If you ever watch the news, you’ll notice that the media loves to hate on Seattle, a supposed lawless, liberal hellhole rampant with crime, drug use, and homelessness. These stories usually have some truth to them, but the media embellishes to appeal to their viewers, the vast majority living outside of the urban core. It doesn’t help that Pike Place Market is adjacent to the most visible concentration of homelessness and open drug use in the entire city.
In this map, I labeled common “fears” expressed by outsiders: the difficulty of vehicular transportation, large populations of people different from yourself, and other urban problems. Seattle is not unique in this regard, and I could make a similar map for every large city on the planet.
The horror genre has given us plenty of art that emulates fear. Here are the techniques I used to make this map look scary:
- Small, lowercase letters to convey quietness and fragility
- Charcoal on top of ink and watercolors to give a dark, grainy appearance
- Scratching the paper and adding red lines like wounds
- Creepy font with tall, thin lettering
- Dripping water over wet paint to create blooms and unpredictability
- Sparse details to evoke emptiness and isolation
Check out my Instagram reel about this map, where I act as the person this map satirizes.
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