Why we can't stop using old-fashioned symbols
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- Опубліковано 7 січ 2022
- Out of date symbols are all around us. But why do we keep using them? A look at the fascinating world of anachronisms!
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My 6-year old son came to me with a folded pillow in his arms saying, "look it's an email!"
Lol
That is adorable! 😂
r/thathappened
he is adorable
I don't get it.
As technology becomes more abstract we increasingly rely on physical objects, which are almost always just older tech, to symbolize these intangible ideas.
I thought so too when I saw the old TV symbol we use. If we would use a modern TV it would likely be just a rectanglular shape with not much addition.
That actually make a lot of sense but it’s still crazy to me; my little cousins entire lives have been around smartphone but they still know a banana phone is still a phone
I'm trying to think of different designs? Phone: square with a home button or a 1 2 3 dialer? Setting: I/O symbol? Or slider button. I see why we've kept the old ones
@@Derkiboi I/O symbols are for power I is on O is off. I in side of O is a power button and I crossing O is standby.
Technological convergence. A smart phone replaces a dozen previous items. The symbol to use each feature is the object it replaces, e.g. A clock for timekeeping, a land line for calling, a camera for photography.
An auditory anachronism: When your phone takes a picture (or even a screenshot) you hear a shutter sound even though there's no actual shutter mechanism inside the phone
My old digital camera actually _does_ have a physical shutter with an audible click -- but it only closes when the CCD is _not_ in use. For example, when you're reviewing your pictures or have the screen turned off -- or when you _just_ took a picture and the camera is taking its usual ¼-second or so to process and save it.
It closes when the camera is off too. But the lens cap closes as well, so you can't easily see it in the lens or hear the click over the sound of the lens assembly retracting.
That's to stop "upskirting" and other secretive photography in public places.
@@anonUK that's until people figure out what the little switch at the left edge of your phone does
It's just a satisfying noise
@@anonUK this theory checks out, expect turning the ringer off also silences the “shutter”
The magnifying glass is interesting because it's often used as the symbol for search but also used, generally with a + or - symbol added to it, as the symbol for zoom in and zoom out within the same overall user interface. We're using the same anachronistic symbol for two very different things within the same context and seem to have no problem with that.
Good thought! Never even considered that!
Even better, the "Search" magnifying glass most likely comes from depictions of Sherlock Holmes (and future fictional investigators copying him) using a magnifying glass. So it only got its foothold because it was a symbol for a symbol. Sometimes it's really hard to come up with symbols for fairly abstract concepts, so you just use what you can.
And wierdly, irl magnifiers can only "zoom in"...
@@adrianblake8876 It does "zoom out", you can make a fisheye effect with a magnifier, which is basically reversed magnifying.
Good point. Searching for clues like an old timey inspector is certainly a less intuitive use for a magnifying glass than literally magnifying something, but I've no idea what else could represent searching.
I've noticed this with sound as well. Teen sitcoms still use recordings of actual bells in school, even though most modern high schools use electronic chimes, since the sound of a school bell is more specific than a generic square wave that could mean your laundry is done.
My old school had a real bell
@@ShadeATV Ironically, of the two secondary schools I went to, the MUCH older of the two had a screeching electronic chime and the much newer modern school had a traditional bell. I have an odd feeling of nostalgia for the ear piercing chime.
@@danielwarren3138 I've been to 3 schools, my first (2016-2020) had the real bell, same with the catholic school (one month in 2018) and my current school has an electronic chime
my school plays music as its bells, usually changing every week
@@kiachaelchild sounds dreadful
Another visual anachronism I can think of is the Atari 2600 joystick to represent "gaming" as a whole. Even when I was a kid (I was born in 1998), you would see this Atari-style controller on the now cringy gamer t-shirts that every edgy middle schooler would wear. However more recently, you might see visual representations of gaming as a more PS1-ish style controller, which is still something most kids nowadays have probably only ever seen in pictures.
And on the topic of updating these symbols, a new one in the last couple years is appearing on "No Smoking" signage. The whisp of smoke on the old signs is being changed to a stylized lightning bolt, to represent electronic cigarettes. It's interesting, because this symbol looks absolutely nothing like most actual vapes, but vape designs change like the wind, so naturally they had to come up with a standard and recognizable symbol. But good luck stopping people from getting their nic fix in the movie theater when it smells like blueberries instead of an old bowling alley.
That’s true re: controllers, I find it’s often an original Xbox kind of thing
🕹 is still used a lot but 🎮 is used way more today, because it's already quite old but also this design has been mostly unchanged for 30 years. I'd say 🕹 is more used for children's games while 🎮 for gaming as a whole
PS4/PS5 controllers aren't as different as PS1 controllers as joysticks are to well, basically everything else though, no? Like obviously not exactly the same but also still the same basic shape as structure whereas I'm not sure if I've even ever used a joypad
Another video game anachronism: whenever a TV show character is playing a video game, even if he/she has a modern controller, we still hear Atari 2600-like sounds.
I agree that the Atari joystick symbol is odd to use, but typically I see the anachronism most used is a game controller more closely representing a contemporary Xbox or PlayStation controller, which seems pretty accurate to me. In the last 20 years, the gaming industry has definitely crystalized that general design as the standard controller.
In modern TV shows, whenever a character records something on their webcam or phone, there's still the old recording icons from the camcorder days stamped on the film when they play it back. Also whenever a show / youtuber wants to show what's happened in a previous episode they'll make the previous episodes footage greyer to show its old or decayed from time even though it was shot on HD.
It never occurred to me that that was what it was meant to represent, but it totally makes sense now.
The "paint-bucket" tool makes more sense if you somehow already know it's called the Fill Tool. I always pictured dumping a paint bucket out into the shape, and having it flow out to the edges.
What's even stranger is that now in the era of streaming services we not only refer to them as TV and radio but even the awards shows like the Emmys consider Netflix to be "Television", even though Netflix does not have any relationship to any national or local television stations or even any cable channels. Spotify has "radio stations" but again, they have nothing to do with transmitting any content over radio waves or any station affiliates.
Culturally we've gotten used to the idea that "music / audio content" is "radio" and "short form series / video content" is "television"
In the same vein, calling a group of songs on the same record an "album" comes from when each disk only had one song on each side, so the group of songs were kept together in a book with pockets similar to a photo album.
I guess its due to most streaming services producing content in a TV format, of TV length and with a TV budget. Not to mention a lot of Streaming services being set up by existing TV networks. I mean here in Denmark we may even have been slow to adapt but still early on the streaming wave. A few years ago we had like double the amount of streaming services that the US had, and most of them being provided by existing cable networks. Like DRTV, by the public service broadcaster DR (the creators of Borgen), or TV2 Play by TV2, or Viaplay and Viafree by Viasat.
@@drdewott9154 Yeah exactly "TV" means "big budget and professionals". Technically Netflix and UA-cam both deliver video content via the same "streaming technology" over the internet, but one is considered "TV" and the other "Social Media" b/c it's about budget
@@colonelb I mean that's definitely different than around my neck of the woods as TV means "serialized, and small budget" compared to anything meant for the big screen.
I think this is more the case of the word "television" being always used to refer to the technology and the primary artistic medium of that technology. Like, I can watch a film on TV or I can watch TV on TV; those two phrases mean different things. Even before streaming television shows (often just shorted to "television/TV") exist in multiple mediums (e.g. Dvds).
