It’s Not That Hard: Elyssa Chou Interviewed by Constance Wang
Created during the heat of the 2020 US elections, Elyssa’s animated poster It’s Not That Hard, stylized “It’s not that hard :)”, explores the divide between Americans who believe in science and those who don’t. Elyssa is one of many who are frustrated with the increasing politicization of topics like climate change, vaccination, and most recently, COVID-19, which she believes should be considered a non-issue. Through colourful and cartoonishly pulsating illustrations, her personal voice comes through clear. Her message is blunt and uncensored: to those who reject science: connect the research and the facts around you–science is real.
-Constance Wang
Constance Wang
I like the colour scheme of your poster. Not sure if it’s the best place to start, but it’s the first thing I noticed. Looking at it makes me feel really happy. In your drafts, you initially started in black and white. What inspired your colour choices here?
Elyssa Chou
Yeah, I did. At first, I was going to make this an actual connect the dots sheet for kids, but, as I realized while drafting that… those worksheets are ugly, just bad. And so I ended up scrapping that and looking for something else.
There was a series by HeeJae Kim called the Zone Out Poster Series with 2D, very colourful animations. And that was the aesthetic I wanted, to maintain this sort of childish energy that goes along with doing worksheets. HeeJae Kim’s color palettes are sort of restricted. But I found that when I did that, the more deliberate I made the palette, the less childish and fun it seemed. So I ended up literally using every single color in the rainbow. But they’re all very saturated, a little warm and still fit together. It’s like what a toddler would throw together in crayon.
Constance Wang
Yeah, it really has that children’s book tone, which goes in line with the message: “connect the dots, science is real”. It’s a message clearly inspired by recent events and the election.
Elyssa Chou
On the one hand, this is recent but on the other hand it’s old news. I was sort of thinking about it because of the election, but it’s not an issue that has arisen just now. A lot of people contest things like science… I’ve just had this thought in my head, like it’s not that hard. Which is why it’s so frustrating that it’s hard to get across the reality of science to some people.
I don’t know. I actually kind of didn’t like in some ways where this poster ended up. Phrasing it like “connect the dots” is very patronizing and condescending. Will it help convince or communicate with anyone? No. But was it sort of satisfying to make and will it also be satisfying to look at for people who agree with me? Probably, yeah.
Constance Wang
Right, this isn’t the kind of poster that would, as candidates have said throughout the election, unify people. rather it’s more inflammatory or divisive. But it’s still raising awareness for something that shouldn’t even be an issue: we should all be educated about science, climate change, and COVID. I guess the way people are, though, there isn’t a lot you can really do to convince people.
Hey, I’m curious how you animated the glasses.
Elyssa Chou
Yeah, I had three layers in Illustrator, for the frames, reflection, and the shaded black part. Then I exported them all separately and imported into Blender, and only animated the white reflection bit. I was just inspired by–I forget exactly what it was–this funny little animated GIF of a little guy running around skateboarding with glasses that have the same style. A sort of silly super colourful thing.
I just have random objects scattered around, emulating random stickers pasted all over, heart, basketball, band aid, glasses, smiley face.
Constance Wang
All the objects look like so much fun and remind me of little erasers.
Elyssa Chou
Yeah, like in “It’s a Small World”, there are these colourful animatronic things that just keep moving and looping. And a big smiling clock face, which I was thinking about when I made that like dumb little smiley face that spins around. That was the inspiration behind that.
Constance Wang
The smiley face just feels so mocking; it probably makes up 80% of the mocking energy in this poster.
Elyssa Chou
Originally, instead of “you can do it” for the text at the bottom, I had “It’s not that fucking hard” and the smiley. I wanted to make it less aggressive, so I moved it, but that smile still carries that mocking energy. It’s looking at you grinning, but also saying “Screw you”.
Constance Wang
From aggressive to passive aggressive.
We had a short deadline on this poster. If you were to take this project a step further, what would you add? Feel free to look beyond the format of a digital poster.
Elyssa Chou
I’d take more inspiration from Heejae Kim. When you look at his work versus what I actually ended up with, they’re honestly not really that similar, other than both being flat and colourful. I would have loved to have more like coordinated elements where shapes are affecting each other and more complicated animations. His works have these cool ways of creating the illusion of 3D, enhanced by objects popping out and breaking the frame of the poster.
I thought doing that to the crayon would be super fun. Avery and I actually played around like, making the crayon 3D, but it didn’t look great, but maybe I needed more time. It would have made the poster more dynamic. Right now, it’s a little confusing that the crayon looks the same as the stickers.
