ISAT yetee merchandise has an ongoing issue with the visibly darker skinned characters of color getting lightened / whitewashed. (IMAGES AND EXPLANATION UNDER THE CUT)
I’m going to preface this with I’m giving both @insertdisc5 and the company yetee the benefit of the doubt because I am doubtful that this is with intentional malice, but it is a growing concern because this is a pattern that has been repeated multiple times across different products offered. Given how the (largely white) fandom space that’s curated online tends to ignore (at best) or perpetuate it directly at worst these harmful instances of characters getting their features erased … the last thing I expected was it happening in a official setting that was in *theory* looked over by the dev directly and approved. Given how the game writing makes the effort to represent the different characters and their culture in a way that felt respectful it felt, hurtful to say the least.
Many people in the fandom including myself have made posts directly commentating on this issue (that happens in fanart very commonly but now also in official merch), as well as emailed yetee and were essentially given the default (sorry, we can’t help at this time) regarding the products coming out lighter. In contrast the poster ( which is on the very same post as the whitewashed keychains and released at the exact same time as a bundle) the timing of it getting fixed for anatomical errors with the hands was handled the next day. When looking at the post I could see that there were plenty of tags, rbs and comments talking of the merch drop that happened on February 9-10 were people expressing their feelings regarding not wanting the characters to be whitewashed. Zero response.
[ IMAGE DESCRIPTION: a of a screenshot of the tags written by @/openphrase123 :
#as someone that works in print the reason the enamel pieces are always correct is because you have to pick out specific paint swatches #whereas for acrylic stands you're at the whims of the printer being calibrated correctly #and sometimes the light on the acrylic will bounce off to make its contents slightly brighter #which is NOT an excuse because if this happens in the test prints you need to adjust the artwork slightly darker to compensate
#which is likely why there are a few printed merch pieces that come out a tone or two darker than is normal
#and these are all industry standard issues that are known and documented and have workarounds #so this is not an excuse but an explanation and a side eye because the yetee should know how to deal with this
#idk what id5's contract is with them and what correction powers they have but it is disappointing that she doesn't at least address it
#but again i haven't seen the contract so i can't say how much in the wrong id5 individually is on this one
#but yes op is right. the solution is to print slightly darker and do print testing for things like this #and it's strange that it doesn't seem to be done at all
#if a company can be pissed that their logo is a couple hexcodes off their corporate colors (i've had clients like this
#then it would be nice to have that same revision energy towards people's skin tones
/END ID.]
You DO realize that Adrienne herself is multiracial, right?
HER MOM IS BLACK.
AND MAKES ART HIGHLIGHTING POC HISTORY.
Calling her racist is an absolute contradiction as she is a HUGE ADVOCATE for her mother's art and has expressed pride in her heritage. She's even talked about making sure ISAT was diverse in the art book - so accusing her of whitewashing is absolutely insane to me. That would be an erasure of her own heritage. Here's her mom's IG in case that's not enough for you.
The error to the merchandise was probably just as annoying to her. Your anger is totally misdirected. She's clearly expressed she's working on it.
This is stirring up drama for no reason.
And she has EVERY RIGHT to block people as the rest of us.
