THE 5 WORST CHARACTER DESIGN TRENDS [in cartoons, movies + games] 

Or when male animal characters don't need clothes but the girls do...

I hate when there's like one non white character and they're just a basic stereotype played for humour instead of a real character. Like, when Asians are just nerds and black characters are just there to be sassy and dramatic.

When "glasses + ponytail = ugly" is brought up I always think about the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 1 where the polar opposite happens. After the glow-up the character starts wearing glasses and has a ponytail instead which definitely feel intentional and against the mentioned... thing.

The "not drawing ugly characters" one reminds me of a manga I read where the main character is a maid that the hero falls in love with. People are surprised that the hero likes her and claims that she isn't attractive, which I found so weird because both the maid and the princess (who is constantly praised for being beautiful) have the exact same face

I hate when there's a group of characters and there's only one girl and her ONLY personality trait is being The Girl or being in love with the leader boy or something!

"his personality is he's the edgy skater guy that wants to start a band, his personality is he's the comic relief who plays the tuba, his personality is he is overly analytical and loves math but hates germs, her personality is... GIRL."

Similar to the last one, it always annoys me when female versions of characters are only different because they have a bow and eyelashes and lipstick. The male equivalent could have nothing that implies masculinity but the female version is female because it has long eyelashes??? For example Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Mickey has practically nothing masculine about is character and could feasibly be gender swapped without visual difference but to make a female version they add a bow and eyelashes. It's like if a character has no detail they are male, but if you simply add eyelashes and lips they are female. I don't think I explained that the best but I hope I got my point across.

High School Glow-Up scene Character A: "I'm so ugly...my nose is so big" Character B:"Who told you that?? That's a normal nose!" A: "Can you make me pretty?" B: "Sure!" *in glowup montage* Character A: pulls off Character B's glasses, cleans them, and puts them back on B lets down her hair, A combs it and puts it back up. "Makeup?" "Not needed." "Here's some ChapStick, use it." "What about my hoodie?" "Uhhh, I don't care, keep it?" Character B looks the exact same at the end and they're like "this hasn't changed anything at all!" "Exactly." bonus points if they end up dating

When in kid's shows there's a bunch of boys with different color schemes then one girl who is girly and literally breathes the color pink

I dislike it when they make characters toxic but it’s passed off as attractive because they’re hot.

I think Lola rabbit is a good character not like “omg best design in history” or “brilliant backstory and balanced personality” she’s just funny and when she gets character development she gets pretty interesting, I just think she’s neat

I noticed that with the 'bait and switch' a lot of them are poc and then get turned into random creatures/animals. It just plain annoys me like I just wish they made a normal movie that includes poc just once!

Males: Actually looks like the animal trying to be represented. Females: Curves, Eyelashes, and pink. *WHY*

it annoys me when adults write movies about teenagers interacting through the internet but realize we dont use emojis ironically and dont use correct punctuation... and especially for cyberbullying, bullies dont comment things like "hahaha look at this freak LOL" as a caption. its more like stupid trends like band kids jokes and the CEO of thing.

Speaking of the baby thing, the birth of that baby must've been an absolute NIGHTMARE. The mother probably would've had a serious c-section and must've bled out so much that the blood loss would be life-threatening. I know I'm severely over-analyzing a cartoon trope, but still.

Lola isn't that bad to me. She was attractive but they didn't oversexualize her and she actually was fleshed out as a character. She was undeniably made to be conventionally attractive, but it wasn't annoying and in your face all the time like it was with the fish. Lola is one of the few female characters that were made to be feminine, capable and have personality.

ever find it weird, that in cartoons and tv show's the "unpopular character" has like 12 friends, but the "popular kids" have like two? i just find that kinda funny.

The “not like other girls” syndrome annoys me, It’s not like i hate the character/person itself, it’s that sometimes they think Liking reading, and hating on makeup makes them superior.

About the first one, a game that handles that character design thing really well is Skyrim. I absolutely love how the beast races look and how they don't just give up on the females.

