On Cathode Ray Tubes, nostalgia and anachronisms.

Summer 2024

A follow-up to this text is available here . It goes into much greater detail about signal quality, and also examines how pixel art techniques have been used on non-CRT systems.

(Pro tip: All images below are clickable.)

There's a recurring argument made about how modern pixel art often doesn't look right. For example, TikTok user "mylifeisanrpg" has made a popular video in which he explains how pixel artists used to work with the innate physical properties of Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs). In short, he describes how the fuzziness of a CRT smoothed out the rough edges of low resolution pixels and made things look much less blocky than if viewed on a modern flatscreen display.

This is correct. I also agree that modern, blocky pixel art often is a kind of misdirected, anachronistic nostalgia.…