Three Wolf Moon

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Thanks to Jaime for pointing me at this hilarious story from the BBC. The Three Wolf Moon T-shirt has become the top selling fashion item on Amazon.com, increasing sales by 2300% after a series of ironic customer reviews 'went viral'. The first review (five stars of-course) said it "Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women" but "cannot see wolves with arms crossed". Hundreds of others then piled in with reviews ranging from "When I put this T-shirt on for the first time, my wife left me! Thank you, Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt," to "Unfortunately I already had this exact picture tattooed on my chest, but this shirt is very useful in colder weather." At time of writing there were over a thousand such gems.

It's so HERD-like it reminded me of the sasquatch music festival dancing video that got a lot of twitter coverage at the end of last week. Either way, it's got to be one of the funniest case studies on how ideas spread. You never know, as an ironic T-Shirt perhaps it will catch on...

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Comments

[Dan Thornton]

It's probably worth noting that the viral nature of the delightful shirt was boosted somewhat by collegehumour.com picking up on it!

The best example of herds moving without thinking is shown every day on my commute. As soon as the first person stands on the train (around about Finsbury Park), suddenly about 60% of people start getting up, only to stand for another 10 minutes before the train pulls in.

Then they rush to cross the road, and 9 times out of 10, if one person crosses, they'll follow, even if cars have right of way and almost hit a few of them.

[neilperkin]

Thanks Dan - nice commute example. See the same every day at Waterloo too :-)

[Nick Burcher]

I wrote about Three Wolf Moon and then posted again when it started going 'super viral' (if there is such a thing?) The Three Wolf Moon shirt has been featured on mainstream TV news, has appreciation sites being created and even has a musical tribute video on YouTube!

(http://www.nickburcher.com/2009/05/three-wolf-moon-goes-super-viral-and.html)

Either way I think this is a great example of how once something enters 'The Conversation' the noise can grow exponentially - and if they are selling as many as they claim, they'll be everywhere this summer!

[neilperkin]

Thanks for the build Nick. Classic stuff. I'd buy one myself but I don't think I could carry off the irony...

[Graphic Designher]

Excellent, I love the viral nature of the web when the public gets going. Shame the swine flu virus is not so positive :-)
Matt.