Frankly, I'm weary of all the ramyb-wrangling. I haven't been here long, but long enough to realize that, while some of what is directed at Ramyb and his designs is warranted, an equal amount is a knee-jerk reaction to someone who quickly produces mass-marketable designs (I am carefully NOT using the word 'art'), thereby pushing out what might arguably be a 'better' design.
I figure this has been going on probably since Shirt.Woot was incepted. And it will probably go on long after I have been driven away by the inaneness of it all. At this particular point in time, though, things seem more out of hand than usual.
I won't say I've never commented on a ramyb design, because I have. I won't say I did it purely for constructive purposes, because I didn't. At the time, I saw flaws and thought I was helping set something straight. Since then I've realized that much of the criticism is petty, as are the retaliations.
Now we have people picking apart the cultural mores of not just the designer, but each other. When do all of us realize:
--It's just a t-shirt site, not competition for the Pinchuck Prize.
--Cartoons don't HAVE to be anatomically correct; they are, duh - cartoons!
--There are places in this world for both cute chibi critters and intensely emotional/personal designs.
--When someone is successfully designing for the masses, they don't particularly care what you think, most of the time.
--Said successful person is not doing it just to piss you off.
--There are worse designs than ramyb's submitted to the derbies every week.
--There are designs submitted each week that are heralded as wonderful by many, but there are still people who don't 'get' them and don't like them. And they vote.
I don't want to belittle the Woot community, any of the artists, nor anyone critiquing the designs. But enough is enough, already. I'm here to enjoy the community of talented folks, to learn something about the design process, to solicit comments from more experienced designers, to find cool shirts to wear and, maybe, someday, get lucky enough to have one of my shirts worn by other people. But because I follow the derby thread, I'm constantly interrupted and almost bombarded with ramyb-related rants from both directions. It flares after each of his submissions, dies out a bit, then flares back up repeatedly throughout the derby.
If Seki were more present in recent weeks, I'm sure this would be happening there, too.
Cripes.
Just for the record, I don't care for ramyb's stuff 99.9% of the time. Of course, I also don't care for Edgar's work a similar percentage. They represent the two sides of the extreme - relatively simple and marketable, versus intensely emotional and (dare I say) avant-garde. I 'get' ramyb but wouldn't wear the shirts. I don't 'get' Edgar, and still wouldn't wear the shirts. But, ramyb belongs on a t-shirt; Edgar belongs in a museum (MHO).
Can we get back to the regularly scheduled program now? I enjoy it immensely, and the 'breaking news' frankly, isn't either one - 'breaking' or 'news'. If you don't like Ramyb's shirt don't vote for it/buy it. But it is what it is, and what it is, is attractive to the voting demographic of kids and parents with kids*, and anyone else who likes cute shirts and isn't terribly interested in the 'artistic' merit, or how long the artist invested into the concept or execution.
*Yes, I’m aware that this is not shirt.woot’s prime demographic, but… SOMEBODY’s buying the damned things.
>pant-pant< Whew!
/rant
PS – Sorry to bore you all with this; most folks couldn’t care less and successfully ignore the weekly flame-wars. I just let things piss me off this week, apparently. Ignore me, move along. Nothing to see here…
