Mister Splashy Pants

Last updated

Mister Splashy Pants
Mr. Splashy Pants.svg
The Mister Splashy Pants logo, created by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, that gained fame on the internet
Species Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae)
SexMale
BornBefore 2007
Known forTracking by Greenpeace and naming by Reddit users
Residence Southern Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, south of New Zealand

Mister Splashy Pants, or Mr Splashypants, is a humpback whale in the South Pacific Ocean. It is being tracked with a satellite tag by Greenpeace as a part of its Great Whale Trail Expedition, [1] which was working to raise awareness about whales threatened by the Japanese Fisheries Agency's hunting of 50 humpback whales annually. The whale's name was chosen in an online poll that garnered attention from several websites, including Boing Boing [2] and Reddit, [3] quickly becoming an internet meme. Mister Splashy Pants became the subject of a TED Talk [4] by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, titled "How to make a splash in social media."

Contents

History

Greenpeace humpback whale naming poll, 2007
November–December 2007

Website greenpeace.org
Results
Mister Splashy Pants
79.58%
Humphrey
2.87%
Others
17.55%
Assuming 150,000 votes total

Originally, Greenpeace had accepted 30 names for voting. Among the more unusual names was what was possibly intended as a joke,[ citation needed ] "Mr. Splashy Pants". On 26 November 2007, the user of an IP address in Arizona, United States found that disabling cookies removed any voting limits, and the user began voting at 120 votes per minute for 38 minutes without pause. [5]

The massive leap in votes for the name attracted the attention of b3ta.com, [6] 4chan's /b/ board, BoingBoing, reddit, Digg, and numerous blogs. Though Greenpeace removed the extra votes from the results, users from the social networking sites flocked to vote for the name, and the percentage moved quickly from 5 percent to 75 percent in less than a day. In response to the spike, Greenpeace decided to hold the competition open for an extra week, until 7 December. Reddit took the voting so seriously that they temporarily changed their logo to feature Mr. Splashy Pants. [7] Facebook also began garnering interest, and a Facebook application was created with the tagline "Vote your conscience, vote Splashy Pants." On the 30th, Fark posted a thread linking to the voting as well, and for a few days internet traffic on the Greenpeace server spiked to almost untenable levels.[ citation needed ]

There was some controversy over the naming, with TreeHugger [8] and an associated blog [9] initially claiming that the name was not beautiful enough, and seeking to instigate votes for the other names. According to Greenpeace insider Brian Fitzgerald, the name also was controversial within the organisation. [10]

On 10 December 2007, Mister Splashy Pants was announced as the winner of the competition. 150,000 people reportedly voted, and 'Splashy' received 119,367, over 78 percent of the votes. The nearest rival was Humphrey at 4,329 votes, or less than 3 percent. The other top ten names, like Aiko, Libertad, Mira, Kaimana, Aurora, Shanti, Amal and Manami, received less than 1 percent each. [11] Reddit alone was responsible for 20,322 of the votes. [12]

Outcome

After their initial reluctance, Greenpeace embraced the result of the popular vote and used the name at the center of its campaign. The added publicity, at no cost to Greenpeace, gave it enough impact to convince the Japanese government, and the plan to hunt humpback whales was abandoned in December 2007. [13]

In Campaign Magazine, advertising figure Russell Davies praised Greenpeace's handling of the campaign as "one of the defining moments in New Media marketing." [14] The name has since spawned clothing, logos, Flash videos, and the slogan "Save Mister Splashy Pants."

Pop-culture references

See also

Footnotes

  1. Timothy Marshall (29 November 2007). "Whale name makes a big splash". Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Archived from the original on 1 December 2007. Retrieved 10 December 2007.
  2. Cory Doctorow (26 November 2007). "Mr Splashy Pants in the lead for Greenpeace whale-naming competition". Archived from the original on 27 December 2007. Retrieved 23 December 2007.
  3. Kristen Nicole (12 December 2007). "Mr. Splashy Pants and the Tale of a Hijacked PR Campaign". Mashable . Archived from the original on 17 January 2008. Retrieved 10 December 2007.
  4. TEDIndia. "Alexis Ohanian: How to make a splash in social media". Archived from the original on 14 November 2012. Retrieved 12 November 2012.
  5. "Mister Splashy Pants Fan". 27 November 2007. Archived from the original on 7 February 2012. Retrieved 3 September 2015.
  6. b3ta.com (26 November 2007). "Greenpeace want to name a whale". Archived from the original on 30 December 2007. Retrieved 23 December 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  7. Moneyries (27 November 2007). "Mister Splashy Pants - Part 2". Archived from the original on 8 July 2011. Retrieved 23 December 2007.
  8. Bonnie Alter (5 December 2007). "Name That Whale. Quickly!". Archived from the original on 22 December 2007. Retrieved 23 December 2007.
  9. AbiSylvester (5 December 2007). "'Mister Splashy Pants' emerges as clear favourite in Greenpeace whale-naming competition". Archived from the original on 1 December 2007. Retrieved 23 December 2007.
  10. Brian Fitzgerald (3 December 2007). "What nearly killed Mister Splashy Pants". Archived from the original on 15 December 2007. Retrieved 3 December 2007.
  11. "Mister Splashy Pants the whale - you named him, now save him". 10 December 2007. Archived from the original on 11 December 2007. Retrieved 10 December 2007.
  12. Brianfit (14 December 2007). "Mister Splashy Pants. Precisely who is responsible for this nonsense?". Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2007.
  13. Greenpeace.org: Humpbacks to be spared the harpoon -- for now Archived 12 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  14. Russel Davies (28 November 2008). "Media Perspective: Make sure you know your audience - and what you stand for". Archived from the original on 15 December 2008. Retrieved 28 November 2008.
  15. "Alexis Ohanian: How to make a splash in social media". Archived from the original on 21 February 2014.
  16. "Jenni Barrett:For the whales". Archived from the original on 24 December 2013.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sea Shepherd Conservation Society</span> American marine conservation organization