The same linguistic phenomenon is true for "movies", "film", and "radio".
Went to a martini tasting the other day and the guy running the seminar pointed out that nowadays a martini is considered anything in that glass, and separately pointed out that martini glasses are seen as a status symbol. I got to thinking about how even Apple maps uses a pint of beer for a dive-bar but a martini glass with an olive in it for more high-end drinking establishments
That sounds silly-as-hell. I could just pour Sprite in a cocktail glass and call it a martini?
@@ElPayasoMalo from what I’ve been told, yes. You would call it a sprite martini. The guy was explaining its super common to even serve desserts in that glass and call it like a crème brûlée martini even though there’s not a drop of alcohol in it at all
@@JayDagny Never ever heard of such a thing.
In Oregon, the "Don't drink and drive" signs on the highway are a martini glass with a circle and line through it. It always made me laugh as I said out loud, "Well definitely don't drink a martini and drive - it will spill all over the place, what a waste of a drink!"
@@JayDagny This feels like a concession for those that have poor knowledge of cocktails. I'd never call a manhattan a "whiskey martini", but I can certainly see someone with less interest and knowledge using that descriptor to order one in a bar.
I’m actually learning American sign language right now and this video made me realize just how many common signs for nouns come from these anachronistic symbols. For example, the sign for campfire is looks like an old-fashioned triangular tent, and the sign for video/movie/film looks like you’re cranking an old video camera. Come to think of it, even basic signs are similarly anachronistic. Like the sign for boy is supposed to represent a baseball cap, and the sign for girl implies a bonnet ribbon. I suppose it kinda makes sense since ASL wasn’t really invented until the early 20th century, and didn’t really form into what it is today until the 70s and 80s, but it’s still interesting.
Are any signs offensive?
@@JJMcCullough I'd imagine, since it's a language, a sign might be just as offensive as a word. As for things that will be interpreted as offensive by someone not knowing the language -- I don't know ASL myself, so cannot answer. I'd imagine the "fuck you" symbol of ASL would be universally readable.
@@JJMcCullough not sure if America is the same but pretty sure BSL uses (or used) a curved nose gesture for a Jewish person?
And the sign for Bill Clinton is pulling down your fly.
@@JJMcCullough Signs for Races and Identities have evolved and changed with the times, older signs for Mexican and Native American are deemed inappropriate, the same goes for the sign Lesbian.
@@sznio You can use 🖕 in your gesture in ASL to basically add "fuck" to it. So you have the regular feature for "Do you understand?" with the index finger I think it is, and replace it with the middle finger, it means "Do you fucking understand?". The middle finger is well known internationally, but it isn't an international symbol still. While I understand what a person means using it here in Europe, I still find it odd just like if someone who I share a native language with starts speaking English.
I think some of these are just more distinct than their modern counterparts. A cell phone is just a cubed rectangle. While an old style phone can't really be mistaken for much else.
But even then if you had an icon on your home screen that was a detailed image of a smart phone 📱 what function would that depict? Why would that mean voice call?
@@Linkedblade at least the old style phone is still known as vintage… trying to update to something modern would only make it dated eventually.
@@Linkedblade thats what JJ failed to mention phone reciver means voice call, not phone
Another visual anachronism I can think of is using head mirrors to represent doctors. They used to be in a lot of cartoons, including Spongebob Squarepants (google spongebob doctor and you'll see what I'm talking about) and head mirrors were actually quite commonly used to examine a person's ear, nose, and throat. These days though, doctors usually use pen lights or head lamps instead for the same purpose.
JJ actually talked about that in one of his older videos.
@@TheAlexSchmidt Ohh which one I don't remember?
@@ryanliu8014 ua-cam.com/video/niS4q-JklT8/v-deo.html
@@TheAlexSchmidt Thanks! I originally learned about this in a Doctor Mike video called Doctor Reacts To Nickelodeon Medical Scenes haha
I never knew what those were for.
In the UK and many other countries, road signs are incredibly anachronistic. E.g. the symbol for a speed camera a Victorian style camera box, despite the speed camera itself being invented almost a century after anyone ever used one. Similarly, the symbol for train crossing is still an old fashioned steam train.
Even more interesting is the ‘post horn’ symbol used for post offices around the world which haven’t been used for absolutely ages. The list goes on.
in portugal, the sign for a speading camera is the symbol of wifi sideways
also there are the tank crossing signs in and around Bovington, which while do not represent any particular vehicle, come closest in my eyes to a Churchill Mark III, a vehicle that has not seen service in the last 70 years.
Well the speed cameras are actually big yellow boxes on poles, so it makes more sense than most.
As a tourist it took me quite a while to realize what those signs meant and once I did I lmao
I had to look up 'post horn symbol' because I have never seen that used! Went down a very interesting rabbithole so thank you
Perhaps there is something to be said about how we always use crowns for royalty even though a) nowadays crowns/tiaras can be worn and owned by anyone, b) royals rarely wear their crowns and c) the images we use for crowns are almost always modeled after the English crown with the fur and velvet or are fantastical takes on medieval crowns but the symbol can stand for any king or queen
I wonder how much of a role chess pieces played in cementing those certain crown shapes as 'definitively royal'...
The symbol for an atom ⚛ is kind of an example of anachronism. However this might be down to necessity because our modern idea of what an atom "looks" like is hard to symbolise
For that to happen people need to stop teaching Rutherford model extensively in schools.
The preferred symbol would likely be an omelette or something.
@@satyakisil9711 The Rutherford model is perfectly serviceable for most grade school purposes. It's like early math classes telling the students "you can't take the square root of a negative number." It's not strictly, technically true, but it performs its job without overcomplicating things.
@@AstroTibs well, the symbol won't be changing then. Simple as that.
@@satyakisil9711 no one asked for it change
@@AstroTibs You can't take the square root of a negative number. That's part of the definition of square root. Square root implies the positive half power of a number. Negative numbers don't have a positive square root, or a real one for that matter. You need the analytic continuation of the one half power function. 😅 "You can't take the square root of a negative number," is a correct statement.
That's wholly different from the anachronism that is the Unicode atom symbol ⚛.
It goes for gestures too: how about when you want to ask someone to roll down their car window, you'd still motion a spinning, manual knob, rather than a button?
I might do the sign of "telephone" with ny thumb and pinky if someone started talking to me while I'm on the phone with a headset.
With how smartphones are the norm, it would probably make more sense to hold my palm against my ear and cheek.
And If you wanted to gesture to someone what time it was you'd point at your wrist to indicate a wrist watch.
this is very interesting
@@goaheadmakemyday7126 many people still wear watch though, doubt that symbol will become dated for a long time
@@HasekuraIsuna palm against the cheek or ear may end up giving the impression that the person conveying the message may be physically unwell (fatigue, toothache, etc.). I think it's better to use the "standard" symbol to indicate that you are on the phone since it is no unique
I like how they still use anachronistic sounds in commercials and TV shows, like for photography the sound of a 35mm film camera with a motorized film winder or to depict a sudden drastic ending to something with the sound of needle scratching a vinyl record.
I love these commercials geared toward seniors that use the sound of a typewriter when letters go up on the screen to spell out info.
