In response to the articles "In Defense of Wapuu" and "Wapuu Slaps: A Manifesto" that surfaced online defending the Wapuu, against our article: Has Wapuu Outlived Its Usefulness? A Critique of the WordPress Mascot and Community Decline, we wanted to provide our response.
Afteractive's article was simply a way to ask people to give some thought about it, maybe even bring about some change. And at the very least let everyone know that their cute yellow blob character is not something everyone cares about. It's design has failed to help the community, and that developers are leaving for other stacks regardless of what it symobolizes. At most WordCamps I’ve been to, people have been confused about the Wapuus' existence.
The realization for us is that the platform is not moving in the direction that best fits all of our clients' needs. It's that simple. I’ve also looked back at all of the WordCamps I’ve attended and sponsored and realized something else. No one talks the Wapuu seriously. WordCamps have died out since 2020, and no one knows what it is anyways. And everyone I’ve spoken with has flat-out laughed about it. I am only sharing the sentiments that apparently, no one has ever said publicly. Why do we have to pretend to like something? Let's be honest, no one really loves that chubby yellow blob. Chris argues in 'In Defense of Wapuu" that Drupal and PHP both have lovable mascots. As a former Drupal developer, who has attended Drupalcon events, the Druplicon is seen as an icon, not a mascot. It's not the same. I think it's out of place in this conversation.
My article sounds contradictory because I am a WordPress developer too, and I am conflicted myself and I also needed to explain what it was to nearly everyone as well, or rather what it is supposed to be. I had both positive and negative things to say about Wapuu. I'll also argue that I made the same good points about the Wapuu and I gave the credit where the credit was due.
On our blog, we talk a lot of the failures of WordPress and the plugins made for it, the challenges and frustrations in dealing with it both from a developer's point-of-view and a client's point-of-view. Wapuu perfectly reflects WordPress and is a great metaphor. But in this case, it's ironic how the best part of Wapuu—the customization, is also the best part of WordPress, but the downside of it as well. Some websites we inherit are unrecognizable from the last one. Everyone attempts to customize their own WordPress admin and the way plugins all have different UI designs leads to inconsistent interfaces. Clients complain about this all the time as the worst part of WordPress. When we talk about other CMS's we praise their efforts of a unified UI.
Just keep in mind that Wapuu was brought up in the first place to shed more light onto the challenges and issues we face with the WordPress platform. It was simply a way to discuss the current state of the entire community and ecosystem. And in case anyone is interesting in knowing...I actually found some old Wapuu swag in the office and shared that with my team and no one understood it, so we had a few laughs as I tried my best to explain it. This got me thinking about how the Wapuu relates to the WordPress problems we always talk about. Our blog has started to include our experiences as well as industry insights.
After reading those articles, I can say their points are valid, and maybe there’s a place for the Wapuu after all as a nice conversation starter. But seriously, the mascot can be mistaken as WordPress not being serious about it's own tech. Last time I checked, to log into WordPress.org we still have to agree that pineapple is good on pizza. I guess its a good thing I agree with that. But this all matches up perfectly with the Wapuu. A lot of people rely on this platform for their business. The legal battle with WP Engine, the instability of the community, and the decline of meetups and WordCamps, have also contributed to this chaos.
I hope that through the debate, something good comes from it for WordPress. If this thing gets it's own page on WordPress.org, I don't know if that's a positive thing, or another setback for the community. It might just be embarrassing enough to push some new users away.
Personally, I don’t think the community as a whole finds it very useful or cute. Sure, as Chris points out, kids probably like it? But it’s undoubtedly not attracting younger developers; most young developers are not looking at a blogging platform that came out before they were born.
I also asked for a 7 year old's opinion: "Are these cute?" I asked. And my kid replied, "No. Why are you trying to make Weird Axolotal Bunny Guys"?
"They are called Wapuus. Is that a cool name?" I asked this time. And my kid snickered, " No, they should be called Furblers"!
And I cannot agree more! WordCamps can use more "Furblers" to get more people interested.
And I do in fact agree with Nick in "Wapuu Slaps: A Manifesto" when he said, "WordPress has this asset. The question is whether it will use it strategically or treat it as something to be quietly tolerated."
It should be useful. not something we ignore at every conference. Which again is part of the reason this article exists. So for any one who actually cares about the Wapuu. Do something good with it, or not.
— Matthew Hunt, CEO, Afteractive
