@chon.digital

To try everything Brilliant has to offer—free—for a full 30 days, visit https://brilliant.org/chon/. You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription!

@beetljuiceX3

Tiktok has avatars too. I know this because someone’s avatar winked at me when I liked their video and I was terrified.

@somewhatdiscrete

to your point about no ROI or utility, it’s really interesting to look back on 2000s tech/internet and see just how much stuff existed as a fun gimmick or identifying feature for a brand compared to today. companies aren’t willing to make anything that isn’t immediately monetizable now. there’s no attempt to connect you to a brand long term by offering something unique and fun. obviously all business decisions are made for profit but at least customer enjoyment was seen as a viable way to cultivate that profit previously.

@Greendawn-di3dl

I miss xbox live avatars so so much man. The idea of an achievement giving your avatar a new accessory or shirt was the coolest shit. I remember getting a halo helmet from Reach, and the medkit from left 4 dead 2. Good times man. All long gone.

@mps64

4:18 it's the "we can't use the wii branding so let's change the two is with E's" phenomenon of the late 2000s

@RiverRatPeek

It's like we're all thinking it in the background, and he just says it in the foreground. Truly a voice of the people, emblematic of the common man. Godspeed.

@mx62455

The more realistic the avatar is, the worse. You can see it in the iphone and snapchat versions, they try to make a real human shaped head and it sucks

@The_Empty_Shadow

I feel like a lot of the visions of the future from the mid 2000s that acknowledged avatars took them to the logical extent of them being available everywhere, so you didn't have to remake them with every new platform.

@HotelMari0Maker

I actually like the original cartoon style bitmoji that Snapchat had. The 3D ones they’re using now are the definition of fugly 🥴

@DaNintendude

I think Miis succeed where most other avatar creators fail.
The utter simplicity and wide range of styles allows for amazing caricatures.
Everyone makes miis differently. You can still have 3 different people make drastically miis of the same person... and it'll still be recognizable as the person.

Mii Making is also a peer into the creative mind of the creator. The way I make miis shows how I see other people. It highlights what I consider to be the key features of my people's faces. Some miis are much more stylized than others, because the stylizations end up reflecting their personality more in my mind.

The choice to make most mii features flat allows for your mind to fill in the gaps. Bitmoji and Facebook have avatar makers that have an extreme number of options, but have ya ever noticed that avatars never look right? I can spend an hour refining my bitmoji just to end up with an avatar that still looks barely anything like me, proportionally.  Miis fix this by having limited, flat features that are left up to interpretation. Bitmoji and Facebook have way too much detail and depth, and thus almost always end up not looking like you. Miis don't have to look exactly like you to look like you.

The original Mii Maker was very limited, especially in terms of noses and hairstyles. Nowadays, there's a lot more hairstyles, color options, and scaling features. And there's still room to improve too. The new Tomodachi Life game has shown off even more new hairstyles, facial hair styles, noses, and even ears. Yet despite all these updates, Miis have never lost their minimalist simplicity. They're still just as direct or complex as you want them to be.

@I_Really_Enjoy_Not_Seeing_You

Heh, I remember when our Wii died and we got a used one, I made a whole bunch of weird Miis in the name of "They were already there!" and convinced my family that we got it from a family of crack smokers and other derelicts. Oh, good times... Still play baseball with them every now and again. Side note, Wii on new tvs looks best when sharpness is at 0. You'd think it would look blurry, and yeah, it kinda does, but it's also a poor man's anti aliasing for a console that wasn't really prepared for non-CRTs.

@StanzyPants

this early to a Chon vid feels awesome

@Renzolino2000

i wasliterally making a character of myself in blender and binging your videos this is crazy

@jonnystoffel

This is the first and last time in human history the word “brilliant” immediately followed discussion of “WeeMees.”

@Fatal_Jinx

If it makes you feel better, I’m still using my hotmail that I made back in 07

@Tabletop_Epics

Miitomo was stolen from us. Fix it, Nintendo. Mend the hole in my heart, and heal the dang pain.

@StuffingSkulltag

Nintendo has zero of the soul it has just before the switch, none of the value, none of the features, it’s hollow, and it’s greedy, and it’s lazy, NO SWITCH 2 PREORDERS

@leoncaples2947

I like the fact that he just BYPASSED Facebook/Meta, the one that gave Instagram (what he mentioned) avatars.

@Anime_Phantasm

Playing as your Mii in Smash was sooo cool!

@josephlosoya9660

2:35 the answer is Andre 3000