At this point the record scratch is so associated with a sudden stop that you wouldn't even need to know what you're actually hearing to understand the mood shift. That's the hol'-up noise.
@@BonaparteBardithion A related sound: screeching tires from braking a car suddenly. Though it's probably less common in real life than it used to be, thanks to anti-lock brakes.
Yes or when a character is commenting on events in the film in a meta way the audio and visual language when they pause, rewind and fast forward comes from VCRs
A sorta two-step anachronism I always like bringing up is "dashboard." Horse-drawn carriages had a literal board in front of the driver to keep the horse from kicking dash up at them. Motor cars had something in the same spot so it got called a dashboard. We started putting all the guages and dials on car dashboards. Now phones, computers, and applications may have a screen with various metrics and settings on it called a "dashboard."
Ooh i like this very much, thank you for sharing!
Makes me also think about how the world of emoticons or "emoji" have contributed and evolved with visual anachronisms -- and how those affect our perception of those concepts. Like how the emoji for a school building always seems to have a large clock tower, despite me never having one at any of the schools I went to growing up. Or how honey pots are still present, despite my meager efforts of research telling me that the only time the two were related in history were in Ancient Egypt
Not a visual symbol, or icon rather, but a lot of people forget why we're asked to take our hats off during the national anthem in the US. Different jobs used to wear different hats (also where the phrase "let me put on my ____ hat" comes from), but when playing the national anthem we remove our hats because we are all equal under the flag and in the country.
It's really cool symbolism that I feel a lot of people forget or don't know
Oh that’s interesting I never knew that. That’s a great example of something we’ve completely forgotten the context of. A hat is not inherently “rude” even though I notice a lot of older people just kind of lazily assume that.
I always thought that custom was just a reflection of how men would show respect to each other by raising their hat or taking it off during special occasions. They would therefore be asked to remove their hats similarly in respect of the flag and the nation. The tradition is also iconic in old Protestant/Catholic churches, where men would remove their hat during service to show respect to God. Meanwhile, at least in Catholic churches, women would be instructed to wear hats or even veils to hide the glory of her hair, so not to be "prideful" of it in public.
@@CharlieQuartz why does god care about hats
That's also why you (traditionaly) don't wear your hat indoors, as everyone visits as an equal and honors are given to the host, traditionally the man of the house, signified rather by his seating place than a hat, like the head of the table or the most expensive singular seat in the living room as a throne allegory. I could go on a tangent about how this branches further into gift giving, but that's too far off the subject of hats.
Nowadays it isn't rude since hats are a universal utility item rather than a display of title, and usually just a symbol of settling is as a guest to remove them, since you'd usually keep on things like hat and coat if you aren't staying long.
@@JJMcCullough It's not that God cares about hats, but the people around you would think you don't care about God, if you show up in the church all like "look at me in my lawyer wig, ready to judge God" or whatever else you had on your head.
Here is an interesting example of a visual anachronism.
Many rail crossings in Europe still use a steam locomotive to warn car drivers that said crossing is ahead, despite the fact that steam locomotives have been obsolete in Europe since the 1970s. The vast majority of trains in Europe are either powered by an electric locomotive or are an electric multiple-unit whilst diesel traction is now going the way of steam.
Though interestingly Germany has gotten rid of this anachronism, their warning signs now depict a high speed multiple unit in an interesting swoosh that effectively conveys motion.
As an American who is interested in trains, I would say the visual anachronism applies _here_ as well! One of the emojis for trains (🚂) looks like a mid-19th-century steam locomotive (think the First Transcontinental Railroad), despite the fact that steam locomotives grew larger than this over the 19th and 20th centuries before being replaced by diesel (both in the US and Europe) in the mid-20th century. To be fair, there are other railroad emojis (these look more modern:🚃🚄🚅🚆🚇🚈🚉🚊🚝🚞🚋), but still, the steam locomotive emoji proves my point.
All that's not to mention the various non-symbol anachronisms associated with steam locomotives, such as them being the quintessential toy train, or how children often refer to trains in general as "choo-choos", an onomatopoeia originating from... steam locomotives! And that's despite the fact that your typical American diesel locomotive bears as much resemblance to a steam locomotive as your own EMUs!
We use stream locomotives on signs in New Zealand as well. Modern commuter trains would look more like an abstract caterpillar on a sign.
I was about to say the same thing. Its kinda the same here. AFAIK They've used a steam locomotive for unguarded crossings, and for guarded crossings with barriers and everything, they use a sign to look like a fence. Likely referring to those old gates that would be pulled out to block the road back in the day. Though the design is also so minimalistic and designed in such a way that it can be seen as train tracks from above. Quite clever really
And on signs leading to train stations, the old school iconography was that of a steam locomotive. However this has been changed in the last 5 or so years, having the old steam locomotive replaced by a modern aerodynamic electric train.
Honestly, the electrification of Britain's railways is not moving quickly enough. The Great Western Main Line is served by expensive flashy bi-mode multiple units because continuing to stick diesel engines in trains is cheaper than finishing upgrade works that were started over a decade ago.
One of the most iconic visual anachronism has to be how trains are depicted as 1800s style steam trains. It really shows how much cultural significance these symbols have, since pretty much nobody living today have actually seen an authcentic steam train outside of a museum, unlike, for example, the floppy disk save icon.
Steam trains were still widely used until the late 60's (in the UK and North America), but even then, they looked quite different from our anachronistic symbol for "train".
What I find interesting is how that anachronistic symbol only seems to apply to toy trains, historic/preserved trains, or the generic concept of a train. Contemporary signs designating active train stations or trains as they relate to public transit almost always use a stylized depiction of a more modern-looking train.
There’s a road sign for the train station in Canberra (my city) that has a steam train.
The male/female symbols work because we all recognize them without going into lewd, offensive or embarrassing anatomical details.
2:20 I think that kind of theory really applies to Chinese characters as well. A lot of the thinking the people who made the symbols put into the characters is now antiquated, but we still accept their meaning because we've accepted that these lines represent an idea. A good example of this is "好,“ or "good," with the symbol for a female on the left, and a symbol for a child on the right. In ancient times, a woman with a child was considered a to be good and successful. Even though that kind of thinking is quite outdated, the character has become more than its original image. Another good example is the character for male, "男." The top part is a rice field, the bottom means strength. Even though China has modernized and most men don't work in agriculture, the character has become more than its original meaning.
The Chinese could make things a lot easier if the Chinese character for a dog actually resembled a dog.
“with the symbol for a female on the right, and a symbol for a child on the right”
Which one is on the right?
@@icantthinkofaname8139 fixed
@@TheShrededward While the modern word for dog is 狗 which is composed more phonetically, the character 犬 which was originally used for dog actually looked something like a dog in its original form. This kind of logic starts to break down for more complex words though. How is one supposed to draw a character that represents a more abstract concept such as "hope" or "blue", without making it extremely tedious to write?
@@TheShrededward Animals did originally look more accurate back when the writing was basically drawings.
Those drawings slowly evolved to become more abstract, as the writing system adopted systematic styles.