For the ugly rep, I LOVE a webtoon called ‘the makeup remover’ because most of the characters you follow are not conventionally attractive, or only are when wearing makeup, it’s also just a really good read tbh

When someone gender-flips a huge/beefy/THICC male character and makes her super curvy with a non-existent waistline and no muscle tone.

Beautiful girl * wears glasses * The whole high school in a movie: "yo she ugly let's bully her" Beautiful girl * takes glasses of * The whole high school in a movie: "Man who dat? She fine bruh! Let's all simp over her"

One thing that annoys me is when the main character is excused for doing bad things JUST because they’re the main character, like if a character is just excused for wanting (usually) the popular girls boyfriend just because she’s the main character even before we see the popular girl be mean

Also the idea to hate smart kids aka "nerds", as an ex-nerd, in all the schools I've been to, we were literally worshipped since we would give homeworks to copy, answer teacher's questions so they didn't ask anyone else and we would volunteer to be the first ones for oral tests

I hate, hate, hate when actresses in movies who play pretty teenage girls are like almost 30 years old in real life. They are comfortable wearing really short skirts, bras for shirts, really high heels and getting naked in front of men. While actresses who are teenagers in real life are playing the ugly girl because they are comfortable wearing jeans, sneakers and hoodies.

What really bugs me is the "pretty warrior lady" Very often you have this woman who is in a battle or anything close to combat. And the sweat just makes her look even better cause its just in the right place. Hair and make up are on point. There is no dirt anywhere to make her look ugly. I hate when movies or games do that. She was in a freaking fight! Allow the poor girl to be ugly please!

Thank you for saying things about the “ugly girl” type tropes because it’s coded to make little girls AND boys, and all others to feel insecure and buy stuff in the beauty industry. I love your videos you’re my idol❤

One of the things that annoys me the most, especially when the characters are animals, is when the female characters are perfectly normal looking, and then the male characters are like huge-nosed monsters. Like in The Secret Life Pets, the fluffy white dog looks normal, but then the main character looks weird and overy disproportionate. Idk, maybe it's just me, but it's really annoying.

i want teenagers to actually play teens not 30 year olds with perfect skin and teeth telling me that thats what teens are supposed to look like I WANNA SEE ACNE AND CROOKED TEETH IN MAIN CHARACTERS

People in movies: I’m ugly Everyone: you have clear skin and like things what do you mean. The movie character: I’m going to change myself for the boy anyway. Everyone:*confused screaming*

Adding to the large baby one, all I think about when I see those is how painful the birth must’ve been

Omg! The cat one reminded me of the fact, canonically dwarfs/dwarves ALL have beards and mustaches, even the women. Yet, when many people draw female dwarfs they dont add even stubbles, or when you go to some website that let's you make dwarf characters, often you don't even have the option to give them beards. I HATE it so much! The beards have so much to do with dwarfs and their cultures. Yet it's just thrown away at the first chance by everyone.

The thing I hate is when they do that thing where they’re like “hm how do we show that these two people are married.. oh I know! Make them look they are twins!” Like dude this isn’t Alabama.

There's a movie called "not another teenage movie" Where they make fun of other movies that say a girl wearing glasses and a ponytail is considered ugly xD it's so fun

I've always hated the way wearing glasses is often treated. A character is ugly or nerdy when they have glasses. But as soon as they take them off (usually in a 'makeover' montage) they're suddenly super hot. Why. People with glasses can be hot too! I wear glasses and I'm certainly not saying I'm hot, but it's a ridiculous trope. Often, the glasses that person is wearing are too big or not suited for their face. Doesn't mean glasses aren't great

I really like the video in a whole, but just want to add some perspective on that trait you mention with Tiana and Naveen. It's not the same with Soul because, in that movie, we get to see the body of the main character (and the protagonist in it) through (nearly) the entire movie, while in Tiana, we see them a bit in the beginning and the end (and some shots with the fake Naveen). Same case in Spies in disguise (beginning and end)

My biggest design pet peeve is when they have to create the parents of a character, so they just make them exactly like the character and the mom and dad look identical, it seems like two siblings had a kid together.

