The Villain We Deserve:
When Turning a Blind Eye to Hatred Weakens the Critical Gaze
Danielle Evans / WNW Member
Spewing openly alt-right propaganda was the last straw for Twitter who finally suspended his account. Considering Donald Tr*mp is still hanging on by a thread, this is a small accomplishment. The account creator seemed ordinary enough, an irritated white male designer with a good job. He pushed the envelope. He “shook things up” by critiquing peers with a Sean Hannity vibe, which was refreshing to his liberal counterparts and familiar to those that grew up on talk radio. And then he started picking on women of color. Doxxing LGBTQ+ designers. Eventually his rants were openly peppered with racism and hatred. After the deft banishing, an acolyte published a veiled threat (complete with a newsletter link, it is 2020) that read like a Marvel villain origin story.
And we, the design industry, helped build this edge case.
How did this happen? Slowly and in full view, like most insidious things. It happened under the guise of moderation, key voices amplifying alternative perspectives in the name of free speech. It happened from the dark but innocent position of morbid curiosity. Of “keeping tabs.” It happened within the “good vibes only” mentality that taken to extremes left a vacuum for proper criticism. And it happened because design is a system, and the above is a perfect exploitation of pressure points in faulty Design Thinking™.
All Sides
Why did we give a platform to overt hatred from the position of presenting all sides? False balance is a common bias seen in journalism but also a vehicle for spreading misinformation or doubt. It assumes that all perspectives and parties are equivalently honest and aware of their impact on others. While we can argue there are two sides to every story, those sides are rarely if ever the same. Predators thrive on reducing their victims’ credibility using this method. Assuming the best of someone with questionable actions or derogatory speech is a false premise for validity.
Design is rarely if ever focused on designing for problematic users outside of security analyses or testing. Whether a game, site, or app, humans love breaking rules. For example, an ubereats driver stole my ice cream yesterday. I was mad but impressed; I wasn’t charged, and he scored a free late night treat. Uber makes it almost impossible to report from the app, so this will continue until enough businesses experience a shortchange. Small business cries won’t matter as much as major chains, and it could take a lot of Frosties to make a dent in their bottom line. Often problematic users provide a crucial point of feedback without receiving priority. They are the minority, not the focus. Why are we giving equivalent weight to those that would break our system just to watch it burn? Testing tends to discard the extremes. I’d never advocate for discarding extreme good, but why not discard the extreme bad, the abusive, or malignant?
Morbid Curiosity
Why do we follow people with problematic points of view, regardless of their design output? Perhaps a little schadenfreude, a lot of curiosity, under the guise of “broadening our perspectives.” While this seems an innocent, entertaining practice, thousands of curious designers add up to a hoard. As we’ve observed in the political sector, giving hateful, ignorant personalities a platform emboldens others of like mind to generate the same speech. Our passive presence creates some form of multiplication.
Design’s effectiveness is expanded with diverse opinions, it’s true. Yet there are so many places where D&I is desperately needed: facial recognition technology, accessibility for web, and sensors for automated devices for example could benefit from our insatiable curiosity. Why funnel that energy towards “diverse perspective” laced with hatred? Why ruin a good meal with an arsenic chaser? Morbid curiosity is a time and energy suck. Our research into topics that don’t lift our spirits or serve as ammunition for change makes us feel accomplished. But what is actually gained? In UX/UI, designers learn about dark patterning to avoid creating them. But how many dedicate their timelines and off hours to researching the nitty-gritty of these poor patterns? It’s a waste of resources outside of an academic perspective. We can opt to stay informed, but there is endless media available that present a reality without a hateful, alarmist perspective.
“Design’s effectiveness is expanded with diverse opinions, it’s true. Yet there are so many places where D&I is desperately needed: facial recognition technology, accessibility for web, and sensors for automated devices could benefit from our insatiable curiosity. Why funnel that energy towards ‘diverse perspective’ laced with hatred? Why ruin a good meal with an arsenic chaser? Morbid curiosity is a time and energy suck.”
