The Inexcusable Awfulness of US State Flags

Yes, it's another flag related post, immediately after the last one. But this one also involves mocking America, so it's cool.

In today's lesson we'll be seeing how American state flags are generally among the most ill-conceived and hideous designs in the history of vexillology. Most of them are just plain awful, with astonishingly lazy, crowded, and/or eye-watering designs.

American state flags have an odd little history, which is to say that most of them have none at all. More than half the states in the union had their flags designed during the latter part of the nineteenth century through to the early part of the twentieth. They were mostly invented through a contest and destroyed through a committee. Those that were not were instead adopted through the simple method of shoving the state's seal onto a plain blue background and writing the name of the state next to it in large, child-friendly letters, just in case the citizens of the state didn't know where they were.

Here's a map to illustrate my problem with these abominations:

If your state borders Canada, its flag is probably shit.

All states shaded in green have writing on their flag. All of them! There are four levels of transgression:

• Very pale green states have writing on their flag in the form of a motto or other vaguely excusable form.
• States in mute mid-green have the name of the state on the flag.
• The more lurid green shows states whose flags display the state's great seal (featuring writing), but not the state's name.
• Dark green indicates states that literally did what I jokingly implied above: pasted their seal along with the state's name and called it a day. Tossers.

You might wonder why this bothers me so much. There are many reasons why. For a start, a flag is not a book. Nor should a flag be so poorly designed that you actually have to tell people what it represents on the flag. seals are what bother me the most. There's an implication that a flag should be a fabric version of logo, but that's not the case. Flags should be easily recognisable, be capable of being drawn by children, and be evocative. The other good reason why this is a bad idea is that the flag should look absolutely fine when the wind is blowing in the opposite direction. Think about that one, Michigan!

(Oregon gets around this by having a different image on each side of its flag, thereby getting two for the price of one. Both are irredeemably ghastly.)

Yet there are more stupid things about US state flags. The flag of Alabama is required by law to have a red saltire (a big X) that's no less than six inches wide. That's right: an Alabaman flag on a coffee mug would have a cross on it larger than the mug itself. Welp.

To quantify their utter godawfulness, I've mapped out US states by how much they disprove the existence of a loving god.

As you go further south, flags become more attractive. This is the only thing that becomes better in the south.

I've quantified the flags with a score of 0 to 16 depending on how much blood poured out of my eyes when I looked at them. An ideal flag (not necessarily an attractive one) gets a score of 0. Flags gain points based on several factors: more than one star, because they're just so overused in US flags; writing, sorted by the severity of the offence; state seals; and awful colour choices. Oregon gains a point for the reason described above. Nevada gains one for having a violent motto. Good God, America, for shame.

And it really is a shame. The US national flag, despite criticism by ... er, critics, is actually pretty good in my opinion. And the flags that got a score of 0 are generally excellent (well done New Mexico). I should point out though that my scoring was not based on whether or not I personally liked them (otherwise the map would be almost entirely red), but on a fair and impartial system based on my own opinions for what makes a flag that isn't so bad that it's unworthy to even serve as toilet paper.

Check out The Flag Designer (abandoned) or Welcome to America for some alternative proposed state maps. I may well design a few myself. I think I have an idea for Vermont's that doesn't involve fire.

2009 Flaggy Awards

Hey kids! It’s that special time of the year where we look back on the most notable flags of sovereign states from the past twelve months and recognise them for their most notable achievements. Remember such classics as the flag of Vanuatu, the flag of Vietnam, and the flag of Kiribati? Neither did I. Here are some much more memorable flags instead.

Bangladesh: Most Eye-Watering	Bhutan: Most Ripped From a Fantasy Movie
Chad: Most Similar to Romania	China: Most Ironic
Croatia: Most Containing a Better Flag	Cyprus: Most Geographical
France: Most French	Haiti: Most Badly Photoshopped
Lebanon: Most Unintenionally Christmassy	Libya: Most Green
Macendonia: Most Inviting to Snipers	Mozambique: Most Violent
Nepal: Most Intentionally Awkward	Romania: Most Similar to Chad
Saint Lucia: Most Corporate	Somalia: Most Likely Temporary
Switzerland: Most Square	Turkmenistan: Most Carpeted
Uganda: Most Cocky	United States: Most Often on Fire

Medieval Germans Were Fuckin' Metal

The image above is a display of the arms of the member states of the Holy Roman Empire - a political entity mostly covering Germany (and other German-speaking lands) during the medieval period and the Renaissance. It was a loose confederation of many tiny, forgettable kingdoms. And they invented metal album art.

Pffft, amateurs.

Just look at that thing! That double-headed eagle transcends heraldic stuffiness and launches itself into a completely other world. It's a creature right out of hell - but it's a distinguished hell. Sure, the night-black mutated monstrosity does have crimson eyes that open directly into a realm of flame and torture and nightmarish huge joker grins from which ghastly blood-coloured tongues emerge to lap pure sin from your wounds. Sure, it's got claws so hooked and unnaturally vicious that they could rip a man's heart out in a moment, and the whole thing is so dark and terrifying that it somehow manages to eclipse the image of the savior of mankind nailed to a piece of wood and left to die that has been laid over it. But let us not forget: it also has crowns. And halos.

And -- holy shit -- are those flaming meteors with crowns or something?

