OneZero Writer Tracks Down The Creators Of WikiHow's Infamous Illustrations

The illustrations of WikiHow are legendary: somehow too bizarre to be created by human hands, and yet too highly specific to be created by A.I. It's as though they had been sprung from the internet itself, and yet somewhere, somehow, someone was making them. For years, their creators remained one of the internet's biggest mysteries. Until now.

At Medium vertical OneZero, Peter Slattery has written an exhaustive investigation of the WikiHow rabbit hole and discovered that the internet's most distinctive trove of art was created by… freelancers.

According to Slattery's research, WikiHow illustrators are a collective of artists around the globe with a heavy concentration of artists residing in the Philippines. In some reported cases, the artists were paid as little as 40 cents an illustration. Though reports of the pay have varied, Slattery discovered that while some American freelancers used to be able to count on the gig for a solid monthly salary, at some point WikiHow outsourced much of the work abroad for the equivalent of about $395 a month.

Former WikiHow employee Tom Scher described the commissioning of illustrations as an initiative to boost WikiHow's place in the Google algorithm. He also admitted that the mystery of WikiHow images "has been part of the fun… that mystery has been a part of why this stuff has gained traction.”

Slattery also found that WikiHow's distinctive visual style--soft colors, racial diversity, often uncanny expressions--are intentional. Slattery's highlighted excerpts from the style guide reads:

“Imagine the reader only had the image for each step and no text to read -- could they understand the information/complete their attempted task?”
“Disabilities are not inherently bad. We want pictures of visibly disabled people being happy and successful.”
“Do not show self-harm in images. Do not put needles or drugs in images. In phobio [sic] articles, do not include images of the thing that people are scared of.”

The piece itself is well worth the read. The next time you enjoy a good Hard to Swallow Pills or Accepting Your Death meme, consider that somewhere, someone was paid maybe a dollar for endless internet chuckles.