I work as a teacher here in Taiwan, and I have long found it interesting that if you ask a young student to draw a house, they will always draw a stereotypical standalone triangle roof house with a chimney and front door. You know, like the one from Blues Clues. This is despite the fact that the vast majority of the country lives in boxy concrete houses with flat roofs, squished together and flush against the road with no yard or garage, or otherwise in newfangled high-rise apartment blocks. No "houses" to be found here as we think of them in the west.
Our equivalent in the 70s UK was the Play School house. The titles even showed us how to draw it lol
I grew up in the outskirts of a Brazilian city, and I was drawing houses like this long before I ever came in contact with one.
In reality, it was all apartment blocks around me.
Something that could be interesting to discuss next is the over-simplification of logos, fonts, and advertising design language to the point where it is now actually very off-putting to many people.
I saw one of those lowercase stop signs going viral on Twitter the other day. We are strange creatures.
At what point does an icon become so oversimplified and overstylized that you can't even tell what it's meant to represent?
I used to agree with the internet on the over-simplification but then I had to deal with printing over-complicated logos and omg, please keep simplifying stuff. Not necessarily basic font one letter logos, though, they're no fun. But abstract visualization on what a company sells or something, that's fun.
I love how you always make follow up videos on certain topics when there’s a great discussion from your audience in the comments section. Makes us feel really heard!
My 5 year old son has never seen a wired telephone. But he still uses the phone sign (yes, the phone where you have to dial on the machine, and pick up the phone to answer it) in his drawings. Weird...
Actually many phones look like that, and essentially all phones do, as it's just a box with an earpiece and a mouthpiece...
I've noticed, I'm not old enough to have regularly used one but a lot of media like cartoons and symbols represent older tech, I've barely seen the internet represented till recently in kids cartoons, so they kind of all recognize them
I have a really hard time imagining that your son has truly never seen a wired telephone. Has he never stepped into a place of business? Almost all businesses still use them. I think we as adults tend to be less observant and don't catch all the little details that they do.
In the case of the phone icon I would argue that there’s not really a better alternative to the rotary phone style. When the rotary phone was in use it was the icon, after all you don’t need an icon button for something that does only one thing. And all the phones that came after had more uses (and even the exceptions at least share that banana shape), mobile phones and smart phones can’t really represent a phone on it’s own because they do so much. But the rotary phones shape on the other hand is the purest farm of a thing that lets you talk to someone who is far away. Ps Also if the call button was a photo of an iPhone it would be a little silly looking.
I have definitely seen a stylized smartphone used as an icon as well though, for instance in safety instructions in airplanes.
@@hkrohn Does it just look like a vertical rectangle with rounded corners? That's why it would seem the old fashioned "banana" looking rotary icon persists; it's much more distinguishable.
@@hkrohn Because it communicates using the Phone you have, not the concept of calling someone smh lmfao
Not all phones with a receiver had dials
@@postmodernrecycler these symbols usually include a circle for the home button, like iphones up til 8; otherwise yeah just a rounded rectangle
Most symbolic depictions of anchors depict an "Admiralty"-style anchor, even though there have been numerous newer designs available for centuries (beginning with the stockless anchor, which has been around since 1821).
That type of anchor has pretty much become the generic icon for boats/ships, sailing, harbors, the navy, cruise ships, or almost anything vaguely nautical. However, maritime charts (maps) still use it to mark a safe place to anchor your boat.
The "Save" symbol of the 3.5" floppy is actually an updated symbol. Originally the symbol often looked like an older 5.25" disk, which was quite different. The 5.25" ones were actually floppy, which the 3.5" ones were not (they were in a hard case), but the "floppy" name itself survived as an anachronism.
Would you consider the unit of measurement "horsepower" to be an anachronism?
Personally I do. I know that it's not necessarily a symbol per say but it seems to me like it's in the same ballpark. It comes from the time in which the steam engine was new, and people wanted to know how good the machine they were buying was and I guess they decided to compare it to a horse, which was kind of familiar. Even though there aren't many people who work with horses a lot anymore, we (at least in the US, where the metric system isn't as popular) still use it a lot.
sorry for the nitpick, but what you mean with "per say" is probably the latin-loaned phrase "per se" (through itself)
Even in Europe (both west and east) we use horsepower sometimes while we obviously use metric
You could add to that the whole set of imperial units, foot, hand, rope, stone, barleycorn, etc.
Yeah nah, horsepower is more akin to imperial measurements. Perhaps, that could be his video. 'How imperial measurements came about and why they are still used in Today's society.'
It *is* a symbol. A symbol is just something used to represent something else, every word is a symbol in this sense. You know, the sound or the spelling of a word is nothing close to the object or idea it's referring to.
I feel this is a matter of icons becoming timeless. For example, a hammer, puffy wig, and scale is often associated with Law despite them not being used anymore for well over a hundred years in most courts
Another icon would have to be the dalmatian. Despite dogs not being used anymore, this breed in particular is often associated with the profession of firefighters
Gavel. The wood hammer-like tool you are thinking of is a gavel.
What were the scales used for?
They are an old symbol for law and justice, because they represent the measurement of punishment and compensation
Gavels are still in use in many places, including Canada, so far as I am aware. But yes, most nations have tossed the judge's wig and in some cases even the cloak (J.J. had a video about this awhile back looking at different nation's legal and political costumes).
American judges still use gavels
This all reminds me of how they had to add a shutter sound to a photo being taken on a smart phone… because the sensation of taking a photo exposure wasn’t there without it.
Fun Fact: in Japan and Korea, the shutter sound on phone cameras (by default) cannot be turned off due to the problem of voyeurism in both.
Wait what
what's vounyerism
@@justafurrywithinternet317 watching someone during a private moment without their consent. IN this case, the problem is, once digital photography became possible, and once they started using them in phones, it was so easy to sneakily take a picture under a woman's or girl's dress or skirt without them knowing. So it's the law in those countries that there must be an audible noise so that someone would notice if you got a shot.
Also, certain other things that make noises, there's a whole study of ensuring "familiar" noises, due to changes in technology. For example, car doors are designed to sound louder than they really are, because they were originally heavier and had a distinct "thud" when you closed them. Also, when you call someone, the "dialing out" noise you hear? That originally had to do with the machinery when they had mechanical switches, but with the changeover to digital, the noise was kept as "reassurance."
@@raakone Another example of legacy sounds is the synthetic moving sound by electric vehicles when they would otherwise be inaudible (at low speed) now demanded by regulations.
As an Italian, I have to agree. Italy is a country with a very long history of symbols, but the gear is in an awkward state where it doesn't represent our past, nor does it represent the present/future. I can think of many symbols we could use in place of our current coat of arms, like the Iron Crown of Lombardy, the Capitoline She-Wolf, and even the shield we use on our naval ensign.
I dunno, these days Italy is not known for producing anything except Vespas and a few supercars, so I think the gear works as far as foreign image is concerned
@@MB-st7be We're also well known for our long and expansive history, and our culture beyond the realm of production. A gear doesn't really represent either of those quite well.
With the some of these I don't see it as much as being sentimentality but being simplicity of the icon itself.
With the restroom symbol for instance, the male and female symbol are at their core the most basic symbol you can do that makes it obvious which is which. It would be possible to make a much less stereotypical symbol, but that would make it much more complex and detailed.
The same thing goes with the camping symbols. Yes, you can make a modern looking tent, or a modern RV. But the point is you want a very simple symbol that can be recognized easily from a distance and without hesitation or second guessing.
