Discussion assignment for VIS 11 - Introduction to Visual Culture

Although WeChat does not create an advertisement for itself, the app is incredibly widely used and gradually developed from a social and message app to China's "app for everything" since its release in 2011. With more and more functions added each year such as WeChat pay, mini-programs, official accounts, WeRun, Shake, Live Streams to this year's most recent Status, the purpose of WeChat has become more and more complicated and even confusing to some users like me. Does it really necessary to share so much personal information in order to socialize with others? From a green-colored simple app to chat and share some pictures with friends and family decades ago to the super powerful app that you pay the lunch bill, scare the QR code, read passages, join the study groups, send documents, play games, discuss with colleagues, run small businesses, sell goods, vote for competitions... doing everything with it. I, like most users in China, definitely benefit from it. However, as a UX designer, I feel the app is rushing towards an endless destination of being overcomplicated - new features are added every year (many of the recent ones similar to TikTok, Snapchat, etc.) but nothing is reduced. The classic and earliest feature "moments" (where users share pictures and words with friends) also change as more and more commercial ads are mixed into those posts (similar to Facebook)... In short, after 10 years, WeChat changes from a personal space for close relationships to a half-public place where unknown people and brands frequently jumping inside it. Too many posts to read, too many passages to repost and share, too many unread notifications to open (my mother has 999+ messages from bunches of random work and study groups). I and some of my close friends have already stopped posting anything on moments because we get tired of the meaningless "likes" and other people (intentionally or unintentionally) showing off their lives there. (But frankly speaking, we still check "moments" from time to time, trying to find a small percent of posts by our "real" contacts. WeChat moments is indeed a virtual spectacle for flâneurs.) Sometimes, things are developing too fast that we simply feel overwhelmed by the amount of information. I do not mean we should linger with the nostalgia of the "simple and naïve" past. But within this chaos (the entropy is rising), I would just ask: "What?"

The logo design of WeChat is two overlapping bubbles with a thin font "WeChat" on a green background. However, In my alternative version "W · · hat," the feeling changes as the "overlapping" logo is in fact a fake illusion. Instead, it literally portrays one big bubble, with a huge mouth opening, tries to devour the small one. (Like shark eats a small fish for example.) Or you can see the picture as the larger one shouting at the smaller one. For the thin font "WeChat," the new context creates a sharp contrast between the size and thickness of the letters and the bubbles, making the "w··hat" look extremely weak and faltering. Thankfully, the small round in the center hasn't get eaten/deafen because of the "w··hat" - it stopped speaking but still thinking.

How will WeChat be like after another ten years?