It kinda annoys me when the like “super smart girl” has worked hard, her entire life, day and night, to achieve her “power” status or whatever. *and then this skinny, lazy, whiny voiced girl waddles in and just automatically shoots lasers out of her eyes or something just because she’s the protagonist.*

An example for the big bobble head baby design is in miraculous ladybug when that one lady pushes around or holds her baby with a huge head. Also in miraculous ladybug they pretty much copy and paste the background characters all the time which would be fine if you never focus in on them but when they are constantly saving the same looking people it’s weird

Something I don’t like in shows or games is when all the girls have curves and just predictable body shapes but the men all have different body shapes and sizes, which is why I like seeing strong or masculine female characters

The "I'm not like the other girls!" trend is becoming so overused, they start to become the other girls.

Ah, yes, the “ugly” characters in movies-you’re not the first to notice that. I think there’s an actual name for it-“Hollywood Ugly.” It’s similar to the trope of the librarian who whips off her glasses, loosens the bun in her hair, and becomes gorgeous. That one’s been around forever, and is probably almost as old as film itself.

As a person who wears glasses and who was bullied due to this reason I have always hated this “ugly girl”trend. Like I’m already insecure, please, don’t make me feel worse.

3:58 about soul, you still get to see his regular body throughout the movie, but with someone else’s soul in it. Also, it seems like this mostly happens to poc, to claim they’re ‘diverse’ (even if it makes sense for the story, it could be more balanced)

My favorite take on the “Hollywood Ugly” trope is Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Instead of taking the ponytail and glasses off and looking cute, Flint thinks Sam looks better when she has the ponytail and glasses *on*. He likes her for who she really is, not the dumb blonde she pretended to be

- Hey, let's make a movie about 15-16 yrs old teens. - Yeah, we should totally hire a 30 years old actors with some wrinkles around eyes and forehead to play those teens! - Great idea, write that down!

3:11 notice how all her examples are black ppl im literally so tired of Disney cheating us out like fuck

What you ordered online VS What you get 4:32

'Giving up on the girls' is really annoying because 99% of the time you can tell that it's being done specifically to try and catch the horny teenager demographic. Not only does it seriously break immersion, it carried the unfortunate implication that 'men can be as monstrous and varied in design as we want but the girls still need to be eye candy to the viewers'. :/

I hate the trope that if a character has blonde hair they’re automatically a bully, the antagonist, or spoiled. Same with the trend of anyone with dyed hair is emo, goth, a bully, or the “not like other girls I’m so quirky UwU XD” main character

My pet peeve with movies or shows is not usually about the designs but when the first 30 minutes or episode is good but then they just give up .

I know a lot has happened since this upload, but one of the many things I adored about Turning Red was the incredible character design AND variation. Every single character on screen had different facial proportions that made them really stand out as unique human beings. Hopefully we continue to get more individualization and "ugly representation" as time goes on. (IMO, the vast differences b/w character designs made it feel like none of the characters were "ugly", which I think is a really solid message in its own right)

I hate when a character gets in the bed with shoes on

Why do all “””ugly characters”””” HAVE TO WEAR GLASSES AND BRACES? THAT’S LITERALLY THE ONLY THING I DON’T UNDERSTAND!

I like how cured princess club did the "ugly" character. She's green with dry skin and greasy hair but she's also very cute at the same time.

Something that bothers me a lot, is when a character's mom looks 14, and the main character looks 20, even though the mom is supposed to be 36 and the main character is supposed to be 15 or something. It's so damn weird 😭

Pet peeve: Female characters who are supposed to have no access to hygiene stuff or beauty tools (for example washed up on an island or something) and yet still have perfect clean shaven pits, legs, arms, perfect makeup and hair always.

