A Pixel Of #d3d3d3 Gray

Pixel art, to which this shirt gives a hand-wavy homage, has enjoyed a surge of popularity in the 2010s. From music videos …

To video games …

To the world-consuming multimedia behemoth that is Minecraft …

You can’t turn around without bumping your head against the hard, unforgiving corner of a pixel. Google even named their flagship phone after the things, despite creating an HD display that does its best to hide them from sight.

Pop culture has, surprisingly, embraced the pixel.

We say “surprisingly” because the pixel was (until recently) a technical problem that needed to be overcome, not a stylistic choice. Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario, gave the iconic character a mustache because it was easier to represent than a mouth with 8-bit graphics. That digital artists today intentionally limit the resolution of their images would come as a shock to those slaving in the 8-bit pits of the 1980s and 90s.

Photographers of the early 20th century would likewise be shocked to learn that people were still using black and white film longer after the advent of color photos. The iconic B&W photographer Ansel Adams took some color shots in his day, but disliked them so much he forbade posthumous publication of them. That’s like Miyamoto forbidding posthumous programming of unpixelated Marios.

The wheel of nostalgia turns so quickly, kids now will probably repopularize the pixel in the 2040s because it harkens back to the glory days of Minecraft. Will they even understand that their nostalgia comes second-hand? Will they care? Or will they have perished in one of the looming human-caused global catastrophes?

Even if humanity is decimated in the coming decades by nuclear war, climate change, or the Great Self-Driving Car Uprising, the humble pixel will likely survive, like cockroaches. And, like cockroaches, where you see 1 pixel, there are 8,847,359 others you don’t.