The Babysitters Club | Hacker News Reader

The Babysitters Club

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95 pointshaldean41 comments

Cuteness is everywhere in Japan and it's not just anime girls and Hello Kitty. It's things like graphics of characters bowing on ATM and vending machines, and the Tokyo Police mascot, a sort of Pikachu/Astro Boy hybrid named Pipo-kun. This is a country where failure to be sufficiently serious and industrious is a black spot not on just your good name, but those of your parents and grandparents. And yet, cuteness which would be perceived as offensive or even unsettling here is critical to marketing strategy there.

It serves a social function. It helps break the ice and gets the consumer to perceive a company or institution as friendly and helpful. Maybe you can build the case that Japanese are somewhat infantilized and like to feel swaddled by the loving care of large corporations and political institutions, but I think it's more that they are rather conflict-averse, and cuteness in marketing is a way to get confrontation off the table.

Neat. The article isn't about Japan, though.

You're right. But neither is the GP's comment. He's using it to show that perhaps cuteness is not an attempt to treat us like kids.

Yeah, but that's my point. If we lived in a culture where cuteness carried the same valence as it does in Japan, or if we were talking about apps developed in Japan, by people immersed in Japanese culture, which just happened to make their way to the US - that'd be one thing. But we're not.

Well, it is an attempt to treat us like kids; the comment is more about how that can be a useful social function or at least an effective marketing message.

The article isn't about pedantry either, fella.

You know you're on Hacker News, right?

There was another article recently discussing cuteness and its disarming effects [1]. This author is obviously hyper aware of cuteness in apps. But the average user is not going to give much thought into it. In fact, the cuteness is probably not supposed to convey a thought, only a passing feeling. Too much cuteness is easily revolting (think the PINK barbie aisle in a toy store). But just enough cute helps give an emotion to a brand.

Brands of the previous generations were arguably more masculine (Reliable, Tough, Powerful, Extreme, New). But these emotions don't really work for everything. Do I really need Yelp to be Mountain Dew Extreme or Ford Tough? No. I am not sure what I emotion I want Yelp to be, but cute is an easy default. Especially for a generation that is accused of not growing up, aligning a brand with a "child-like" emotion is not a bad idea.

We should be aware of it though. The "NEW" obsession of the last 50 years has resulted in a massively wasteful consumer culture. Arguably companies want to sell new stuff, so they sell the New version. But the obsession with the New version has probably had some amount of feedback forcing companies to constant produce upgrades.

Ugh, cuteness. Although I am kind of a fan of NancyFX's commissioned The Oatmeal error pages[1]... But it's not necessarily a great look for a more serious product. On the other hand, most internet businesses are not particularly serious - what makes sense for Twitter would be ridiculous for Colt Arms or Caterpillar Tractors, or Amalgamated Magnesium (imagine, Coltie, the six-shooter-packing adolescent cowboy horse mascot...)

Apparently the fail-whale is no more? Today I'm seeing something that looks like a robot version of the sock-monkey

[1] http://mike-ward.net/2013/04/11/custom-error-pages-in-nancyf...

For the purposes of your comment, what is an "average user" (as that category doesn't technically exist in the real world, only as a statistics derivative)? And can you cite some sources that back up the claim that they don't give it thought (as opposed to finding it annoying as hell but don't write long blog posts about it, sucking it up like the powerless consumer they are?)

The choice between saccharine cuteness or hyper-macho toughness is a false dichotomy. There are many other options for branding besides just those two.

From the "you're factually wrong department":

> Yelp, like Google, makes money by collecting consumer data and reselling it to advertisers.

False. Google does not resell consumer data to advertisers, nor anybody else, and never has. It does, of course, use this information, as per its privacy policy, to display ads that are hopefully most relevant for a particular user (and allows the user to view & control what information is stored about them, e.g through Privacy Dashboard). At no point does information about the user leave Google.

This might seem like a minor nuance, but the difference in trust and privacy implications are enormous. User trust is Google's single most important asset and a whole lot of work, attention and money goes into earning it and keeping it.

Disclosure: I'm employed by Google. Enjoy the Kool-aid.

Well, depends on how you define "reselling data". One could argue that giving advertisers an application where they can target users based on a bunch of metrics that are personal data from the user's point of view is also "reselling data", even though it's not in the form of a database of names and birthdays.

But in the strictest sense, you're absolutely right.

I don't think that is a reasonable definition of "reselling data".

If I offered to sell you data, I expect you'd be surprised if after collecting payment I clarified that you couldn't actually have the data.

Respect for user privacy aside, since some people might find it hard to believe, it simply makes no business sense to sell off your most precious possession when you can extract value from it again and again by keeping it closed off.