Good Vibes Only
Why did we take “Good Vibes Only” to such an extreme that we diminished the need for loving critique? One of my favorite writers, Hanif Abdurraqib, made a stunning observation about the music industry that translates unilaterally to design:
“So much of music criticism… has gotten saddled with the idea that it’s all negative. If someone criticizes something, it’s out of anger, or bitterness, or jealousy… Critique, for me, has to be an act of love— or else it’s a waste of time.”
Design is again a system, and systems require constant poking to optimize and better them. Look no further than iPhone updates for a tangible example. At the heart of systems are people, the most complex system of all. To advance the system, we need analysis of what is and is not working. This analysis, when applied well, is an act of love. It takes great care and emotional intelligence to separate one’s personal taste from the assessment of the whole.
When design turned up its nose at thoughtful criticism through civilized discourse in favor of strictly good vibes, it created a vacuum. There will always be a need for feedback in a system, otherwise systems stagnate and die. All systems require balance and by avoiding this requirement, we collectively created instability. Any statement without proper checking can become weaponized: “embrace your weird,” “find your audience,” “no one can do what you do,” etc. is up for grabs. This is why a lone voice spouting hateful criticism can thrive. It’s off enough to sound refreshing without considering the deeper, long term ramifications of this angle. Lone voices also make extreme positions sound more moderate. After all, it’s just one person. What can one person do? Therefore, it is important to amplify critical viewpoints, especially those of intersectional or marginalized groups with a track record of fairness and kindness.
“Design is again a system, and systems require constant poking to optimize and better them. This analysis, when applied well, is an act of love...When design turned up its nose at thoughtful criticism through civilized discourse in favor of strictly ‘good vibes’, it created a vacuum...All systems require balance and by avoiding this requirement, we collectively created instability.”
The Mirror Holds the Answer
It might be easy at first glance to identify hateful, angry people and marvel how they ended up on the wrong side of history (and science, flat earth was hip for 1520). But it occurs to me that these people believe they are the heroes, the vigilante justice warriors of our time. And this rubs us raw, because aren’t we the hero we need?
Leadership in design has been conflated to some weird celebrity status where someone with loud opinions can accumulate influence as long as they are consistent. We are all of the assumption that we are consistently good, and therein lies our weakness. Shame researcher Brené Brown speaks about the black-and-white thinking surrounding self-assessment. As individuals we love to believe we are well-intentioned, complex creatures. Good. Everyone else is poorly-intentioned, simple. Bad. Biologically, we’re prone to not only seek others that resemble us but to ostracize those that are different. This blind assumption of our goodness allows us to conveniently excuse our weaknesses as momentary and our persistent problems as complexity. Therefore we tend to side with those with whom we bear commonality.
This identification with others is a slippery slope. Entertaining harmful behavior from a mutual acquaintance doesn’t always mean we identify with their actions. Subconsciously, we may enjoy their design work or identify with their gender and ethnicity. We may empathize with their experience, what it feels like to be overlooked, or paranoid our ancient tweets are being combed for inflammatory content. Perhaps these are reasons to give the benefit of the doubt when other users snap or push the boundaries of public harassment. This is over-identification. Just because someone looks like us does not mean they will behave like us or better. When we excuse someone for lashing out, we can do so because we believe if pushed to the limit we would never cross the line, or that the recipient's behavior must have deserved such an outburst. Tolerating those that overstep says more about us and how we see ourselves.
If we’re unwilling to self-critique, we will not be willing to critically analyze those we identify with when they spew hatred or threaten others. We won’t see our own blindspots, the places where we are unforgiving or unwilling to apologize. We will avoid claiming responsibility for our harmful behaviors and minimize the concerns of those around us. We will excuse our own complacency. And someday we’ll look in the mirror and find we’ve become the villain that we deserve.
WNW Member Danielle Evans is an art director, lettering artist, speaker, and dimensional typographer. She’s worked with the likes of Disney, Target, the Guardian, PWC, (RED), McDonald’s, Aria, Condé Nast, Cadillac, and would love to work with you. Subscribe to her newsletter here.
Header Illustration by WNW Member Mark Wang