The Birth of the Fail Whale
Mashable recently published an interview with Yiying Lu, the graphic artist responsible for the image now known as Twitter’s infamous “Fail Whale.” Lu created the illustration, named “Lifting a Dreamer,” as a greeting to her friends across the ocean and posted it to iStockphoto.
Developers at Twitter found the stock image and decided to use it on their 404 page. The Twitter team thought it was a fitting depiction of their efforts to solve scalability issues, replacing their former 404 image – an LOLcat.
Unfortunately, the Fail Whale has become an image of frustration for many, which was never Lu’s intention.
“I hate the name Fail Whale,” she said. “Really, I do hate it … I’m like, ‘It’s not a Fail Whale, it’s like, originally, just a message for my friends far away and it has absolutely nothing to do with failure.’ ”
- Date: 08.03.2010
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