[ojintoad]

I can't remember the error message exactly, but recently dealing with my great uncle's estate after his death I was confronted with a cutesy error message from one of the many financial institutions or utilities I had to deal with. The problem isn't only the severity of the error being trivialized. It's also that it can come off as obnoxiously callous to real life tragedy or grief you're dealing with. There's a reason professionalism is important.

This doesn't necessarily mean to me stop having cutesy error messages all the time always, but rather think about the risk you're taking of offending your customer or audience by having cutesy error messages. If it's worth the potential of alienating them then that's your choice, but it's a real choice you're making.