*sadly goes to reset the counter to 0 on the "days since I saw someone shit on the existence of light themes" sign*

I think on average I see this like once a week.

I cannot see dark themes at all. And it's a hell of a thing to see this hostility not just to a software option but to my own existence and qualities as a person who uses this option. Like I've seen people say you have to be a psychopath to use light theme, which is an awesome way to double up on the ableism!

Something else about light themes I don't think I've seen in so many words:

I strongly suspect most apps these days are made for dark theme, in dark theme, by people who only like dark theme. The light theme sometimes doesn't work great, or it feels grudgingly implemented, half-assed.

The dark themes you see probably are optimized by people who care about them but don't think that means the light ones are. They aren't necessarily ideal for people who need light themes; this is just all we get.

Oh by the way I confirmed this is true for Discord specifically. https://blog.discord.com/light-theme-redeemed-c541b7ab13e9

"Even within our office, it was hard to find more than one or two actual light theme users. Our small team of designers didn’t design with it in mind when creating new features. It became an afterthought. Testing on light theme was rare, and considered a chore."

"It eventually became a Discord community inside joke that light theme was bad and you were bad for using it."

Interestingly, that post is a couple years old and it was written to announce the new golden age of light theme; I started using Discord after that and I still hate it, haha.

But it's amazing to see how much worse it was! The sidebar was still dark! Because no one could need to read those words too! The contrast is terrible! If you love dark so much why is the text medium-grey?! The fonts are so thin! Fonts are the thing that shouldn't be light even in light mode! ( https://www.wired.com/2016/10/how-the-web-became-unreadable/)

How the Web Became Unreadable

I thought my eyesight was beginning to go. It turns out, I’m suffering from design.

WIRED
@bright_helpings
Thin fonts are often annoying and make things worse. And did not even realize that making them less thin saves me from just increasing font size a lot more until I first saw it on an e-book reader I tried. Bought it then because was The only one that could set that (and not only bold-normal, because general bold felt often too much to be comfortable). Hope it never dies.
@QuingKhaos
@Lachgas
Oh yeah, font choices are also quite problematic in modern web design and an accessibility nightmare. A black thin font is perceived like a bolder low contrast grey font.
@bright_helpings