A Good Character Design

About

A Good Character Design refers to a viral image on Twitter that depicts the silhouettes of animated characters and argues that the characters are recognizable from the silhouette alone and are therefore "good character design. In a later format, this was expanded to four characters, with the first three characters, usually, being Bling Bling Boy, Hatsune Miku and Peter Griffin, with the fourth character being the one that is commonly swapped out to create the meme.

Origin

On January 2nd, 2021, Twitter user @RealYouTubeKids uploaded the first recorded instance of this meme, with the characters of Mario and Sonic in silhouette. This tweet^[5] received 18,200 likes and 1,500 retweets in six months (shown below).

Spread

On July 1st, 2021, Twitter user @Saltynoodles2 posted the first example of what would become the common template for the meme. This first iteration used three popular, well-known choices, and then their own original character named Veronica. Their tweet^[1] received 6,770 likes and 500 retweets in one day (shown below).

In the ensuing thread, people started to make their own versions of the meme, or post jokes about the image to poke fun at Saltynoodles. For example, the same day of Saltynoodles' post, user @The_Galactabee^[2] used photoshop to make all the silhouettes look like Veronica, earning 2,700 likes in 20 hours (shown below).

Within Saltynoodles' thread, many Twitter users created versions of the meme using different characters in the last slot. Twitter^[3] user @RGPAnims posted a version of the meme that uses Saddam Hussein in the last spot, earning 270 likes in eight hours (shown below).

In the same thread, Twitter^[4] user @small_R_Revy posted a version of the meme where characters that do not match the silhouettes are crudely pasted on top of the blank ones. The tweet earned 140 likes in six hours (shown below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References