History of the Fail Whale

The Fail Whale is an interesting name for an online error; but one that is quite well known to those who have become familiar with the ever growing Twitter movement. The Fail Whale is is the image that tells Tweeters Twitter isn’t working right now. When Twitter is having technical difficulties, from an overloaded server to unscheduled maintenance, users will see the Fail Whale and know that the site is down. The idea is that the image of the whale will make this bothersome news a little more bearable to anyone who receives the error.

The whale is a legend in its own right and interestingly enough has even formed a following. Shirts, mugs and various other items now proudly showcase this very popular image, which ironically doubles as an error message. We all know the frustration when our technology isn’t working the way we think it is supposed to. We expect that we are in the era of having something up and running in a matter of seconds. WAIT is not an easy word to hear, especially when it is appearing in the form of a computer error message. Twitter has found a lighthearted way to empathize with their users who are inconvenienced by the overload that sometimes happens on Twitter causing them to have to WAIT until service is back up and running.

Although people hate to see that error message that states that Twitter is down, for whatever reason, the Fail Whale seems to make people smile. It just swims right in and offers a little bit of humor to an otherwise frustrating situation.

The Fail Whale is an image logo that is now owned by Twitter. Interestingly the original photo was designed by Yiying Lu who had innocently posted the image to iStockPhoto. It was discovered by Tom Limongelloto who made a personal shirt from the image. The shirt, which was nameless, became a big hit. This whale image and the attention it commanded was the start of something great.

The Fail Whale project began when finally all of the parties got together and began negotiations about rights and money and all of the technical stuff that goes into branding an image. From there, an effort to create a community around this image was started by Sean O’Steen. It was Sean who created an actual brand for the Fail Whale image, followed by the website, the memorabilia and so on and so forth.

Obviously the image took off and became immediately popular. Nick Quaranto coined the name Fail Whale to describe what is known as the popular little Twitter error message with a great big story behind it. And there you have it!