Notes
Simon Edhouse Redux
![27b/6™ [Detail]](/assets/simon_edhouse_redux.png)
It’s fascinating to watch a meme take hold, gather momentum, grow exponentially, then, as quickly as it started, expire.
Last week, amidst growing hype, we posted a short note about David Thorne’s satirical piece: Please design a logo for me. With pie charts. For free. Purportedly an email exchange between a potential client (wanting, like many clients it seems, something for free) and a designer (again, true to the archetype, being asked to work on a promise), it was a well-crafted piece of work that hit all the right buttons.
The piece tapped into the zeitgeist perfectly and gathered a huge amount of momentum, drawing a number of high profile tweets from an influential coterie of writers, resulting in exponential, Twitter fuelled, growth.
Our original comment on the story - Please Design a Logo for Me… For Free - and a follow up piece - Mr Simon Edhouse Is Unhappy - generated a huge amount of incoming traffic to this site, the latter hitting page views in the thousands (thanks no doubt to the fact that it currently occupies Google’s Number Seven spot for the search term “Simon Edhouse”).
Today, traffic surged again, thanks to a tweet – “Bliss!” – by Stephen Fry.
It’s fascinating to witness the traffic ebb and flow as an idea takes hold and is passed from one to another over time. Equally interesting is the manner in which the phenomenon of ‘internet time’ – a kind of high-speed, fast-forward mode of time in which readers wilfully suspend disbelief as they follow a meme – takes over our collective senses, often resulting in the abandonment of criticality.
It’s a testament to Mr Thorne’s skills as a writer and raconteur that so many have been swept along on the thrill of the journey he has allegedly created, presumably accepting his version of events at face value, without question. On closer inspection, however, it would appear that the true series of events might be a little less crystal clear.
Mr Thorne is a self-confessed satirist and internet personality who, in his own words (and somewhat refreshingly), believes “the internet is a playground”. Gaining notoriety in late 2008 with an attempt to pay a bill with a drawing of a spider, it’s hard to argue with Thorne’s claim(s) to internet fame.
It’s worth noting that the drawing in question, when auctioned on eBay, was won by a user who posted a bid for $10,000, but who ultimately refused to pay. When asked how he felt about the refusal of the buyer to pay, Thorne stated: “The internet is a playground and I would not have it any other way.”
It’s hard to argue with Thorne. The internet is, indeed, a playground, and herein lies the paradox. A meme, rich in carefully crafted content, capturing our thoughts. The result? Our, inadvertent, complicity.
In closing, one has to spare a thought for Mr Edhouse, who states:
I had some immediate reactions and responses to what happened, and some of those reactions were based on my complete disbelief at what I was witnessing. I have made some simple statements about my position, but it seems more is required. I am happy to do that, but I will do so carefully…
Such is the pace of the internet that one cannot blame Mr Edhouse who would be well advised to tread carefully. Disbelief, it seems, is commonplace.
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