I'm not even sure where to start with this article. There are valid points, but they are shuffled up (is this against smartphones, corporations treating customers as kids, or as it seems at the end, taking issue with hot topic Pokemon Go), bathed in smugness (look how self-aware I am that this is like a temper-tantrum!), and taken quite far.

If you take the author at his word, cuteness, and corporations being patronizing (and the two are linked here), are a new trend, not something obvious even in early advertising.

Further, I find it quite ironic that a publication started by SnapChat is calling out the possible misuse of camera imagery from Pokemon Go. I figure if the cameras were regularly uploading we'd know by now, by size of data usage if nothing else.

In the end, as someone with an Android phone, never saw that hamster in Yelp before. So I suppose it got me to go find an Easter egg hidden there.

I don't think the points are shuffled; the main topic is the infantilization of consumers by companies. Cuteness, targeting products more appropriate for children to adults (like coloring books or Pokemon), etc are simply examples of that broader point. And while this was obviously used since the beginning, was it ever a trend? When was that?

The whole "adult coloring book" thing initially struck me as weird and vaguely sad, but then I realized it's not substantially dissimilar to the way I use hand chores - not so much as a way of falling asleep, but as a method of relieving stress by finding something to concentrate on that isn't in any way related to work. Unlike a coloring book, hand chores also provide a sense of accomplishment, because you're actually doing something with a valuable result instead of just burning ink and time.

For me, sewing is a great option; I always have a zipper to fix or a patch to sew on or a seam to reinforce or something - if nothing else, I'll whip up something out of patches and scraps, just so's not to have old clothes go to waste. It's the same kind of concentration that goes into precise coloring, but in three dimensions, and you end up with something useful to show for your time. It's definitely worth a try, and all you need to start is a pair of scissors, a spool of thread, a needle, and some fabric to work with. (I can't be the only one with old clothes sitting around!)

> This hamster has a name. It’s Hammy. ... Who is the person who enjoys this?

I think it's a mistake to assume that enjoyment of that hamster defines a class of people unto itself. Maybe one person who enjoys it is a 45 year old housewife, maybe another is a 22 year old graphic designer, maybe another is a 63 year old retired accountant. Among "people who enjoy a cartoon hamster" the thing they most have in common is probably just their enjoyment of that hamster.

This whole article seems to say a lot more about the author than it does about the apps being criticized. How insecure do you have to be to wonder whether a subway ad is talking down to you?

Spot on. In fact, what this really says to me is that these apps and movies are in fact much-loved by people who feel like they aren't supposed to love a "kid's movie." I have numerous professional guy friends who feel embarrassed going to pixar movies without their girlfriend present as an excuse, but I can tell by the way they talk about them that they like them.

Is it possible Yelp A/B tested Hammy?

>In her essay “The Cuteness of the Avant-Garde,” Sianne Ngai, a professor at Stanford, theorizes cuteness as an “aesthetic of powerlessness.” In the face of the overwhelming question — “What’s it for?” — a strain of avant-garde art responds by playing up its inutility, she argues.

When I began reading this article, I was reminded of the cuteness that overwhelmed social media/web branding about five years ago--everything had a little laughing monster or a big smiling whale. At the time, I figured it was trendy and a means of appealing to mainstream, non-geek/non-nerd/non-whatever audiences, but now I wonder to what extent they were staring down their own uselessness.

Eat24 (which was acquired by Yelp) does this a lot too. ("Give your thumbs a rest: You just made food happen!")

The jokey things they encourage people to tweet about having ordered from Eat24 are really something. (It would be interesting to think about what some of the messages in them are; I think there's something more than talking-to-little-kids there.)

> ("Give your thumbs a rest: You just made food happen!")

Now where have I heard this before?

"Take a look at your fingers. Identify the ones we like to call thumbs. Give them a pat on the back (if you can find their backs) and thank them: up till now, they've been doing all the work."

--An instructional video for the Sega Activator

Come to think of it, maybe that's it. Maybe it's just a matter of today's marketroids having grown up with the twee faux-edginess of old commercials for Sega, Mountain Dew, Air Jordans, Bubble Tape, etc. and thinking that's just how you market to people, especially young people.

Eat24 does a lot of things, including pissing off restaurants to the point where you have to talk them into not blacklisting you because they don't call or email if you use Apple Pay for an order with a special request that requires adjustment of the total. I discovered this on a day when I'd just got back from an exhausting conference and really didn't want to deal with anything beyond eating something and going to bed. Thanks, Eat24!

