Parody in Place: Exposing Socio-spatial Exclusions in Data-Driven Maps with Design Parody
summary
A fictional studio called Dork Posters generates typographic city maps by querying Yelp, Zillow and car2go APIs, combining neighborhood shapefiles with a custom text-positioning algorithm and an optional racial-distribution overlay. Maps surface concrete exclusions: car2go service zones cut off Rainier Beach, Zillow’s Zillow Zestimate highlights resource scarcity, and Yelp’s Yelp Best Match returns business names (e.g., a sewer company) that misrepresent places. Posters shown at public design events move reactions from ambivalence to curiosity, spark a Slack channel and curriculum changes, proving parody provokes discussion rather than technical fixes.
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chapters (18)
- 0:00Introduction
- 0:49Background
- 1:34Reviews
- 1:49Review Rejection
- 2:47Seattle City Limits
- 3:06Kate Stafford
- 5:47Critical Data Studies
- 6:18Dork Posters
- 6:50Typography
- 7:39Word Tags
- 8:29How are these representative terms assigned
- 8:51Yelp Employee Quote
- 9:21Broader View
- 9:36Research Methods
- 10:33Workshop Participants
- 11:43Discussion
- 14:58Parody as Engagement
- 17:03Questions
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