will help you find thousands more like them.
My first thought was: “The thing people ask me about most is if I can reset their password.” Such is the life of the IT guy.
I thought I would joke about it, and…
Ok, fine, I’m the password guy. I have opinions about passwords.
That said, I don’t think I’m going to turn my Twitter account—nor this newsletter—into an all-about-passwords brand. So if there’s anything else you’d like to hear about from me, let me know.
Obligatory Oreo
Here we see Oreo enjoying the weather last fall in a field near our home. The look on her face is one of pure ecstasy. Maybe. I don’t know—that’s a hard expression to pin down.
It’s important to give this a name. It’s hard to properly hate something that’s nameless.
I went from being a graphic designer to a programmer because non-professionals have lots of opinions about your designs but none about your code.