ordinary vs creative dragon cooking a turkey

Illustration via Bright Side

This ‘Ordinary People vs. Creative People’ comic has spawned a very creative meme

A bunch of creative people tore this blog post apart.

 

Jay Hathaway

Internet Culture

Posted on May 5, 2017   Updated on May 24, 2021, 3:29 pm CDT

What does a “creative person” look like? There’s no real answer to the question. You can display the hipster trappings associated with creative professionals, but that’s virtually meaningless in terms of the ideas you produce. That’s why when one website attempted to show what “creative people” look like, it fell flat on its face and ended up starting a meme.

Bright Side, a millennial website about creativity and positive vibes, posted a series of cute illustrations stereotyping “creative people” as quixotic daydreamers. They’re above mundane activities like watching TV or playing video games, and they imagine dragons and witches at work and at home. Plus, they have purple hair and glasses, or dress like Johnny Depp, with a bandana and tiny fedora.

creative people cartoon with dragon cooking turkey
Bright Side

The illustrations are cute, but they represent a narrow, childlike, and not very diverse view of what “creativity” means. For all their attempts to celebrate imagination, they’re just not very imaginative. People picked up on this pretty quickly.

“It’s weird because what they define as ‘creative people’ makes no sense, and presumes if you don’t dress a certain way or pretend that dragons live in your oven, you’re NOT CREATIVE AT ALL,” wrote Andrew Bridgman at CollegeHumor.

Now, the “Ordinary People vs. Creative People” trope is getting roasted hard on Twitter, with more savage parodies emerging by the hour.

https://twitter.com/bennyboy317/status/859876757192749058

Most of the memes show something ordinary next to something completely bizarre, which mocks the original comics by taking their premise to the extreme. Ironically, it’s also much more creative than Bright Side’s original premise.

Some of the best parodies make fun of the original artwork, contrasting it with video games, anime, and other pop culture references.

https://twitter.com/Trevgauntlet/status/859968102142009344

Others make fun of the implication that “creative people” are just normal folks in different outfits.

All in all, the backlash has proven it doesn’t take a special person with a special hair color to be creative. All it takes is a Twitter account, Photoshop, and a bone to pick with an ill-considered blog post.

Share this article
*First Published: May 5, 2017, 6:11 am CDT