Three Wolf Moon
Three Wolf Moon is a T-shirt featuring three wolves howling at the moon. The numerous ironic reviews for this on Amazon.com have become an Internet phenomenon. The T-shirt was designed by artist Antonia Neshev.[1]
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[edit] Origin
The Three Wolf Moon T-shirt gained popularity after attracting ironic reviews on Amazon.com attributing great power to it such as being irresistible to women, striking fear into other males and having magical healing abilities. These reviews were made mainly by members of the bodybuilding.com Misc section members.[2] Brian Govern, a law student at Rutgers University,[1] was searching for a school book on Amazon and was led to The Three Wolf Moon T-shirt by an Amazon recommendation which had been targeted at students purchasing college semester books.[3] He decided to write a review of the shirt on a whim as he did not actually own the shirt. His faux-serious review as "Bee-Dot-Govern" in November 2008 concluded:[4]
Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women
Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the 'guns'), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark.
Since this original review was posted, more than 1700 similar reviews have been posted.[1] Some reviewers have uploaded images showing celebrities such as Barack Obama or Steve Jobs wearing the shirt.[5]
The shirt attracted further interest when it became viral on networking sites such as Digg and Facebook and was then lauded in conventional media as an Internet phenomenon.[3] German scholar Melvin Haack considers it to be a notable example of a redneck joke.[6] The reviews have been included in study of such online irony. Such irony tends to confound analysis of customer reviews and so the texts has been analysed to determine which elements might identify irony. One common example found in n-gram analysis was "alpha male".[7]
[edit] Sales
The T-shirt is manufactured by The Mountain Corporation, a wholesale clothing company in Keene, New Hampshire, United States.[8] Their art director, Michael McGloin, said that they were making many more shirts in response to the great demand which had made it the top selling item in Amazon's clothing store.[2] Due to the success of the shirt, the New Hampshire Division of Economic Development made it their "official New Hampshire T-shirt of economic development" and award it as a prize for innovation.[9]
[edit] Parodies and attributions
A similar shirt featuring Keyboard Cats instead of wolves has been produced at the T-shirt design site Threadless. In July 2009, this was the most highly-rated design there.[10] Other substitutions include: JPEGs,[11] Teen Wolf,[12] Worgen from World of Warcraft, and Creepers from Minecraft.[13]
The official Star Wars online store created a "Moon Over My Ewok" shirt that parodies Three Wolf Moon with Ewoks and the Death Star in place of wolves and a moon.[14]
The "Three Tux Moon"[15] shirt features Tux, the penguin associated with Linux, and was worn by Wil Wheaton at w00tstock Chicago 2010.[16]
Capcom prepared a limited run through iam8bit of a "Three Wolf God Sun" shirt for the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International, featuring images of the wolf gods Amaterasu and Chibiterasu from their video games Ōkami and Ōkamiden.[17][18]
[edit] Notable wearers
- Allan Hyde of True Blood[9]
- Bravo Company, 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, US Marines[9]
- Clay Shirky[19]
- Debbie Rowe[20]
- Jack Black's character Jerry in the film Be Kind Rewind. Also in Beyond The Lighted Stage Rush documentary.
- Jon Dalton from Survivor: Pearl Islands
- Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute in the episode "Niagara" of the American version of The Office.[9]
- Tanner Hall (freeskier) in the ski movie "Everyday is a Saturday".
- Weird Al Yankovic at the Orange County Fair on August 14 2010, and again at the Minnesota State Fair on September 1 2010.
- Wil Wheaton [21][22] worn during the 2010 Olympic Gold Medal Hockey game.
- Zach Galifianakis as Jerry in the film Youth in Revolt. Note in the scene early on when having dinner at the cabin.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Peter Applebome (May 24, 2009). "Think a T-Shirt Can’t Change Your Life? A Skeptic Thinks Again". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/nyregion/25towns.html.
- ^ a b Daniel Emery (21 May 2009), Joke review boosts T-shirt sales, BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8061031.stm
- ^ a b Rajiv Sabherwal, Irma Becerra-Fernandez (2009), Business Intelligence, John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 9780470461709, http://books.google.com/?id=T-JvPdEcm0oC&pg=RA1-PA273
- ^ http://www.amazon.com/review/R2XKMDXZHQ26YX Amazon.com: B. Govern "Bee-Dot-Go...'s review of Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt
- ^ Joseph Jaffe (2010), Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones, John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 9780470487853, http://books.google.com/?id=QZZIp4DYN1gC&pg=PA195
- ^ Melvin Haack (20.08.2009), Redneck Jokes as a Subcultural Phenomenon, Technische Universität Carolo-Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig, http://www.unplaqued.de/files/2009/09/rednecks-melvin-haack-ma.pdf
- ^ Antonio Reyes, Paolo Rosso (2011), Mining Subjective Knowledge from Customer Reviews: A Specific Case of Irony Detection, http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W/W11/W11-17.pdf#page=130
- ^ Steve Johnson (May 20, 2009), Three Wolf Moon T-shirt inspires wave of snarkiness on Amazon product reviews -- and sales skyrocket, Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-talk_3wolfmoonmay20,0,7693470.column
- ^ a b c d "State Hopes To Harness Power Of 'Three Wolf' Shirts". WMUR. 27 Jan 2010. http://www.wmur.com/money/22343878/detail.html.
- ^ Tom Phillips (23 July 2009), Three Keyboard Cat Moon: and the internet did rejoice, Metro, http://theridiculant.metro.co.uk/2009/07/three-kayboard-cat-moon-and-the-internet-did-rejoice.html
- ^ Devin Coldewey (May 4, 2010), Three JPEG moon T-shirt: meta meta meta ironic, Crunchgear, http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/05/04/three-jpeg-moon-t-shirt-meta-meta-meta-ironic/
- ^ Three Teen Wolf Moon t-shirt, http://www.80stees.com/products/Full-Moon-Teen-Wolf-T-shirt.asp
- ^ Three Creeper Moon T-Shirt, http://mojang.com/merch/
- ^ http://shop.starwars.com/catalog/product.xml?topcatID=1300264;product_id=1320810
- ^ http://www.amazon.com/Three-Linux-Penguin-T-Shirt-Large/dp/B003903IOS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=apparel&qid=1275945768&sr=8-1
- ^ http://twitpic.com/1uneu4
- ^ Warmouth, Brian (2010-07-15). "Awesome Three Wolf Moon Shirt Gets 'Okami'-fied". MTV. http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/07/15/awesome-three-wolf-moon-shirt-gets-okami-fied/. Retrieved 2010-07-15.
- ^ "SDCC Update: Triple Function Design". Capcom. 2010-07-14. http://www.capcom-unity.com/vabor/blog/2010/07/14/sdcc_update:_triple_function_design. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
- ^ Desiree Malinao (11th Aug 2009), Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt at SES San Jose 2009, http://pocketchange.become.com/2009/08/three-wolf-moon-t-shirt-at-ses-san-jose-2009.html
- ^ Cher Tippetts (28th Jul 2009), Michael Jackson's Ex-Wife Visits His Dermatologist's Office, Entertainment Wise, http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/49327/michael-jacksons-exwife-visits-his-dermatologists-office--pictures
- ^ Wil Wheaton (28th Feb 2010), Wil wearing the shirt during the 2010 Olympics, http://twitter.com/wilw/statuses/9794935176
- ^ Wil Wheaton (28th Feb 2010), Photo of Wil wearing the shirt, http://twitpic.com/15xan0
[edit] External links
- Shirt on Amazon
- Artist's website
- Top-rated comments and images on Epic Buy
- Pocahontas parody after Colors of the Wind
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