Memories of the Twitter Fail Whale that got discontinued 10 years ago (HT @YiyingLu, @failwhale).
Posted by jpluimers on 2023/11/01
From 2008 to fall 2013, Twitter used the Fail Whale, a 2006 artwork by Yiying Lu originally titled “Lifting A Dreamer”, to indicate problems on their site.
Now that it is about a year after Musk burned some 44 milliard USD buying Twitter, it is also 10 years ago they phased out the Fail Whale, so it is a good time to remember it and a reminder to check out how Twitter faired during Elon’s ownership.
With Twitter down, you’d see the image from [Wayback/Archive] Yiying Lu 🐳 🥟🧋 on Twitter: “It has been 10 years since my art piece “Lifting a Dreamer” became the Twitter Fail Whale, a symbol as @Twitter’s service outrage during 2008-2013. It has inspired hundreds, probably thousands, of funny, clever & amusing homages and take-offs from users globally. Here are a few: …”:
The clear design of [Wayback/Archive] Yiying Lu ([Wayback/Archive] Yiying Lu 🐳 🥟🧋 (@YiyingLu) / Twitter) in “Lifting a Dreamer” can also be found in Emojination of which they were one of the founders.
Media
No lustrum without some media, so here they go (the full videos are below the signature):
- [Wayback/Archive] Lifting A Dreamer (aka. Twitter Fail Whale) @ Yiying Lu | Design, Branding & Innovation: http://www.yiyinglu.com (2014): the author reflecting on the design process and some 3D derivatives of their original artwork.
- [Wayback/Archive] The Story of Twitter’s Fail Whale – The Atlantic (2015)
- [Wayback/Archive] Meet the SF designer of the Twitter Fail Whale and 5 food emojis (2019)
- [Wayback/Archive] 4 Trivia Tidbits About Twitter’s Social Media Icons, Revealed | PopIcon.life (2016) on “Larry The Bird” and “Lifting a Dreamer”
- [Wayback/Archive] How Art can Engage and Delight Global Users: Twitter Fail Whale – YouTube (2019)
- [Wayback/Archive] 8bit Fail Whale – YouTube (2011)
All via [Wayback/Archive] fail whale Yiying Lu wikipedia – Google Search
Just one blog entry
Looking back in my blog archive, I found back just one post from 2011 that had Fail Whale in it: in the URL not even the text.
Looking back in my agenda, it was in Cologne during Delphi Tage 2011: [Wayback/Archive] Delphi-tage 2011, Cologne – Parnassus OÜ – Delphi and C++Builder Plugins
So long and thanks for all the fail whales?
Me, nor The Verge weren’t the first to coin [Wayback/Archive] so long and thanks for all the fail whales – Twitter Search / Twitter.
That was in 2018 by [Wayback/Archive] Ching-Lan HUANG on Twitter: “So long and thanks for all the fail whale, bird and tweets. mastodon.social/@digdog“ pointing to [Wayback/Archive] Ching-Lan HUANG (@digdog@mastodon.social) – Mastodon.
Though the Verge article was interesting: [Wayback/Archive] The Verge on Twitter: “So long, and thanks for all the fail whales” -> [Wayback/Archive] So long, and thanks for all the fail whales – The Verge
So long, and thanks for all the fail whales
Twitter: March 21st, 2006 – October 27th, 2022. Gone from this realm, but always tweeting in our hearts.
The first time I used it was when saying good bye to Jan Wildeboer with [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers @wiert@mastodon.social on Twitter: “@jwildeboer So long and thanks for all the fish^w fail whales.”
After 2013, it became Win Whale
Noticing in 2014 that “Lifting a Dreamer” was not used as Fail Whale any more Yiying Lu coined the term Win Whale with a new illustration [Wayback/Archive] Fail Whale on Twitter: “You might wonder where did the Fail Whale go? Truth to be told: It is failed to fail — now becomes a WIN Whale!”
Via:
- [Wayback/Wayback] fail whale “discontinued” 2013 – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] from:@failwhale – Twitter Search / Twitter
–jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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