Think of it with the phone icon. If I made a sign that was simply a white rectangle with rounded corners on a black background, would you know that meant there's a phone? It might be an outdated symbol, but the shape of a phone is indistinguishable from anything else really.
I think you're close. I think a symbol for "women" could be modernized but still simple. but I think what it is is that it's easy to underestimate how much meaning is in current symbols that we use, and how difficult it is to put meaning into new symbols. over time, icons become distilled down to their essential elements naturally, not by fiat. when someone comes along (like Microsoft) and decides that we need to modernize icons, they tend to make a huge mess of things instead.
@@Sahuagin Oh? And how exactly do you think we could make the "women" symbol more accurate??
That's a slippery slope, mate. No matter what you do, you're probably gonna end up being called sexist, and peeve off some leftists, which ironically are the same people complaining the current symbol is "outdated"...
@@Chris_Cross I didn't say it could be "more accurate", I only speculated that maybe it could be modernized. if it was I would think it should be "hourglass" shaped. if you search for "woman icon" you can see some examples, though none are as archetypical as the current one, for reasons I mentioned. looking at many of the icons, I actually suspect that one reason the "dress" shape has lasted so long is actually because it _hides_ the hourglass shape; so it's non-sexual while conveying sex (gender). but personally I don't know if it matters. I'm not saying that it _should_ be modernized, only that (maybe) it could be. it's true it would almost instantly turn into a huge issue that everyone fights over and in the end something completely ridiculous would probably be chosen.
@@Sahuagin >if it was I would think it should be "hourglass" shaped.
Smooth curves seldom exist in signage for a reason. Hard angles are easier to read at a distance. However, I've seen abstracted symbols for restrooms, with a base-at-top equilateral triangle for men's (kinda referring to broad shoulders) and base-at-bottom for women's (kinda referring to wide hips). Or triangle and circle respectively. Or just use the venus and mars symbols.
Top hats are actually much less rare than that in the UK. For the "upper class" they are expected to be worn outdoors with both white tie and morning dress which means weddings, the private areas of any of the old boat or horse shows and any Royal or Aristocratic formal events.
Still extremely rare and famously pompous though.
Tbf I’ve never seen anyone wear one in my life I don’t think.
Yeah
Before WWII, and particularly in the victorian era, it wasn't something exclusive to "high society", middle and even working class men would often wear top hats. It was basically the fashion, if you could afford one, you could wear one.
To my understanding, they are (or were, at least) often worn by the groom at weddings in Britain. In Germany, they're often worn by chimney sweeps (seeing one is considered a sign of good luck), and sometimes by other apprentice tradesmen as part of their guild clothing (basically, the choice is between the top hat and a few different styles of floppy wide-brimmed hats)
Like any very old formal wear they are only worn at very formal traditional events
In the UK the trains are operated by 20 different companies that keep changing, along with their logos. Because of this, the old British Rail double arrow has stayed as a symbol for train stations and non-tube trains in general, even though BR hasn't existed since 1994
11:38 This relates to something I went through last month, when I started wondering about the "glasses" symbol on the "1" button on old cellphones. It's been a while since I used a phone that wasn't a smart one, so it took me some time before I remembered what the "1" button did - it was a hotkey for voice mail. The "glasses" weren't glasses at all, they were a tape meant to represent the ones in old answering machines.
The phone app on my current smartphone still has that on the 1. And my old smartphone not only had it on the 1, but also on a dedicated "voicemail" button in the app.
I like these visual anachronisms. They give this sense of "old meets new" that connects the future to the past.
But how is a dress anachronistic? Women still wear evening gowns to awards shows and cocktail dresses in fancy restaurants; in fact, these dress codes can be strictly enforced, depending on how solemn the ceremony or how prestigious the establishment. The Gothic cathedrals of Europe can also be stringent in decreeing what female tourists can wear when they visit them. And even when it comes to casual clothing, certain types of dresses (babydoll, sheath, muumuu) are certainly still with us. What's funny is that the restroom sign doesn't look anything like Christian Dior's "New Look" dress, but McCullough still equated the two.
@@SeasideDetective2
"But how is a dress anachronistic? Women still wear evening gowns to awards shows and cocktail dresses in fancy restaurants"
Actually, dresses *are* anachronistic; it's just that the evolution of fashion never reaches logical conclusions, and formal wear never really caught up to causal wear.
@@ALuimes But if it had, would it still have been formal wear?
@@SeasideDetective2 Women wear dressy pants (once only casual for them), tank tops, etc, so yes.
The "crop" symbol used in computer programs represent an actual tool graphic designers once used when "cropping" a physical graphic or photograph. (My dad is old enough to remember using this). The two wooden L shapes were positioned in a square over the thing you wanted to cut.
Always wondered about that
4:43 Thanks for including my comment!
The irony of the classic campfire icon is that almost all campsites explicitly *forbid* burning fires outside of designated pits. So the illustration is not only anachronistic, but also misleading if taken too literally.
Funnily enough, the other day when I was putting my jeans into the dryer, I started a conversation with my mom about the small pocket sewn into jeans. I knew that a few years ago I googled it and found out that it was used for pocket watches, but it's still fascinating that even though there are people who still use them, they are not as prevalent as they were during the time Levi's made that design, and yet today's jeans reflect that time.
They serve perfectly as pen pockets though! Makes me wonder what use breast pockets had, if any.
Ah, how boring. Seems they just served as handkerchief pockets. And later for storing small items like cigarettes.
I've been known to use those small pockets for transit tokens and transfers and small pre-calculated amounts of change, e.g. for tolls.
SYMBOLOGY VIDEO IDEA: During my travels I've seen different symbols used in different countries. For example, at a truck stop in eastern Turkey I once saw signs for the toilet using a pipe for the men's toilet, and a ladies shoe for the women's toilet. At the time, my theory was this may have had something to do with the Muslim prohibition of representing people in art (perhaps even very stylized people), but I don't know if this is true. Anyway, I'm not suggesting you make a video about toilet signage, but I suspect there might be different symbols for men and women used round the world, and I bet there are lots more categories which for one reason or another are different in different places.
Was this common in Turkey or just the one place?
Do you really think so? I think that Turkey is today mostly a secular European country, thanks to ataturk, and not a middle Eastern Islamic one, they're majority Muslim but with a secular society
I like JJ's videos about other cultures the most out of his. I'd love to see this!
This could be for male and female symbols generally. I've seen a circle and triangle in Poland. Also the ones with the circle and arrow/t that often are depicted for male and female.
@@JJMcCullough This was a LONG time ago - like before UA-cam existed - but from memory it was something I think I saw repeatedly in eastern Turkey. This is a more conservative part of the country. Also, I'm not totally sure the icons were consistent. I think there may have been a men's brogue to accompany the woman's shoe in some spots.
One thing I wonder about these anachronistic icons is how well they translate across cultures. I'm a web developer, and while we do have localization for various text elements in web design, the symbols are often constant between languages. I wonder if this is actually the best way to convey the purpose of whatever the icon is referring to in the context of another culture, and I wonder if the use of the American iconographic canon online has made these icons obvious symbols to other cultures as well.
They've been standardized, so that's why they tend to be the same.
