Welcome, welcome. This is the thread about the epidemic of whitewashing, ah yes. The most hated thing, which is practiced every single day. But on a story telling app… this shouldn’t be the case, this shouldn’t be happening here. Get your cup of tea, or any warm beverage, as this post will take you on a wild journey about the ugly truth of character designs.
Ah, the arguable wide range of skin tones (more than any other app), and yet, people still be choosing to use the lighter shades to represent characters which are supposed to be either mixed or from an ethnicity with a darker complexion. I must admit, there are people in real life that are on a lighter complexion scale, whether that be mixed or not.
My issue is, and this is something that a lot of people have an issue with, the whitewashing and fishing of characters. Such as having an Afrocentric hairstyle and then moulding their character’s face with the most Eurocentric features.
With an app that has a lot more diversity than any other story telling app (and trust me, I have tried almost all), it’s still shocking and rather annoying to see the same generic, white character with blonde or brown hair and an LI with tanned skin (usually Italian) male. I am sure there is a lot of stories with diversity, but we have to be real here, majority aren’t and when they are, half don’t even know how to properly represent the character.
Now, I am not saying that we shouldn’t have white characters as main characters, however it is time we use more diversity. I have talked to my fellow good friends, and I have seen a lot of posts about how they wish they could be represented, and accurately. In this day and age, were the internet is accessible to a lot of us, (and if you’re reading this, then it applies to you) there is no excuse for ignorance. You can open topics on the forum, you can search the internet about the ethenicty that you’re choosing to use, look at reference photos and learn about the culture before using them in a story. This is to ensure proper accuracy. Just imagine if someone used your culture and background, then turned it into something that they deemed was ‘okay’, but keeping the features that they thought were ‘the best’.
Moreover, a lot of people have this idea that Asians come in ‘one form’. No, no they don’t. For example, you have south Asians which include Tamils, Indians, Bangladesh, Afgahn and also Nepalese people. This is not limited to only these! But this is just an example. There are also Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Korean (North + South), and Mongolian. We also have Thai people, Fillopians, Vietnamese and again many more but for now I am keeping the list short.
Whilst I think I have spoken enough, I believe that a lot of people have their own experiences and frustrations to share and reasonings why this isn’t okay. Please comment down below, lovelies.
I’m not saying the Muslims wearing baggy clothing are a no but u know, also Muslims come in all shapes and sizes. Some of us wear scarves while the others don’t. It’s similar to Asians, there are so many different Asians to choose from but you should understand their culture before creating a character.
and facial features!!! FINALLYYYYYY!!1