Icons on chess.com

A member of my group posted this on our group forum and I wanted to pass it on.  She has a good point.

Has anyone noticed that all of the member icons on Chess.com represent white males?   No women, no people of color.  Examples include the Online Coaching selection under the Learn menu, and the Groups & Teams, Members and Invite Friends selections under the Share menu.  These are menus that you see when you go in directly through Chess.com, vs. through Facebook.   I wonder what people might think of this.

p.s.  Also chesskid.com

No I had not noticed. Unfortunately this game is dominated by males. Tournaments are 99% male. Things are slowly changing. Women were not encouraged to follow the sciences nor seek a career. That has totally changed. Hopefully more women will eventually learn and enjoy chess.

Why does the 'online coaching' icon have a shirt with a collar and buttons but all the other icons are wearing a t-shirt?   Is that some kind of subtle attempt at indicating that coaches are of a different socio-economic class than mere players?   

And why don't the icons in the drop-down menus at the top have faces?   That's . . . ..that's . . . .well, I don't know what you'd call it, but that's something that I'm against, I'll tell you that much!

chess.com has icons?  Blasphemous.

At least they don't spell it ikons.

This is horrible.  Since those icons were obviously meant to be as realistic as possible, people are going to conclude that all of chess.com's coaches are either double-amputees or Thalidimide babies with only partially formed arms.  And no faces, either!

Guilty.

I've always interpreted this sign to mean "Avoid extremities":

And btw isn't this juxtaposition a wee bit cruel?...

How do you suppose that fellow's head stays in position when it's not attached by anything?

Either he's wearing a Black Mass collar or he's dotted.

<=

Okay so there's one, big deal!  Probably just a token one offered up by the International White Males Society.

If you want my opinion (and of course, you don't, but let's not get into the intricacies right now), Natalia is about as real as North Dakota, and nobody is convincing me North Dakota is real.  Has anyone here ever met anyone from North Dakota?  Yeah, I thought not.

I always thought it was West Virginia that was the hoax state.  There's only one Virginia, and that's Virginia.

There is, however, a Santa Clause, as Virginia well knows.

I think you've hit the tip of the iceberg here - take it a step further. Have you ever seen her in the same room with anyone from North Dakota?   You either see one or the other, but never both - coincidence???   Think about it - who stands to gain from this situation???   Chess.com of course - also factor in the faceless, armless icons they use in their dropdown menus and you start to get the picture!   I fear I've said too much already . . . .

All I know is that it's real cold.  I once saw a guy from there who said it got down to 80 below!  Assuming of course that he was from there (or that there is even a there to be from).

However, I do think of Natalia as being a good deal more real than North Dakota.  There is however one rather peculiar facet about her though (in addition to the fact that she frequently plays chess with herself)...despite appearances, her name is not actually pronounced Po-go-NEE-nah (don't ever say it that way, or she'll get mad).

As a resident of North Dakota, I can affirm that we exist.