" Im not like other girls, Im a smurf, my mom is a school bus, and my dad is the lorax he speaks for the trees "

Someone should make a movie with the glow-up scene cliché except make it better, like it's more about the character not caring about themselves before, maybe they have curly hair except they don't take care of it or use the right products, so then they get them better stuff for it, or they have dry skin and don't moisturize, yk, something better than just taking off their glasses and going "wooow, you look like sooooo beautiful now."

OK, but a thing I hate is when someone is ugly because they have freckles. Most people I know (including me) have them and I think they look prettY

It really annoys me that if your character has blonde hair that means that she is a bully or really toxic person.

Whenever you want to know if a baby's head is too big, just think: Could a woman give birth to this child?

I always thought I was the only one who doesn’t like the first trope, but now I’m lucky someone else pointed this out! After watching Seton Academy, that’s what I noticed about the characters, the females look more human-like while the males don’t

The giant baby head one is my biggest pet peeve. I feel like in most cartoons with babies like that, they make the head super big to try and make it look cute or whatever but it just looks weird and creepy and the head size is way bigger than the mother in some regard. Ugh I dunno why but something about it just annoys me so much. How did she even carry the baby around and give birth? Must’ve been an ugly process 🫣

"Giving up on the girl" is more of a general design problem when it comes to sexual dimorphism in race design. I can't tell you how many games with anthropomorphic characters have very beastly and interesting male designs, while the females are slender, attractive, and generally a lot more human than the men. It's basically beauty and the beast, but they’re both supposed to be beasts. Okay, so apparently this is a minefield of a discussion topic. To start, this specific brand of poor design could technically be considered sexist because it not only creates a clear divide between male and female characters that comes off as distracting and unrealistic, but often times this extreme divide is in service of making the female characters remain conventionally attractive to an assumed straight male audience. Either that, or the designer was being lazy and didn’t consider how their design would come across. The solution is to make the male and female characters look like they are actually related, and that doesn’t have to mean making the ladies more monstrous and ugly. An equally valid solution is to make the male characters just as human and pretty as the girls. Monster high is a good example, because while the female characters may be more conventionally attractive than monsterous, it still works because the male characters are equally attractive with minimal monstrousness. Basically, my approach to character race design can easily be summed up with the equally silly realm of armor designs. If a man’s armor is generally practical and modest while a woman’s armor is mostly skimpy and impractical, then it’s bad. If all armor is modest and practical regardless of gender, then it’s fine. If an armor set is equally skimpy and silly regardless of a character’s gender, then it’s also okay because double standards. Also, who wouldn’t want to mess around with more skimpy male armor?

I hate the whole "I'm a monster" character that doesn't look like a monster. Seriously, make better monsters Hollywood!

I just want to say, I love the way your videos are made and the things you talk about. As a little kid I remember you being the only “do this, not that”/art opinions channel that genuinely inspired me to be more creative instead of stifling it. Love your content!

The underlying issues with all of these issues: 1) Giving up on the girls: Misogyny and laziness 2) Bait and switch transformations: Racism (they never pull this shit with the white characters) 3) Bobble head baby: Laziness 4) "Ugly" character: Toxic beauty standards and misogyny 5) Sexy animals: Misogyny (again) The reason why most of these trends are bad are the implications they give. For 1, 4, and 5, they tell girls in the audience that they can only be socially accepted if they are conventionally attractive and sexually appealing to guys, and even then they aren't worth the effort by creators. For 2, it implies that non-white people can't be the main character without turning them into something else to hide their race. (3 isn't as offensive as the other four, it's annoying at worst) TLDR: Most of these trends imply racism and/or sexism, thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Everyone: why don’t you actually have a tomboy/tomgirl that stays a tomboy/tomgirl from the beginning to end of the movie without a ‘glow up’ scene where they look traditionally feminine/traditionally masculine? Hollywood: *impossible*

*I'm slightly offended that curly hair is displayed as 'ugly' in certain shows, like, girls with straight hair would KILL for this, what do you mean, I-*

Thank you for making me notice this! I have a character with the issue of being a character that's supposed to be ugly but is actually cute. I actually noticed this problem because when i was drawing her i couldn't stop trying to make her look good but at the same time not to, and ended up messing up the whole drawing. Now that i have in mind that i should focus more on the point of the character i can plan it better and not make her look cute but oddly repellent.

