The internet’s been an interesting place this week. Particularly for crowdplaying. Crowdsourced humour.
First off we had the almost-rained-off first day’s play at Edgbaston for the Third Ashes Test. [Now for people who don’t know anything about cricket, that’s a biennial cricket match between England and Australia]. Play was scheduled to begin at 11am; it rained all day; play did begin at around 5pm. But in the meantime:
The Caroline of Brunswick article in Wikipedia took a mighty hammering, despite stout defence from William Avery, who did everything possible to justify his Senior Editor with Platinum Editor Star status. [Incidentally, I now have a new ambition. To become a Complete and Perfect Tutnum of the Encyclopaedia. It was a joyous morning without a ball being bowled, with edits blazing from end to end, so much so that Caroline of Brunswick was rumoured to have become the 5th most searched item on Google that afternoon.
Not quite the place to look for humour. But hey, this is the internet, where anything’s possible. Laughter in the TMS inbox I could believe, but in an article on Caroline of Brunswick?
Then, today, thanks to Chris Brogan, I found an unlikely streak of humour in an even more unlikely place: The Mountain Men’s Three Wolf Moon Short Tee Shirt.
No, it’s not on the t-shirt. Just take a look at the reviews of the item on Amazon. 136 customer reviews. 13,171 finding the first review helpful. 181 comments on that review. Don’t stop there, you must take a look at some of the other reviews. Preferably while sitting down in a comfortable position.
Culture comes in many shapes and forms; the internet is a land of wondrous promise as people find old and new ways to do old and new things. If we let them.
Indeed, that three-wolves t-shirt has a life of its own. It’s become so cool and ironic and mainstream that Urban Outfitters has one: http://bit.ly/ZcfyG. I discovered this today because Reddit users were complaining about the joke being co-opted by a big retail chain.
A high level of awesomatude.
My son informs me that he and his friends voted up the best reviews they could find, applying a Digg-like “found this review useful”….
I was following the (infamous) BBC service on that washout morning of the third test of the Ashes and I have to say in all my days reading TMS this was perhaps its finest hour. TMS is where the people who don’t understand cricket or how one can follow a 5-days sports match should go first and foremost.