Also, drawing the line – I would have loved to have less of the message initially connected and actually draw the message out. Not sure how to draw it in Blender though, but in different software that’s definitely something I would have tried. So you could see the message unfold itself as the dots are connected.
Constance Wang
Right, it isn’t as interactive when all the objects including the crayon are flat. It doesn’t feel like you could write the message yourself.
Elyssa Chou
Yeah, if this were a real life poster, I would have the dots unconnected, with little numbers next to them, and a crayon hanging there, and then someone could literally connect the dots with it. But yeah, it can’t be done digitally… Although Claudio made an interactive website for the icons project. Maybe the cursor could turn into a crayon.
Constance Wang
This poster is a PSA. How will you post it and spread the message?
Elyssa Chou
I think it definitely depends on the format, since we’ve talked about so many different ones. On paper, it could be displayed as it is. But I could also see it going through Instagram stories. The message is right there. You don’t have to process it. You click on it, you see it moving, then you read it, realize it, and move on. It only catches your eye for a second. This is not the type of poster that sticks in your mind and days later, you’re still like pondering it.
Constance Wang
A blunt message like this has the potential to go viral, especially among specific circles. And it’s digestible and suits the fast pace of social media.
Elyssa Chou
Yeah, the main issue I have with the poster is that I could see anyone with the same perspective as me enjoying it, but couldn’t see it breaking out of that circle. It’s not really a PSA that’s intended to communicate a ton of information. It’s more of just…
I’m frustrated. I know other people are frustrated and this is a little poster about that frustration. But I wonder. Maybe I should have gotten to one of my other ideas, which was more about communicating information that could actually change someone’s frame of mind
Constance Wang
But that sounds so much harder than just taking out your frustration. You have to change people.
Elyssa Chou
The way this poster approaches the issue is part of the problem. You can’t convince anyone by being condescending.
Constance Wang
What do you think is the root of the problem? What makes people not believe in science?
Elyssa Chou
In order for people to decide not to believe in things like climate change, they have to have the information from both sides and be able to evaluate both and pick. People that are in denial of science never have the opportunity to make that decision because they have never heard the side of science. Or they never take the time to really consider the possibility of scientific information being true. I think most people, once given the information from both sides and the skills to critically evaluate it, would end up believing in science.
Do You Use Me: Constance Wang Interviewed by Elyssa Chou
Constance’s poster Do you use me? is a reaction to the conflict between our expectations for using social media and the disappointing experience we often get. Through clever wordplay and visual puns, she distorts the iconic symbols of social media to confront their own deficiencies. The poster takes the performative nature of social media that she criticises to an extreme, resulting in an uncomfortable and absurd scene that makes no attempt to conceal her strong opinions. Constance’s unfiltered authenticity in itself is a challenge to social media and its users. I spoke to Constance over Zoom about her poster and her own struggle grappling with social media’s inevitable role in her own life.
– Elyssa Chou
Elyssa Chou
Your poster is very inflammatory, and there’s a lot of different things going on, so I’d like to start simple. Where did you start off with your ideas when you were making this, and what are you trying to communicate?
Constance Wang
I started this assignment by brainstorming issues I care about, and some of the things that first came to mind were individuality, identity and authenticity. I would say my main message is that I really hate social media a lot of the time because I feel like I’m not getting what I expect to get out of social media, you know? I want to be able to connect with friends. I want to be able to put myself out there. That just isn’t the experience I’m getting, so this poster is born from that frustration.
Elyssa Chou
That makes sense. I’m really intrigued by this figure. It’s a very strange texture, like a bouncy blow up doll, almost, but you also get this deformation happening as it’s being hit. It’s a really unique stylistic choice, what made you go that route?
Constance Wang
So there are a few different inspirations. I see all kinds of messed up people on the internet, so from the start I was imagining a BDSM sub type caricature. I wanted them to be genderless because all types of people have the same issues with social media, regardless of gender. I was procrastinating one day and found a reference of a blow up doll with a really weird facial expression, and then I took inspiration from there. I added all the writing afterwards because I felt like I needed more space to put those messages. I still had all these thoughts that hadn’t made it onto the poster yet, and I thought, okay, well, I have this body… It’s like a perfect canvas to take out my frustrations.