I swear I read an interview where a Sims developer said they use as little text in the UIs as possible so they're easier to localise.
Great video! Another thing I think of is road signs and the colors associated with each. In the US at least green is meant to represent cities/distances, blue public attractions, and brown natural areas. I’m sure it is the same across many counties to ensure these signs aren’t too gaudy in comparison to the landscape
Though quite a few countries also use blue signs on freeways/motorways, where they would otherwise use green signs on regular roads.
I love these topics that you bring up in your videos, like in this or in "The curious candy flavors of other countries", and more. Just small parts of culture that most people think is mundane and uninteresting, but to me it is very fascinating.
Phones for the last 15 or so years have become multitools, rather than for calling and sending messages. Image if every app and function had modern phone as their image, it would be very confusing.
I've noticed on buses in Oakville, Ontario that the sign showing "no food or drink, no music, etc." shows a hot dog and drink that look more like a 1930's Flash Gordon ray gun and the symbol for no music or noise on the bus by passengers is depicted by a 1940's radio with a speaker grill and two knobs. ;)
Honestly you'd be surprised how many new products still look like this. Some things are just too iconic to change.
I'm desperately trying to picture a hotdog and drink looking like 1930s ray-gun and am coming up completely blank. Can you elaborate more?
I love how such a politically involved person can talk about an ideology he disagrees with without infantilizing it, real respect for that
I've interacted with J.J. McCullough on MSN Messenger back when he was a political cartoonist before UA-cam was a thing. I feel like I can have intelligent conversations with him even though I don't see eye-to-eye with him. In fact, it was because of him I've rediscovered that the Civil War really was about slavery (because he compared the USA Constitution to the CSA Constitution and spotted the differences) after the lies my high school history teacher taught me!
I really owe JJ a huge debt of gratitude.
@@IronCurtaiNYC What did the teacher teach you?? I've never encountered an other viewpoint of the war.
@@Pavlinka__ He taught me it was about States' Rights. He never elaborated as to what those states' rights were for, though.
@@IronCurtaiNYC Ha! The teacher had the classic "obscure the issue" take on the US Civil War. "It was about state's rights." Yes, the rights to beat, rape, murder, and enslave people based on their race. "It was for economic reasons." Yes, the economic reason of wanting to continue to use enslaved labor.
I also always thought that the red dots on recording devices did that because recording studios would have red bulbs to signify that something was being recorded or broadcasted, adding one more level to that anachronism
That's true in more ways than one. In recording studios, there's usually a red light on the door so that outsiders know when recording is in progress and can avoid interrupting. Red is the universal color for "stop" and "do not enter", so it makes sense to use it on those indicators. The recording device itself also often has a red light to indicate when it's active, probably just because red is a distinctive color that is very visible.
One other symbol I thought of is the red and white horseshoe-shaped magnet.
I don't think I've ever actually seen a magnet in this specific shape and colours.
I think it was because it was one of the first magnet designs to be mass produced in the 19th century.
I have, but only in a classroom setting
Or like how "Log Off" on websites where one needs an account is often depicted as an arrow pointing out a door. When the Metaverse takes over, we'll be talking about how going outside is a sentimentalised anachronism.
I have a suspicion that while the Metaverse might get the ball rolling for constant virtual simulation it'll ultimately fail.
Might be wrong on that, but it seems like the technology is missing some key points especially aesthetically that'll make it more annoying to use then just doing the real life equivalent activity at least for awhile.
It'll be interesting when VR actually gets to the point where it's compelling to use instead of coercive(forced usage due to financial interests), but I hope it's not 'Meta' that accomplishes that and I don't think it will be.
But yeah it'll be interesting to see what symbolic anachronisms pop up in VR in the coming years.
You can already live in virtual reality. VR, MMORPGs etc still exist. I really doubt that this one will make everyone live in virtual reality. That's just not how human nature works, and I'm glad for that.
@@gamermapper True, and some would argue that many already basically live in virtual reality through cell phones.
Meta is just too ugly aesthetically and too tainted by the past to be some visionary emergent technological revolution.
MMO's are a great counter example to Meta's business model.
A lot of the design philosophy of MMOs is in visual spectacle, escapism and community.
Why would I use a technology to simulate the most drab and boring aspects of my life like Meta, when I can just do them in real life?
What does Meta offer me in terms of escapism that a good MMO or a platform like VR-chat doesn't already do better?
Nothing.
If Meta becomes big it'll be because they paid every conceivable company necessary to FORCE it to become big; huge amounts of money.
And I think that will leave them vulnerable to a better alternative.
Would be very interesting to see a video on the topic of Stars as symbols. Everything from religious to political and cultural uses, such as the Star of David, Socialist Red/Golden Star, Stars to represent celebrity, Hollywood and so on. I find it fascinating that a symbol can have so many vastly different and ubiquitous uses.
I can’t believe how informative and intriguing your videos are! I’ve recommended you to so many people because you can appeal to essentially everyone. I look forward to the next!
I am Italian and I do find our national coat of arms (or emblem) to be quite odd as well. I understand the symbolism and the overall simplicity in comparison to other nations, but when I think of Italy I do not think about a gear and a star. I think the Italian regions for the most part have traditional symbols that better represent the culture and the history of the people, such as Saint Mark's Lion for Veneto (where Venice is), Saint Ubaldo's Ceri for Umbria, the Four Moorsor for Sardinia, and the Gorgoneion Head for Sicily to mention a few. As usual awesome video JJ, love form Italy!
even the shield used in our naval ensign is a good symbol for us to use
To be frank, as a non-Italian, if you say “Italy” to me, I think of exotic machines (Ferrari, Lamborghini, Ducati) and leather.
So the gear actually made sense to me.
I think our coat of arms is actually quite cool. Everyone else has eagles/dragons/horses/whatever, ours is distinctive and unique and I like that it isn't as cluttered as some of the others.
I mean the reason is because it's done in the Socialist Heraldic style, hence red ribbons framed by stalks of plant with an industrial cogwheel. I love it a lot more than the Kingdom-era emblem.
@@roman.ia.empire I much prefer the kingdom-era emblem, because it actually was representative of italy's government. Italy isn't socialist, so it need not use the socialist emblem style
What about hand symbols/signals. For example to signal someone to “roll down” their car window we will move our hand in a circular motion like the old manual windows.
It's a lot more obvious of a signal than miming a button push.
@@AaronOfMpls of course, this is just one example. But, if you were born in the 2000s you might never have seen a manual window so the origin of the circular motion could be very confusing.
Another example would be the hand signal for a phone. Thumb and pinkie fingers extended to ear and mouth. That’s not how kids today would imagine a phone.
I'm really enjoying these videos exploring common symbolism and signs that I at least take for granted.
Only common abstraction of a symbol that I still could never fully grasp was the men at work sign. I blame paddington for making me always think of a guy opening an umbrella when I see one
The red recording light is itself a representation of the red lightbulb that was switched on outside a recording booth to stop people entering while recording was happening, and that itself derived from the red light used to process photographs, where to prevent people entering and destroying the work in progress, red lightbulbs were put up outside as well as inside the developing room.
I always thought it was interesting that the coat of arms of eastern germany incorporated a pair of compasses to represent the importance of academia as well as the working class
North Korean communist symbol has brush for intelligentsia.
