I have spent a good amount of my last 6 years or so trying to be happy and helping others online to be happy. What we wanted with our mascot was something that evoked happiness.
Admittedly it's a fine line to walk between cute/happy/childish and we need to find the right mix.
The home page looks like a scene from the Teletubbies TV show. It does not look like something designed to appeal to well-adjusted adults.
Fine to me. Better to "err" on that side, as a signal to hate groups who fester on reddit. Furthermore, you can take it as self-mocking irony, if you prefer...
I prefer to take it as I perceive it, to wit, as a dumb business decision that will likely be re-thought and re-done at some point.
Ironically I always thought reddit alien was a teletubbie. Imzy looks like a fine site. I like their mascot, but the frontpage banner should be cleaner, otherwise it would not gain that many users older than teenagers.
I think that if you attract movie fans your site might become big. I saw Star Wars group image on the dev page banner. The thing is there is another site that begins with the same two letters and is all about movies, but their community features are not that great. If you target your site to imdb regulars they would inadvertently also end up on Imzy when wanting to discuss something.
What exactly is the mascot supposed to be? The green and the spikes makes me think "some kind of lizard", though it's about as abstracted as Snoo.