Unfortunately it would be some five hundred years before anyone wrote music that would be benefiting of such hardcore artwork, not to mention the entire concept of an album at all. But you can tell that they were definitely heading in the right direction. Kudos, Holy Roman Empire. Rock on.

Pokémon Platinum

Ah, Pokémon!

It means so much to so many people, but to me it means "guilty pleasure". It has all the shame of Twilight without the domestic abuse, and all the embarrassing awfulness of one of Monty Python's billions of unmemorable sketches, only without a good one to follow up on. And yet somehow it just keeps pulling me back, seducing me with its perfectly geometrical hairstyles, single-genus ecosystems, and the ability to name your rival "Douche".

Pokémon Platinum (Game Freak, 2008) is the third of the so-called "Generation IV" Pokémon games. I'm going to assume there is no-one left alive on the planet who is still unfamiliar with the Pokémon franchise. Even the marmoset-eating Amazonians who have yet to lay eyes on anyone from outside the jungle are probably at least getting the anime by now. However, since they probably haven't yet played the games (it will take a while before even original Game Boys work their way up river), I'll give a brief overview:

Pokémon games are essentially very stripped-down top-down RPGs. They make streamlining something of an art. "Epic stories?" asketh the games. "Bullshit! Want to know what your objective is? To catch 'em all, that's what. Why? Fuck you, that's why!" And oddly enough, that works. You start the game and set up your character, choosing your gender, name, and first Pokémon very quickly. From then on the game-world will bombard you with encouragement to go out and capture and train Pokémon. The entire world, as it appears, is utterly obsessed with the idea. Not once on your journeys will you meet anyone who doesn't adore Pokémon. You won't even meet anyone who even feels ambivalent about them. No; the whole world loves Pokémon and expects you to as well. Indeed, if anyone asks you and you get a rare "yes/no" dialogue option you can rest assured that the "no" response will link you right back to "yes".

It's hard to resist that kind of enthusiasm, but in case you can the game also uses a dozen techniques to make the process addictive as hell. For a start you receive a Pokédex which logs all the different kinds of Pokémon you receive or see. It's surprising how easily it will drive you to scour the long grass (where wild Pokémon attack) looking for each and every last type that could possibly appear in any given area. But there are also subtler systems are work: for example, each Pokémon has one or more "types" -- fire, flying, rock, etc. -- which define its elemental or physical traits, and there's something of a rock-paper-scissors system at work there, with certain types being weak or strong to other types. Successful trainers pretty much require a good variety of critters at their disposal. This not only ensures that you go out of your way to enslave new party members, but you also end up putting a lot of work in training them up, ensuring that you then spend a lot of time away from the story grinding away. Having the oppertunity to expand your little army, however, turns it from grinding into plain good fun.

The reason why I'm taking the time to talk about gameplay that's been consistent and unchanged in thirteen years is precisely because it's been consistent and unchanged in thirteen years. You could look at any review of Platinum Edition and it will almost certainly fail to talk about the gameplay in-depth, because the underlying system is identical to how it was over a decade ago. And not just the base system: many of the stats for various Pokémon and moves are identical, or have had only minor changes. The story, likewise, has been relatively unchanged over the years. You still come from a backwards little town where you live with your single mum, and a professor lives nearby who gives you your first Pokémon. You still advance through eight gyms where you earn badges to compete in the league. You still face off against a rival, and battle a villainous yet incompetent crime syndicate.

To put it bluntly, Nintendo's found a winning formula and they are utterly unwilling to replace or modify it. Sure, there are a few new features here: there's a day/night system based on the DS's clock, effecting which Pokémon come out in the wild when. There're some neat wireless tools I've yet to try out. So on, so forth. But you could remove any new feature without in any way affecting the overall game.

And nowhere is this unwillingness to change more evident than in the use of the DS's technology. Bear in mind that both Pokémon and the DS are made by Nintendo. Pokémon (and especially Platinum) are something of flagship games for the console, and you would expect that they'd make excellent use of the touchscreen built into the bottom of the console. Well, for the first hour or so of my gaming experience the bottom screen showed mostly this:

Pictured: efficient use of screen space.

That! Using up my power, no less! For ages I had absolutely nothing but a static boring image taking up the lower screen of my DS. What a waste. And what do I get later on, when I acquire the much touted Pokétch?

&^)*^&*)%!!!

Yes, it's a watch. And not just any watch! Pokétch comes with many useless apps, like a pedometer, something to listen to the noise each of your Pokémon make, and other such rubbish. It's a total waste of the technology at hand. Granted, the touch screen is used for combat, and you can use it to scroll through functions in your inventory or Pokédex, but that's hardly much, and for the latter you'd be better off just using the arrow pad, since you'll be using it anyway. In the mean time every menu and bit of dialogue shows up on the top screen, requiring you to use conventional controls to use them. The conventional response here is along the lines of "what the fuck!?" Would it be too much to ask for Nintendo to make use of the technology it's invested in?

Just for shits and giggles, here's how I feel the lower screen should look:

Voilá! The menu is now centered around the same silly Pokétch that was there previously, only now it obsoletes the X button and is easier to access. And for an added bonus there's enough room for a dialogue box at the top. How hard was that?

To be fair, Pokémon Platinum is far from a bad game. It's addictive, fun and innocent. But it'd really fails to use the technology at hand, and it's really short of any innovation. I think that after more than a decade we should be entitled to something at least slightly new from Nintendo.