This guy gives us facts that we didn’t even know we needed
One symbol I thought of is the 'no horn' symbol used on road signs. It depicts an old manual horn that you need to squeeze the spherical end to blow. The last time I saw them used was on old auto rickshaws in India a decade ago. Though I've seen some making a resurgence as a vintage-ish bicycle horn for children.
I keep one of those handy for goosing old ladies.
It’s also kind of interesting to think about how the general tech aesthetic has evolved over time. Obviously there’s concrete factors involved, like how screen resolution got better, but there’s also some less tangible stuff like how apps move around on a phone screen as you navigate between them. I’ve heard rumors that young kids are more inclined to think about “tapping” buttons on screen than “clicking” them. Also, we call the clicky-boxes “buttons.” Keyboard buttons even have tactile feedback and clicking sounds, but this isn’t very popular and (in my mind) is associated mostly with older folks who don’t care to know how to turn that setting off.
I think the clicking sounds are really interesting because I just turned them on to type this comment and it doesn’t sound at all like it’s trying to mimic mechanical noise. It is instead an intentionally-designed clicking noise played through a speaker. This is also true of the digitally-controlled turn signal indicators in cars. The computer mechanism that turns the light on and off isn’t audible like it is in entirely mechanical cars, since physically making and breaking an electrical connection requires quick and solid contact between two pieces of metal. This is why light switches sound like they do, and the resemblance to a light switch is probably why toggle buttons in some interfaces make a clicky noise too.
I've actually never thought about settings being depicted as gears before, even though I see it all the time, and now that you've pointed it out I realize how strange it is.
Also, funny how at 2:20 all of the phones that come up have that phone receiver on their interface. Really shows the staying power of that symbol.
The settings gear gets very meta. it's for changing the settings in the code, by (metaphysically) re-aranging the gears of the machine, to get it to work differently. Of course the 'machine' is software now, and not hardware..
Are the symbols we have ingrained into the internet stuck forever, or will they consistently change while still being a few decades behind?
I think they'll probably last forever, or at least a long time.
I’d say stuck forever, since as generations go on, they learn that these are the symbols for specific things. They’re internationally recognizable as well so pretty much everyone knows them. My grandma, me (a young adult) and even my baby cousin know the phone symbol despite all being different generations.
I think they will last for a while but not forever. Eventually the symbols will be so dated that no one will understand the logic behind them.
Some like the recording symbol will likely stay along but others, like the phone symbol will be updated eventually. Likely when as good as anyone who used a cord phone is dead and the phones once again have changed shape.
Once a symbol is universally understood, it tends to stick because introducing something new will cause confusion. UI creators want to avoid confusion at all cost.
Speaking of phones, the "phone call" hand signal changes depending on the age of the person doing it, with older people doing the thumb and little finger hand signal, and younger people using their flat palm. I've always used the hand shape I'd use if I was holding an early 2000s mobile, so I'm somewhere in the middle.
And, in the UK Political Comics I read at least, the Steve Jobs-style jumper is a symbol of the rich as well.
I would love to see a video on the sound of music in different countries. Not direct cultural references within the lyrics, but the more abstract "cultural sounds", perhaps more prominent in different countries folk music.
When playing strategy games with guns and missiles, the fight or attack icon is usually depicted by two crossed swords despite the fact that swords were outdated long before the advent of video games, and even past that the sword was a sidearm with polearms typically being the main weapon a soldier would hold.
To be fair, swords are pretty common in games, way more common than in real life.
this is not a case of being outdated. modern fantasy games use swords, because they're "fantasy"
My cousin said once "Isn't this a save thingy." about a floppy disc so yeah, kids say that stuff sometimes.
💾
A symbology idea would be to review traffic signs. Especially European ones, which are highly symbolic, in contrast to the more verbose American ones.
I think it's fun to talk about hand gestures. There is often a lot complicated history regarding the origins of common hand gestures.
I watched a youtube video about architecture, that buildings usually have to go through a period of being outdated (and of the chance of being destroyed) before becoming iconic landmarks. So I wonder if this can be translated into symbols as well. When CDs became wide spread, maybe the floppy disk symbol felt outdated -- and at the risk of being replaced, but with time it became "iconic".
I would like to point out some symbols to represent ordinary things that aren't part of the reality of some countries. For exemple, because of the large importation of media from the US, it is common to see bungalows as house representations and apple trees to represent a generic trees here in Brazil, even though there is none of that here, but everyone understand the meaning behind that symbols.
You don't have single storey houses in Brazil?
@@NumberUp1 we do, but most of the time they don't follow a kind of patern and even if they'd follow you wouldn't be able to see most of it, because the large majority of houses have big walls around it because of the violence...
@@frere02 that took a turn I was not expecting
I always thought of these symbols as a kind of logogram, a part of a larger logographic language.
eg: The pencil/pen symbol is so iconic that if I make a new photo editing/illustrating app and used different symbols, it would be a UI sUIcide. I take this to mean that what reinforces these symbols are the people who sort of understand this language and keep propagating it. It is also quite useful.
Again, some of these symbols are also culture specific (cultures that never had access to cars until single keys became the norm, or the 'female restroom' icon - in addition to it being somewhat dated). So it is interesting to think how they are understood in other cultures where women wouldn't usually dress that way. I guess in that sense, this Anglic logographic language set has far more influence now in other cultures.
What if the phone icon looks like that because the thing it is referencing was *literally* just a phone, and not a computer, GPS, audio player, and camera all in one? What if the "unprotected campfire" is used because it references "you can have a fire here" instead of "you can have a fire here as long as you are a responsible person who always digs a pit, surrounds it in bricks, and douses it with a bucket of water when you are done... also I guess this is a camp site"?
I had to get up and check my passport because I never noticed the gear in the symbol. Thanks Canadian man for teaching me something on my own country!
As a sciences student, I see the way math and equations and often entire whitepapers are represented in an anachronistic fashion: always with a serif font with a Times New Roman vibe, recreating what XVII-XVIII mathematicians did on their manuscripts, that also recreated what the ancient romans or greeks did when carving out letters on stone.
Something I find interesting is when a certain look makes a comeback due to an anachronism. For instance, the US Army abandoned the WW2 era pink-and-green dress uniforms until recently when they were re-issued. For the entire time they were out of use, high ranking officers (especially generals) would be depicted in those uniforms (or something approximating them).
It would have been good to mention that every single letter we use in our alphabet started out as an icon, which morphed into a symbol, which became more and more abstract, to the point where they’re no longer recognized as symbols at all anymore.
So we might predict that current symbols and emojis will likewise evolve thru this morphing process where they too will reach a stage where they’re no longer recognizable as symbols or icons.
there's a word for simple, minimalist, abstracted symbol representations of real world things. they're called icons. you don't draw a house, you draw a house icon; smartphones use a phone, they use a phone icon; 3:50 that is not a paint can, it's the icon of a paint can. icons like these are so ingrained in culture they become archetypal: iconic. they are easily replicated, and people do all the time, creating their own along the way: iconography.
10:35 might be pronounced Null Point
also, thank you for teaching me a new word: Semiotics. i didn't know symbols had three "methods of attack": Semiotics, Symbology, and Symbolism. over all, great video. education perfected.