I particularly despise the trend of "Ugly character is just attractive but messy," because stories that go all-in on saying "You're beautiful no matter what your face is" are so much more impactful. Even the very idea of a "glow-up" scene is counter-productive in my mind, because at the end of the day the characters isn't escaping societal beauty norms, just conforming to it. By contrast, a story about a character learning to love themself without having to change themself stands to confront our busted beauty norms, and results in a much more uplifting and applicable message. My favorite example is the manga "Busu ni Hanataba wo" (or "A Bouquet for an Ugly Girl" in English)-it's about a conventionally unattractive girl that was once bullied for her appearance and thinks no one could ever love her for it, and a super positive guy that only sees people for who they are on the inside rather than the outside. It's a super cute story that doesn't shy away from her genuine insecurities about her appearance, and actually has some heart-wrenching moments as the main character deals with her own insecurities. Crucially, it never puts any focus on the main character becoming "more attractive," instead putting the focus on building her own confidence in herself and learning to be happy with who she is. It's an excellent story if you want to see an "ugly" character done right.

"For a culture that's so obsessed with being pretty and what makes you ugly, it seems confusing that people can't seem to figure out a way to make their characters not look convientionally attractive." Wow, if you were my butler, I'd fire you right away. How dare you spill so much incredible tea?

A pet peeve of mine is when movies decide to not look for a child actor or baby and just CGI the baby in 90% of all the scenes it's in. Twilight did this, and boy I have never seen any newborn baby that looked so much like a middle aged man using facetune in my entire life.

The "ugly" design one. TRULY. In the webtoon True Beauty, which I love OTHER than this issue, I keep noticing how Jugyeong isn't ugly without makeup!! She just needs to take better care of her skin.

Hollywood: We need her to be ugly, let's put her in a ponytail Me who loves women in ponytails: Allow me to introduce myself.

You know when like two characters have children together and they just decide to make them literally clones of the parents? Like all the male kids look just like the dad and all the females look just like the mom? That has bothered me ever since I was a kid. I hate it so much Edit: Thank you all so much for all the likes. Glad I’m not the only one who hates this

Similarly to the last one, I HATE when movies make the main character’s love interest look EXACTLY like them but they’re the opposite gender. Like. It’s practically selfcest.

I swear I hate the "Oh glasses I'm so ugly" trope because people with glasses are actually really pretty and cute with them on. Like if I see this trope one more time, I'm going to go insane.

0:41 A good example of other anthropomorphic characters is sonic the hedgehog

I’m concerned that the ‘bait and switch’ are all black characters...

My Pet Peeve: When there’s a gay guy, and another gay guy as a side character, and they fall for each other. Like, not every gay falls for every other gay guy, it depends on what you’re attracted to, and it’s soooo annoying!

Lavender’s videos are making me want to redesign/redraw some of my characters in color.

Omg finally something that isn't a sketch 😭 I really love! Can't wait to see the final version ❤

I hate it when two characters are married and they literally looked like twins and dress the same (this is rlly only in animated movies but stillll) like it freaks me out

I feel like the reason people don’t make “ugly” characters ugly is cause they don’t know how to make someone “ugly” without calling other potential audience members ugly for having similar traits.

I love your art style!!!!

Something that I always found sad was that the mean girls are always a blonde with curly hair (that’s what I have seen in tv shows) and in fifth grade somebody made me a illustrater for her comic called Clarice, Clarice is a sassy mean obnoxious girl and I always felt that she would be a dark brown hair girl but the girl who was making the story said she was a blonde with curly hair. I took this really bad in fifth grade since my hair was the exact same as her, I didn’t like it so much that I refused to do the comic with her and told all the other artists that I knew she would go to not to as well.

