I’m having mixed feelings about this article because at first I assumed the butthole was just a clickbait joke, and the point was about the overuse of circular logos, but then later it says: So… I...
I’m having mixed feelings about this article because at first I assumed the butthole was just a clickbait joke, and the point was about the overuse of circular logos, but then later it says:
No single person suggests making a logo that resembles an anus, but when everyone's feedback gets incorporated, that's what often emerges. Risk aversion in corporate environments naturally pushes designs toward familiar, "safe" territory, which apparently means anatomical openings.
So… I can’t tell if it’s just a joke or if the author is legitimately comparing them to buttholes. I can see Claude looking like one, but every other one is a stretch (no pun intended)
Or maybe I’m just too tired and irony is being lost on me lol
So I guess I can say two things about this:
if it’s about the overuse/over-reliance on similar circular shapes, agreed. But that’s a general problem, hardly unique to the AI space (as the author points out as well)
if it’s actually about how they look like buttholes… Meh, I’ll give you Claude at least. The rest doesn’t look like one at all
I also could not tell if the whole article was a bit or not, because it really got too long and detailed (damn you ADHD). I suspect it is all a bit/comedy non-fiction. However, using my eyes, the...
I also could not tell if the whole article was a bit or not, because it really got too long and detailed (damn you ADHD). I suspect it is all a bit/comedy non-fiction.
However, using my eyes, the only ones that resemble an anus are the asterisk adjacent ones, aka Claude and whatever the black on white asterisk one is. The other two which are just complete circles, come in close second, but only the double circle is somewhat similar to an anus/sphincter. I say that most of these do not pass the anus litmus test, because even with the power of suggestion and priming, only a handful of those icons standout as anus-like.
I feel the main thing they are observing is:
Design by committee
Another factor is how these logos are created. Important corporate decisions involve many stakeholders. The result is often the safest, most inoffensive option, the average of everyone's opinions. In design meetings at AI companies, conversations probably sound like:
* Can we make it more futuristic?
* It needs to feel advanced but approachable.
* Let's add a subtle gradient to convey intelligence.
No single person suggests making a logo that resembles an anus, but when everyone's feedback gets incorporated, that's what often emerges. Risk aversion in corporate environments naturally pushes designs toward familiar, "safe" territory, which apparently means anatomical openings.
Copycat culture, dilution of authenticity, vanilla/beige/safety driven choices. This happens with everything though, for whatever reason, we(corporations) have become a culture of wanting to blend in, instead of stand apart. And we will see it happen again and again and again. Remember all the vowel-less start-up companies? The obsession with Arial and Helvetica aka the "minimalist" phase, or look at cars, literally every single major market vehicle in the USA looks like a "compact-SUV" whatever that means. Mainstream fashion and design are very boring right now, just cyclic low effort drivel, IMO.
PS. Hot take, maybe the author is directly criticizing that when you take such a blasé attitude towards design, you end up with shit.
Even if it doesn't look exactly like an anus, it's certainly strongly suggestive of a sphincter at least. I've done more than my fair share of Internet research on the topic though, so maybe I'm...
Even if it doesn't look exactly like an anus, it's certainly strongly suggestive of a sphincter at least.
I've done more than my fair share of Internet research on the topic though, so maybe I'm quicker to finger a stylized chocolate starfish than I ought to be.
Whether they really look like buttholes aside, I wonder how much of this pervasive aesthetic stems from the fact most companies need an app icon because everyone and their dog has a smartphone...
Whether they really look like buttholes aside, I wonder how much of this pervasive aesthetic stems from the fact most companies need an app icon because everyone and their dog has a smartphone now.
This is just pure conjecture so please don't take it too seriously, but it's something I noticed as I'm the type of person who customizes their phone's home screen a lot.
Logos with names and funny shapes were a thing before (like 10+ years ago), but then Google and Apple essentially standardized how you must make an app logo and you can't even publish your app if you don't follow their model. They don't enforce a shape for your brand, but all icons must have a set of layers so they can be properly rounded on the homescreen.
This essentially forces all companies to have a logo that can fit well in a circular or squircle shape (the 2 major shapes on smartphones), which I feel inevitably leads to circular logo design for anything that's on a smartphone.
I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons, but I can't help but point this out when I notice how many weirdly shaped icons my home screen has lost over the past decade and a half.
If the need for something simple is the issue, that probably started with favicons - the little logo you see in a browser tab. I often have many tabs open, that little image is the only way to...
If the need for something simple is the issue, that probably started with favicons - the little logo you see in a browser tab. I often have many tabs open, that little image is the only way to quickly distinguish which is which.
Oooh. Feel free to mark this as noise, but I would love if you made a thread about customized home screens. Huge fan of doing that myself and love to see what others got going on.
Oooh. Feel free to mark this as noise, but I would love if you made a thread about customized home screens. Huge fan of doing that myself and love to see what others got going on.
The lobste.rs thread on this got deleted (probably appropriately, it was a popular lightning rod but definitely off-topic for the site), but it carried a great snarky comment, which I will...