Elyssa Chou
I really like that, especially on the back where it says, “Bitch property of Facebook.” Having something like that tattooed on the body really slams that sense of ownership home. How did you come up with these phrases? Are they things that came to you as you were making this? Or notes from before? Thoughts you had for a while?
Constance Wang
Some of the ideas like “stranger” I had from way before. One thing I don’t like about social media is it makes your friends feel like strangers. Finding out that your friends are doing all these weird things that you never know about through social media makes the people you actually do know in real life feel like strangers. And, on the flip side, “strangers” become friends. There are literally strangers who send me friend requests. That’s one of the things I find most alienating about using social media. But there are other phrases that came to me as I was creating the poster. The writing on the leg that says “pain in the ass model” was a thought I had while making it, because it’s literally a 3D model that became a pain in the ass to animate. But also, using social media is a pain in the ass. The phrase “do you use me” was from one of my rough drafts, it originated as “you don’t use social media, social media uses you,” which is still illustrated kind of literally and graphically here.
Elyssa Chou
That’s interesting how your poster concept evolved as you created it. This poster, it’s very anti social media, so how would you share this? Would you share it using something that isn’t social media? Or would it be shared on social media, and would that become part of the statement in a way?
Constance Wang
I wouldn’t say using social media as a whole is bad. I’m just trying to be critical about oversharing about your life or being fake on social media. I think this poster is a pretty accurate representation of my true thought, even if I’m sharing it on social media I see no issue with that because it’s authentic. Like, maybe this could be my very first LinkedIn post. And my only post.
Elyssa Chou
I love that idea. Do it.
Constance Wang
Also though, fun fact: I’m interviewing with Facebook today. So, I mean, yeah…
Elyssa Chou
Oh, how do you feel about that?
Constance Wang
I’m like, I mean, even though I’m frustrated, I think that working for Facebook and Instagram, is still acceptable to me.Especially because Facebook has other products that aren’t problematic, like Facebook messenger is actually about talking to your friends, not about sharing accomplishments. But if it were a Linkedin interview… I just feel like, no. I don’t think I could do it. (Now this sounds a little awkward in hindsight, because Linkedin is a subsidiary of Microsoft and I did apply for several internships at Microsoft…)
Elyssa Chou
I’m getting the sense that the parts of social media that you take issue with are only the performative aspects, which are represented very literally in the poster here. Also, this isn’t even a question, but I think it would be a shame not to take a second to appreciate this message. “Like or fuck” is so brief and so punchy. And the visual pun you’ve built with these shapes to go along with it… I just love that you’ve taken what social media already has and twisted it further for your message. I’m also wondering about your fonts and the handwritings you’ve used. How did you choose those?
Constance Wang
There were a couple reasons I chose to use handwriting. Having these messages feel like they’re tattooed on by hand or written with a sharpie adds to this message and the effect. I wanted to use lots of different handwriting fonts to draw attention to how multiple people take a shit on you when you use social media. For the “like or fuck,” I just wanted an internet style font that might feel like the cover for a bad erotica novel or something.
Elyssa Chou
This whole thing does give “Internet style,” with the colors, the fonts, how it’s all collaged together. It looks like some of the sort of weird or more absurd memes that I see. How did you pick the colors?
Constance Wang
For the social media icons, I just wanted to keep the original color, since their brand recognizability was really important to me. The background was originally pink, not green, but I wanted to capture the more voyeuristic aspect of using social media, so I made the background to look like a green screen, and I have the Instagram camera filming. The only thing I regret was not putting more Instagram cameras. There should be a whole circle of those. You never know who is just randomly browsing your profile for no good reason.
Elyssa Chou
That’s true. When I saw the green background I did think “green screen,” but I didn’t make that connection.
Constance Wang
I was thinking of putting more visual cues. But I decided the Instagram camera was enough. And it’s more consistent with the social media theme than if I just started moving a model of an entire film set into the scene.
Elyssa Chou
I like it, I like it. It’s kind of subtle. Your poster ends up with all these levels of read. The more I look at it the more I realize I missed the first time. You really packed a lot of information into it.
Constance Wang
Yeah, I think I thought about this project a lot, but I also didn’t think about it very much. I feel like it’s kind of similar to your poster. I’m not going to fix it all. If I got a job at Facebook, I’d take it in a second. But we can still be frustrated. Yeah, that’s just, that’s just how life is.
Elyssa Chou
For sure. Sometimes art isn’t about fixing the problem, it’s about coping with what’s there.
Constance Wang Coping, yeah that’s a good way of thinking about it, just make art to cope with life.