Picrew is a Japanese avatar maker website that began in 2018. The site is especially popular in the LGBT+ community, particularly among transgender people, as well as younger people unable to afford a custom profile picture commission. However, it has also gained an infamous reputation of being associated with embarrassing "hot take" tweets, due to a stereotype of ill-informed young people on Twitter as having Picrew avatars. One such artist, Park "Sangled" Sang-hee, had to set her Picrew to private as a result of harassment she received over her Picrew's overexposure.
Access Picrew in Japanese here or in English here.
Picrew contains examples of:
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Though most human Picrews include realistic skin tones, a few offer more unusual options such as green, blue or purple skin. Unfortunately, some only include Caucasian and unnatural tones at the expense of darker skin tones.
- Animal Eyes: Catlike eyes are usually the most common example featured.
- Black Bead Eyes: An option for eyes in some Picrews, the only option in others.
- Black Dot Pupils: Common in Western-made Picrews.
- Blood from Every Orifice: A fairly common option for facial accessories, often with a thumbnail containing a Content Warning.
- Body Horror: Some Picrews have options such as More Teeth than the Osmond Family, Extra Eyes (see below).
- Extra Eyes: A few Picrews have this option. A set of three eyes is the most common variation.
- Eyeless Face: You can actually do this if the creator left in the remove option on the tab for eyes.
- Fun T-Shirt: If there are T-shirts in a Picrew, it's guaranteed there'll be an option for these. It's more common in Western Picrews than in Japanese ones.
- Holy Halo: An accessory option in several Picrews.
- Horns of Villainy: Just as common as the above trope and basically the demonic counterpart. However, the characters being designed with this option may not be intended to be villains, so it's not exactly an example of this trope.
- Queer Colors: Pride flag backgrounds are especially common, though some Picrews include subtler options for pride colors.
- Virtual Paper Doll: What Picrew basically is.
- Wingding Eyes: Available in some Picrews. Spiral eyes are especially common.
- World of Technicolor Hair: Many, many Picrews have unnatural hair colour options.