I am 21 years old. At around age 6 or 7, in 2006 or so, I was shown a floppy disk in kindergarten. We were being taught how to use computers and the teacher had one even though it was long out of use to show what the save icon was supposed to be. So I was introduced to both the save icon and s floppy disc at the same time. Years later, in college, I had a classmate about my age who didn't know what the save icon was.
Then why do they pick the "floppy" that isn't, in the descriptive sense ,"floppy". In the 90s in high school they told me to bring a floppy. I brought a floppy kind floppy. The teacher took off points because he wanted what I mistakenly called "a hard disk", because I heard the term a hard disk before and thought that it was a hard disk. It was a disk, and its texture is hard. So even the name 'floppy" in the 90s was an anachronism
@@jackofallgamesTV Because the disc inside is floppy. Unlike a hard drive where it's a hard metal plate.
As a current computer science major in my final year of University, one topic that is emphasized when designing interfaces is symbols and metaphors. Both of these things need to be recognizable by as many people as possible. Metaphors being important because they allow someone to intuitively connect it to a real world item. This is useful when guiding a user through pages of any type of interface and it is important for users to understand how to use a application or physical device without having to highlight each step, a keyboard is a metaphor for a typewriter, a cursor is a metaphor for a hand, and a computer desktop is a metaphor for well, a real life desk. But this comes with its problems as most of the time things don't have perfect metaphors and this causes mismatches such as a recycle/trash bin being on a desktop when normally it is on the floor or word processors have more functionality than a typewriter like auto-line wrapping spell check, and more. While I wouldn't call them visual anachronisms they are more of a conceptual anachronism.
These are all related to the topics of User mental model and affordance.
My favourite skeumorph is "click whirr" of a digital camera, as the film is wound on for the next exposure.
I've not heard the "3d printed save button", but have heard "click on the little symbol of a television to save", and that was from a teacher back in the days when floppy disks were still used, so perhaps the icon was a little too abstract even in its day.
I still want you to make that video about the corrupt maple syrup industry.
Well I'm not going to.
@@JJMcCullough Damn.
@@squeaky9715 it's no use, he's part of the SSS (sweet sticky syndicate)
I guess it's weird to try figuring out what most symbols originally were. For example, the power button symbol. I think it looks like it was maybe representing a key hole, but honestly a circle with a line in it is really vague of a choice. Maybe make a video where you figure out what some of the more abstract symbols originally were?
Great idea
I always thought it was maybe a finger pressing a button
I always saw the classic power on/off button as a simplified electrical circuit, the whole circle as a complete circuit and the line as a break in the circuit.
@@JJMcCullough It seems to be a combination of | and O (on and off), perhaps inspired by 1 and 0?
Many slide or bridge switches have a I and a O on each side, those just have both compressed onto the same button
I remember using A-frame tents to go camping, though I suppose that was 8 or so years ago now. I feel like they are still pretty common. Plus, while there are a few more steps in their set-up, I usually feel like they're nice and sturdy.
The Eureka Timberline Outfitter tents are still pretty common at Scouting, summer camps, and outfitters because they can take a lot of abuse. With the current focus on weight, they've fallen out of fashion with backpackers though.
i really like those follow-up videos you make with input from the community, they are always very fun and a good way to understand some different realities
National symbols would be an interesting video, in the civilization franchise all civs are represented by symbols, like maple leaf for canada and the eye of horus for egypt . The way of symbols are the biggest way of representing a country besides a flag, yet not as many countries have a clear cut symbol
Does Egypt still use that?
@@JJMcCullough I think they used the ankh cross in the design of Egypt's new capital.
@@JJMcCullough no but it’s that image of Egypt in the ancient age that’s the most popular, also sometimes Egypt in media is shown as still being ancient for some reason, kind of like a fleur-de-lis for France
@@JJMcCullough You should make a video on the (ironically often-excessive) use of the maple leaf in Canada; a country not known for displaying patriotism
Part of this is also probably due to the fact that it’s hard to describe things like a call on a cell phone or an eMail. Having a universal symbol that accurately represents the idea that is being conveyed is a convenience that would be hard to find an alternative for.
My favourite is the quill and parchment. We haven't used them for hundreds of years but they still represent writing
I'd be interested in learning more about symbols that have changed meaning or connotation based on culture shift or usage by particular groups (the most famous example being a swastika).
That reminds me of playing as a child the original 1987 Legend of Zelda game where one of the dungeon maps was clearly swatzika-shaped. I'd much later learn that the same shape is also the Buddhist/Hindu manji which is a symbol still commonly used in Asian cultures (of course, the game was developed in Japan).
I still say "rewind" , even though nothing needs to be physically rewound around a spool, in order for me back up ten seconds on a video.
This was lovely and really nerdy (in a wonderful way) :) Since I love languages and symbols, it's always great to see something like this in a relatively comprehensive way.
Funny enough, when JJ was talking about the hammer and sickle, my thoughts went immediately to the Italian coat of arms (being half-italian myself) and in the next minute, voilà! :D
I'd love to see you do a video on an aspect of African culture. African cultures have long been an interest of mine, and while I know you prefer to discuss Western cultures, it would be cool to see your take on this topic. Does anyone else think so?
When you mentioned hammer and sickle I instantly thought of the common symbol used in mining industry, that is a hammer and a pick. Even though drills and explosives have been the main mining tools for centuries, this symbol remains basically unchanged since the middle ages, it may well be the oldest industrial icon still in use.
I wonder if any of these anachronisms will even evolve beyond their current point, given that in the computer age everything is so abstract that physically representing one thing as distinct from another is basically impossible. A phone call, an EMail, and a video chat are all basically identical processes now, just the exchange of data across a virtual network, and that is a process so difficult to conceptualise that I can't imagine how you would communicate it visually without referencing some physical and outdated equivalent, or creating and teaching some entirely new visual language for them.
I like how he tries to tell us that envelopes are woefully outdated lol.
People still get mail. Maybe not as much as we used to, but you ask a kid what an envelope is, and he'll know, even if he doesn't know what a floppy disc is.
@@Chris_Cross Exactly. Even if mail-by-envelope these days is less and less important things like bills and more and more just vehicles for mail-out spam, people do still send letters and cards sometimes, particularly Christmas cards, which are still a popular thing to send and receive.
Great video loved to see all the comments about this so interesting topic.
In a similar way that the top hat is often used as a symbol of the upper class the flat cap is often used to represent the working class
Another example would be how Theater is always represented with a happy mask and a sad mask, referencing how Ancient Greek was always done with these exaggerated masks with a clear emotion on it. Nowadays theater doesn’t really use masks all that often but it’s always represented using the two masks.
I wonder if that symbol was actually used in Greek times or if it's a fauxthentic symbol.
@@JJMcCullough Well the usage of masks in greek theater is certainly authentic, they even have names, Melpomene (Muse of tragedy) and Thalia (muse of comedy). As for their usage as a symbol to represent theater, I think the need to use symbols to represent things at all has really only taken off the in the modern capitalistic age with branding and design. I don’t know how often symbols of any kind were that useful in the past.
@@JJMcCullough That's an interesting question because it suggests there might be cases where a real object only became repurposed as an icon long after it stopped being used in real life.
@@MrBrendan882 didnt pompei have coins with different sexual services printed on them?