Too many complaints. So I had to let him go.

I thought my avatar was energetic, whimsical, and a sure sign I wasn’t taking myself all too seriously.

It echoes the way I often make funny faces when people insist on putting me in photos. People have even requested that face, and the older of my friends say it fondly reminds them of the Mortimer Snerd.

Alas, family and friends insisted, without any mincing of their words or attempts at subtlety, that I take down the accursed avatar. They only have my best interests at heart, certainly, and their concern revolves around how others, who don’t know me or my senses of humor, might get the wrong impression.

Ah, let me see if I can fish up some of their arguments, without naming names or nothin’, cause it’s not about that.

Here’s a real gem:

I have to say I hate that goofy photo of you. I know you like it but I cannot stand to see you look that way. It almost looks like you are making fun of disfigured people and just think that at some point it might hurt your career as an artist. There are thousands of people who look like that and cannot help it but you are a normal person and this is just upsetting me to see you like that. Lets assume you get an interview someplace and people figure out you do not look that way in real life I think it might backfire.

This one is restrained, but to the point:

I’d ditch the goofy profile pic and replace it with something else (a logo or something if you don’t want it to be a pic of you).

This one is also to the point, but unrestrained as the wind:

You look like a retard. People will think you’re a special person.

Considering how often I deliberately ruin photos (I plead to not be in them to begin with), there are precious few, and among those fewer still where I look decent at all. Incidentally, living in Asia, where barbers or hairdressers or whatever often don’t speak English, my hairstyle is usually the problem. Therefore I’ve chosen to use a section of a self-portrait digital painting I did. It looks much, much more somber and serious, since that’s what people seem to expect of artists. I am now no longer zany, but gloomily intense.

Ah oh!

Fist response was a telephone call that started with, “Why are you so angry?!”  The new image has been compared to a “serial killer”. Which reminds me that someone once compared me in that piece to Sylar, the supremely evil dude, from Heroes.

Guess I’ll keep this one for a while then switch it out later.

Just for the record, though, which one do you prefer? Mortimer Snerd or Sylar?

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