Infinite Universe: October 19th, 2007 - Cheesy Avatars & Icons

Why do corporate web sites always have the cheesiest, most gawd-awful

avatar images on their front pages? Ugh, It's like their version of the nuclear family for the 21st century.
These overly-smiling people didn't know each other five minutes ago now they're so cozy and all snuggled up with their computer... "Oh you push the enter button this time Dear, it's FUN! Hey Sis and Bobbi, get your ass in here, daddy's going to let you push the enter button too!"
It's like it's 1974 and they just got a new microwave.

Then there's these funky avatars where they coyly draw a shape around the guy's face:

What the hell is up with that...?!
Marketing guy: "well, I sure couldn't think of anything else to do, it sort of just came together. Draws the focus to him, don't you think?"
Makes me want to push on his face.
Mr. button head scuba face man. How would you like to be the guy that sold his image to the stock photography company and then you find out they used it for this kind of crap?! You are fated to see your face with a cheesy yellow box around it every time you go to pay your phone bill. Poor guy.

Next is the same thing with a twist, but IT'S IN THE SHAPE OF THEIR LOGO!"

Now that is clever. Only thing is, it took me five trips to the website to put together that the triangle face guy had anything remotely to do with their logo. I was astounded by the sheer dorkiness of the image for the first four visits, then it dawned on me, the triangle is their logo. Ding. Idiotic.

I'm a stud with a triangle around my face holding my chin. Check please.

Again, poor guy. What do his friends think?

Well I would be remiss if I didn't call attention to the upwardly mobile young miss with her laptop. I've seen numerous versions of this, and they all make my back hurt. Do people actually type like this? I guess you CAN type on a Blackberry. Sort of. But only in the Hummer, steering with your knees.

Hey! I'm minimizing my risk of fraud and identity theft while I DESTROY my back and neck! Now where did that one key go again...? Hunt & peck and hunt & peck...

This is about as low as it goes. The default template website built by some low-level assistant vice-president or floor-sweeper who got saddled with the "we need a web presence" task, (you'll figure it out Bill, have Joan in accounting help you) the person either a.) completely has no clue and is blindly thrashing away, Just get anything up there, it's a web-presence! b.) doesn't have enough art to complete the job or is going with the "Woops, I'll be darned.Of all things! You have reached a page that is under construction. Check back every day and we'll have 'er all spruced up for ya" theorem, or c.) just doesn't give a rat's ass how bad it looks. Reminds me of a product I used to work with where if you accidentally clicked on the separator bar between two menus, it popped up an error message that said, "Ooops, that there's a code problem sucka." It was there as a marker for the software guys to fix. For years and years. Too bad they moved on to the next temp job.

I had a thought that Spongeblob would have made a great icon for selling contraceptive sponges. "Hey Girls, put the FUN back into inserting your vaginal contraceptive!"
What the heck, he's on every other package at the supermarket.