alt Hacker NewsWith all due respect: it is just a picture of a cute lizard.
Thinking practically, having a male and female lizard is sort of inconvenient for a mascot, since leaving one out is a message in itself. Having a genderless mascot with art assets ready to go makes practical sense to me.
Replies
> since leaving one out is a message in itself
Side question: why would having a male or female mascot be "a message in itself"? Why do people want to see a message, and especially a $currentDayPolitics one, in every single thing? A mascot can be a cute mascot without having to represent anything more than exactly that.
Just as a random example: Let's say some OG founder of a project had a cute dog named Laila, and the project makes this dog its mascot. Why should that be a problem, AT ALL?
And what's even worse, if you think this "everything has a message and we have to be super careful what the message is" thing through, the conclusion is: No project ever again can have a solely male or female mascot. Which is of course absurd.
And this whole "we need to send the RIGHT message" thing falls apart with time anyway, because what the right message is, WILL change over time. You're not at the end of all human enlightenment.
They could have hung a Star of David pendant around its neck and it would still have been “just” a cute lizard, and surely only an anti-Semite would object to such neutral, normalizing messaging?
No it is not just a picture, it is also a descriptive text and specific emojis attached. I don't think anyone would have raised an eye if it was just for the picture.
The presented mascot is not genderless, but non-binary. The situation you describe has hardly improved with their introduction.