Eat24 also really sucks at handling account cancellation/deletion requests, above and beyond the degree to which their customer service has gone to hell since the Yelp acquisition. I've been trying to cancel and delete my account per their privacy policy for almost a week now, and oddly enough, it's become impossible to get anyone to respond via email or website messaging. So that's more time wasted and frustration added. Thanks, Eat24!

Agreed - I just recently stopped using Eat24, I was a whale for them as well (~4-5 orders a week), using ubereats + grubhub now.

How are you finding Grubhub? I've been trying OrderUp, but it's a little bit of a mess, and their customer support has yet to answer an inquiry that's a couple days stale by now. I gather Grubhub is more or less eating everybody's lunch, excuse me, but before I sign up with yet another bloody website, I'd like to get an opinion from someone who's already using it.

(Postmates is good, too, if it's in your area, but the fees can get a little spendy.)

Hey I'll have to check out OrderUp haven't heard of that, grubhub has been good so far - I haven't had to contact their support for anything yet so can't speak to that but in general I've found many places have lower delivery fees. They also have their own drivers which is nice.

Ubereats actually comes in cheapest if you're ordering for just yourself, no need order extra food to hit a delivery minimum.

These companies are targeting urban millennials who shun things that feel "corporate". The "cute" voice feels sociable without being alienating to their customer base the way a lot of alternatives might be.

Yep. Ironically, the next generation will likely find this sort of saccharine cuteness to be hopelessly old-fashioned and conservative, the same way the 60s/70s counterculture rejected the aesthetic of the cutesy cartoon corporate mascots that were common in the 50s and early 60s.

Meh, you were told and thought the world was X but really it's Y but you're resisting because you don't like change.

Adults through out the ages passed on from the awesomeness of childhood, because their kids and friends died all the time, they starved and were abused.

Now we can be as we wish in many societies. Which include having fun, get over you the world view your grandparents taught you.

Non-awesome aspects of childhood include having to depend on people you can't necessarily trust. What if (as a child) your caretaker or parent is an alcoholic narcissist? Too bad. And what if (as an adult) the entity that wants you dependent on it is a corporate "person" with only a profit motive and no morals or conscience?

Japan does cuteness as whimsy, not humor. This works better. Some of the cuteness is functional, such as the jingles which identify train stations.

Here's an advertiser that understands whimsy, without talking down to their customers - Caterpillar.[1][2][3] Here's a tech company that gets it right: Volvo.[4] This is an ad for their self-driving car. In both cases, the manufacturer has a product that's visibly better than its competitors, and just needs to get that message out. It's harder when your product isn't that great.

Food delivery startups seem to be especially pretentious. They are perhaps trying to differentiate themselves from the low-end services that deliver Chinese food and fried chicken. They're not succeeding. Doordash: "minute by minute, morsel by morsel, we've broken down every step of your food's journey into a perfect science." In reality, you get your food in a paper bag, cold.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVPku-xItv8 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nltqM_Q-cwg [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS9D1VqBcmI [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJwKuWz_lkE

I am a 32 year old man and I like cuteness.

Only tangentially related: I'm a little skeptical about the claim that "caretaker speech" shows adeptness -- have there been any studies about whether it helps or hinders your kid to say stuff like "doggy-woggy"?

The short answer is "Research shows that yes, it probably helps". It gets the child's attention better being a part of it. :P

[0] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1207/s15327078in0701_5...

[1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/01636383928...

You can find more citations at the bottom of this page: http://www.parentingscience.com/baby-talk.html

Thanks! Especially that last article is pretty informative. I automatically use baby talk with my baby, but I've always felt kind of ridiculous and guilty about it. Now I can say it's science, I guess.

I can't see the full paper, but I don't think you can draw the conclusion that they do. The outstanding question that remains is whether it is the choice of words that seemed to affect the difference in attentiveness, or the tones in which the words were delivered. Edit: the final link in the parent does indeed address the issue I raised, I had only read the last of the numbered references, [1].

I think a little personality from the products/services you use is nice. And some personalities are cutesy. As long as it doesn't get in the way too much, I don't see what there is to fuss about.

Personally would rather take what we have now in terms of product voice than revert to the souless, bland, offend-no-one product and corporate voices common as of, say, the 80s.

"There is no better example of cuteness applied in the service of power-concealment than Pokémon Go, which is a large data-collection and surveillance network devised by the former Google Earth engineers at Niantic and then candy-coated with Nintendo IP."

Author Jesse Barron is a big meanie, and is not getting dessert any time soon.

Nyah nyah.

Maybe Yelp needs a 'grown-ass man' template for people who can't tolerate cartoon hamsters.

I just realized that I use Yelp a few times a week and I don't think I've ever noticed the hamster before.

Busted link, y'all.

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