Does anyone else find 'pseudoanimation' annoying?

a month ago by Dagobah to c/asklemmy

There's a style of 'animation' that has become widely used on YouTube where they take a still image of a character then make them sway back and forth repetitively. I guess it's cheap to make but I find it distracting and weird, even a bit patronising, as if they think we need moving pictures to keep us interested. I think it started with Veritassium and spread to other edutainment YouTube channels and now I just flat out avoid channels which use it.

Anyone else find it annoying?

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Lumidaub 16 points a month ago

I think I need an example.

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Dagobah 14 points a month ago

Very fair. If you watch the start of this video you can kind of get an idea of the style I mean. In particular the unnecessary head swaying when it could just be a static picture.

Not throwing shade at the channel or its content, it's just the animation style really grates on me.

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Lumidaub 17 points a month ago

I can only imagine you could've found a better example because I don't see anything annoying about that at all. It's simply an inexpensive animation style where more elaborate animation isn't necessary.

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Dagobah 5 points a month ago

But that's the point - why animate a scene that should be completely static? Do we really need the character to lol their head around like a bobble head for no reason? To be clear I'm being hyperbolic here - I realise in the grand scheme of annoying things this falls somewhere between 'that speck of dust under your phone screen protector' and 'the noise grandma makes when she chews'.

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Zarobi 4 points a month ago

In the first minute of that video, it depicts someone walking up the stairs, writing with a pen, and closing a cupboard. All of these scenes and movements were really well animated, actually. I didn't see any awkward standing or wobbling that seemed out of place.

Random diagnostic question; are you an anime fan? I ask because anime often has scenes where people kind of just stand there completely stock-still and talk, with the camera moving around. The art style is a bit reminiscent of anime, so I'm wondering if the movement is coming across as uncanny-valley due to the similarity.

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Dagobah 2 points a month ago

Interesting comparison. I don't mind a sparse animation style, I think what bothers me is the animation used in these YouTube channels feels much more 'procedurally generated' and repetitive.

I could definitely have picked a better example, I just found the first one that popped up. It's most jarring when it's just a static shot of a cartoon toso swaying back and forth for like 10 seconds for no reason.

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_NetNomad 2 points a month ago

i had never seen this before but i totally get what you mean. the other comments are latching on to motion vs no motion, and i think in most cases motion would be better, but these just look like inflatable arm wavers stuck in molasses. just panning over a static image slowly would achieve a much better effect for less effort than this

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FishFace 1 point a month ago

Can you find any other examples? This seems completely innocuous to me.

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