I hate the whole “ugly girl” stereotype Bc I’m still mad ugly when I take off my glasses

Zootopia and Beastars are the only movie and show that I’ve seen where they actually tried to make the female characters Anthropomorphic animals, And not just straight up cat girls Edit: oh yeah and Kung fu panda uwu Edit 2: and of course, BNA Edit 3: AND AGGRETSUKO! Anything else? Lol

Character design trend I hate: When the opening has awesome animation that you wish was used for the entire movie. The character designs in the opening are typically just as kickass as the animation itself, then they just become simple shapes with some added minimal expressions.

the first and last pet peeves totally go hand in hand! those things have always bugged me as a kid cause shows that male characters can look as non-human as the character designers want but female characters have to look humanoid and pretty cause those character designers don't wanna design a leading female character that they themselves wouldn't be attracted to.

The “one chubby character” annoys me. It’s like the creators are trying to be inclusive but there’d only be one character in a show that’s way bigger and everyone else would have like a size 0 waist. And they often make it the “silly” or “dumb” character too. Sometimes even they’re personality has to do with them being fat. I love how Steven Universe has a variety of body types and doesn’t have to point them out. I just wish movies and shows wouldn’t have strictly skinny characters, and treat different body types the same.

When characters with animal ears have another set of human ears so they end up with two set of ears.

One design trait I always found annoying since I was a kid is one that I call "Dull-Eye Syndrome", where every one of the characters are drawn with no highlights in their eyes at all. Thankfully, it's not very common these days, but you can see it in a lot of 90's (and some early 2000's) cartoons that use a more "realistic" style, like some of the Marvel shows. Frankly, I think it looks creepy and makes the characters look really deranged, even if they're not.

😭I forgot about you and I'm so happy to have found you and your soothing voice again!

As a male who's been into cute, soft, "girly" stuff his entire life, I believe we actually get to see tomboys, or "unconventional" female characters get a pass far more frequently than a male who's unconventionally un-masculine WITHOUT getting berated or treated as a joke or implied gay. I don't think we see enough characters like that.

i hate hate hate when small, cute characters in cartoons have deep voices and shitty personalities. it’s so predictable and weird

The first part made me think of Beastars, but like it being on the good side of that spectrum. Of course they do give their female characters humanish type bodies, but they do that for the males as well! And as a person who barely knows anything about animals, the way they proportion them actually feels realistic in a character design way, like they fit how I feel that I'm supposed to see the characters. Of course Beastars absolutely has it's *questionable* choices like any other anime, but I really enjoy the way they portray how an animal society might actually work, and their character design choices. The designs are just so fitting and pleasing to look at, in the way they don't feel overly cartoonish, but also not overly detailed to an unsettling degree. And as for the animals society thing, the mentioned specifics in the anime of a dog character being created in a lab, like specifically engineered. Because that's what humans actually have done, specifically engineered certain animals to our own personal preferences, especially dogs, and that society does something similar. God I love their world building. I definitely understand why some people write it off as like "furry propaganda", but like, I wish more people appreciated for it's other qualities. It's writing is so compelling, the voice acting, the character design, the world building, all of it! Because I am extremely sure that I myself am not a furry. I saw the anime randomly one day pursuing Netflix some years ago, and because it wasn't something I'd seen before (I had watched everything I cared to at that point), I watched it, and I don't regret it at all! And it bothers me because that's like the #1 thing people bring up when I mention it, and it is so much more than some anthropomorphic animals. I don't know how my comment turned into a rant about Beastars hate, but uh, thank you for reading I guess? And if you don't like my comment, good, its not for you. Otherwise, have a great day if you read this far💛

I've been playing this game where you do makeovers of characters and their homes, it's generally pretty cool and most of the makeovers are rad and have a nice story. But one thing that annoys me is the hate on freckles the game designers seem to have, every time a character has freckles you end up forced to cover them up! It really sucks because freckles are so cute and I love mine, they're a part of my face I don't ever want to get rid of! I was also annoyed when there was a character who was really into the eighties and dressed accordingly but it was a bit messy, like ok but they could've done a makeover where they kept her love of the eighties, instead they made her so basic and it sucked.