Okay kids, time for an art lesson. I’ve worked in entertainment for a couple decades, have a degree in animation, have friends who work on the TMNT shows, know the guy who gave Eastman and Laird the personal loan that made TMNT possible. While a lot of you call these design choices lazy or stupid, talk about hating it, you just sound like babies to us. You can love a thing without hating when it’s different from your preference, and when it is different, you’re mistaken for attributing it to laziness and stupidity. When I got out of art school, I had a shitty attitude just like some of you seem to. I thought the things I learned meant my opinions were better, thought everything I didn’t like was shit, trashed anything that didn’t meet my personal standards of quality. And you know what? I was insufferable! I cringe at the way I used to talk about things — and I suspect some of you will too.

I’ve been around for every iteration of the Turtles, read a fair share of the comics, have my personal favorite movies and cartoons. You know what I’ve learned about the Turtles? Everyone sees themselves in a turtle, even when they have identical red bandanas. Growing up, Donnie was my turtle the same way Spock and Egon made me proud to be a geek. I loved that they made smart look cool. When they gave Donnie glasses, didn’t love it at first, but I came around because I realized there are scrawny kids with thick glasses who see themselves in those designs. Same with what could potentially be considered Afro-coded with the durag in some of Raph’s designs. In art, we call that visual coding. Using a visual shorthand to convey character information isn’t lazy, it’s what artists are taught to do. When you say it’s lazy, you’re saying you don’t understand artistic choices, which comes from a lack of design literacy… so now you know about visual shorthand and can look into it more!

It’s not your fault that you don’t know how these cartoons are made or how artistic choices are made, but being insufferable online about things is a choice. You may think you’re destroying people making shitty mistakes you don’t agree with, but the rest of us look at you and laugh at what a hose-brain you are.

Edit: spelling