The lobste.rs thread on this got deleted (probably appropriately, it was a popular lightning rod but definitely off-topic for the site), but it carried a great snarky comment, which I will reproduce here (archive link):
In Brazil, when someone tells a fact without any backing evidence, people say they took the info from their ass. (It's kinda rude, but everyone understands.) As an English-as-second-language...
In Brazil, when someone tells a fact without any backing evidence, people say they took the info from their ass. (It's kinda rude, but everyone understands.) As an English-as-second-language speaker, I guess this is lost in translation, which is a shame since it makes the relationship between AI logos and buttholes even more striking.
That is because we are passing through and out into a whole new world of shit, after everything we ever did got mushed together and digested. (I couldn't help myself)
That is because we are passing through and out into a whole new world of shit, after everything we ever did got mushed together and digested.
I’m having mixed feelings about this article because at first I assumed the butthole was just a clickbait joke, and the point was about the overuse of circular logos, but then later it says:
So… I can’t tell if it’s just a joke or if the author is legitimately comparing them to buttholes. I can see Claude looking like one, but every other one is a stretch (no pun intended)
Or maybe I’m just too tired and irony is being lost on me lol
So I guess I can say two things about this:
if it’s about the overuse/over-reliance on similar circular shapes, agreed. But that’s a general problem, hardly unique to the AI space (as the author points out as well)
if it’s actually about how they look like buttholes… Meh, I’ll give you Claude at least. The rest doesn’t look like one at all
I also could not tell if the whole article was a bit or not, because it really got too long and detailed (damn you ADHD). I suspect it is all a bit/comedy non-fiction.
However, using my eyes, the only ones that resemble an anus are the asterisk adjacent ones, aka Claude and whatever the black on white asterisk one is. The other two which are just complete circles, come in close second, but only the double circle is somewhat similar to an anus/sphincter. I say that most of these do not pass the anus litmus test, because even with the power of suggestion and priming, only a handful of those icons standout as anus-like.
I feel the main thing they are observing is:
Copycat culture, dilution of authenticity, vanilla/beige/safety driven choices. This happens with everything though, for whatever reason, we(corporations) have become a culture of wanting to blend in, instead of stand apart. And we will see it happen again and again and again. Remember all the vowel-less start-up companies? The obsession with Arial and Helvetica aka the "minimalist" phase, or look at cars, literally every single major market vehicle in the USA looks like a "compact-SUV" whatever that means. Mainstream fashion and design are very boring right now, just cyclic low effort drivel, IMO.
PS. Hot take, maybe the author is directly criticizing that when you take such a blasé attitude towards design, you end up with shit.
Talk about a missed opportunity to use the phrase "sniff test."
You dont think openai's looks like a butthole?
Not really?
Even if it doesn't look exactly like an anus, it's certainly strongly suggestive of a sphincter at least.
I've done more than my fair share of Internet research on the topic though, so maybe I'm quicker to finger a stylized chocolate starfish than I ought to be.
Gemini is literally a star and with a material themed icon its colours can certainly match the chocolate.
It’s an aperture!
No sir. Those are b-holes.
(The Brazillian one is legit NSFW).
Whether they really look like buttholes aside, I wonder how much of this pervasive aesthetic stems from the fact most companies need an app icon because everyone and their dog has a smartphone now.
This is just pure conjecture so please don't take it too seriously, but it's something I noticed as I'm the type of person who customizes their phone's home screen a lot.
Logos with names and funny shapes were a thing before (like 10+ years ago), but then Google and Apple essentially standardized how you must make an app logo and you can't even publish your app if you don't follow their model. They don't enforce a shape for your brand, but all icons must have a set of layers so they can be properly rounded on the homescreen.
This essentially forces all companies to have a logo that can fit well in a circular or squircle shape (the 2 major shapes on smartphones), which I feel inevitably leads to circular logo design for anything that's on a smartphone.
I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons, but I can't help but point this out when I notice how many weirdly shaped icons my home screen has lost over the past decade and a half.
If the need for something simple is the issue, that probably started with favicons - the little logo you see in a browser tab. I often have many tabs open, that little image is the only way to quickly distinguish which is which.
Oooh. Feel free to mark this as noise, but I would love if you made a thread about customized home screens. Huge fan of doing that myself and love to see what others got going on.
The lobste.rs thread on this got deleted (probably appropriately, it was a popular lightning rod but definitely off-topic for the site), but it carried a great snarky comment, which I will reproduce here (archive link):
In Brazil, when someone tells a fact without any backing evidence, people say they took the info from their ass. (It's kinda rude, but everyone understands.) As an English-as-second-language speaker, I guess this is lost in translation, which is a shame since it makes the relationship between AI logos and buttholes even more striking.
"Pulled it out of one's ass" is an idiom in English, as well. The subtext definitely translates here. =)
Kurt Vonnegut makes an asterisk/butthole joke in one of his books and when I first saw Claude’s logo it immediately reminded me of that.
There's actually a side by side comparison of the two in the article. It's uncanny.
That is because we are passing through and out into a whole new world of shit, after everything we ever did got mushed together and digested.
(I couldn't help myself)