I'm seeing it score 1 out of 2 on the dead butterfly scale.
https://www.emilydamstra.com/please-enough-dead-butterflies/
https://www.emilydamstra.com/please-enough-dead-butterflies/
Earlier discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14460013
Enough with the Dead Butterflies (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21788356 - Dec 2019 (28 comments)
Enough with the dead butterflies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14460013 - June 2017 (163 comments)
We've now made it a challenge to spot "live" butterfly depictions everywhere.
So just like school photos, then.
Now, it’s true when you see a group of butterflies they are not uniformly in one position. But some of their positions coincide with those of pinned butterflies. It’s also true some pinned butterflies spread out their wings in extreme positions but not all are pinned like that —at least not by amateurs.
Now, iconic ones, yes, typically. But it’s the same for other exemplary of iconic models. When did you last see a toilet door with a natural picture of a person rather than an iconic outline?
The same could be said of lots of things.
When we have a concert T-shirt of a performer you more often than not get a more of less straight on shot. Or political candidates. You get their headshot not a profile pic or a pic of the backs of their heads.
Why should depictions of butterflies depart from a pose that exposes more of their recognizable and appreciated features?
What about flower photography? Why don’t they use shriveled up wilted flowers for Valentine’s Day? Why do they look for perfect specimens?
Sure, I get it, “ha ha, look you idiots that’s not the natural pose of butterflies, you guys and gals have been getting fooled and I’m not”
I just did a couple of image searches.
First, searching for "butterflies", I get many different photos of real butterflies in various postures. The most common is wings open, spread out horizontally. None of the real butterflies have their wings stretched upwards in the pinned-out posture.
Second, filtering the same search with "image type: clip art", fully 99% of the results have the wings spread out and stretched up. (The 1% is detailed, realistic drawings.)
Now, whether you care about this is another matter, but it's hard to deny that that article is onto something. There's a very consistent quirk in the way butterflies in particular are illustrated.
Sure, I get it, “ha ha, look you idiots that’s not the natural pose of butterflies, you guys and gals have been getting fooled and I’m not”
I think you're misreading the tone of that article and the people citing it. It's not anger or contempt; it's sadness that real living butterflies aren't widely understood, and hope that the stereotyped depiction can be improved on.
Just because this is not a frequent pose of butterflies doesn’t preclude it from representations, nor should it be assumed as dead because of that.
I smile for photos even though I don’t walk around with a smile all day either.