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is a non-profit, marine conservation activism organization based in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, Washington, in the United States. Sea Shepherd employs direct action tactics to achieve its goals, most famously by deploying its fleet of ships to track, report on and actively impede the work of fishing vessels believed to be engaged in illegal and unregulated activities causing the unsustainable exploitation of marine life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Watson</span> Canadian environmental activist

Paul Franklin Watson is a Canadian-American environmental, conservation and animal rights activist, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an anti-poaching and direct action group focused on marine conservation activism. The tactics used by Sea Shepherd have attracted opposition, with the group accused of eco-terrorism by both the Japanese government and Greenpeace. Watson is a citizen of Canada and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B3ta</span> British website

B3ta is a popular British website, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by The Guardian. It was founded in 2001 by Rob Manuel, Denise Wilton and Cal Henderson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whaling in Japan</span> Commercial hunting of whales by the Japanese fishing industry

Japanese whaling, in terms of active hunting of whales, is estimated by the Japan Whaling Association to have begun around the 12th century. However, Japanese whaling on an industrial scale began around the 1890s when Japan started to participate in the modern whaling industry, at that time an industry in which many countries participated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reddit</span> American social news and discussion site

Reddit is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and forum social network. Registered users submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images, and videos, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called "communities" or "subreddits". Submissions with more upvotes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough upvotes, ultimately on the site's front page. Reddit administrators moderate the communities. Moderation is also conducted by community-specific moderators, who are not Reddit employees. It is operated by Reddit, Inc., based in San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Choco Taco</span> Ice cream novelty previously made by Good Humor-Breyers

Choco Taco was a Good Humor-Breyers ice cream novelty resembling a taco. It consisted of a disk of waffle cone material folded to resemble a hard taco shell, reduced-fat vanilla ice cream, artificially flavored fudge, peanuts, and a milk chocolate coating. The Choco Taco was marketed under the Klondike brand as "The Original Ice Cream Taco".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fark</span> Website launched in 1999

Fark is a community website created by Drew Curtis that allows members to comment on a daily batch of news articles and other items from various websites. The site receives many story submissions per day and approximately 100 of them are publicly displayed on the site, spread out over the main page as well as topical tabs that are organized as entertainment, sports, geek, politics and business). Curtis says the stories are selected without intentional political bias, but that he tries to run both far-left and far-right articles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digg</span> Social media/news aggregator website

Digg is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select articles specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral Internet issues. It was launched in its current form on July 31, 2012, with support for sharing content to other social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary</span>

The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary is one of the world's most important whale habitats, hosting thousands of humpbacks each winter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Huffman</span> American web developer and entrepreneur (born 1983/1984)

Steve Huffman, also known by his Reddit username spez, is an American web developer and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Reddit, a social news and discussion website, which ranks in the top 20 websites in the world. He also co-founded the airfare search engine website Hipmunk, which shut down in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-whaling</span>

Anti-whaling refers to actions taken by those who seek to end whaling in various forms, whether locally or globally in the pursuit of marine conservation. Such activism is often a response to specific conflicts with pro-whaling countries and organizations that practice commercial whaling and/or research whaling, as well as with indigenous groups engaged in subsistence whaling. Some anti-whaling factions have received criticism and legal action for extreme methods including violent direct action. The term anti-whaling may also be used to describe beliefs and activities related to these actions.

Breadpig, stylized as breadpig, is a company that produces a variety of items that appeal to geeks, most notably publishing the book xkcd: volume 0.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gwaii Haanas National Marine Conservation Area Reserve and Haida Heritage Site</span> National marine conservation area and heritage site in British Columbia, Canada

Gwaii Haanas National Marine Conservation Area Reserve and Haida Heritage Site is a National Marine Conservation Area of Canada. It is located off the coast of the southernmost Haida Gwaii, 130 kilometres off the mainland of British Columbia. It is immediately adjacent to Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site. The level of protection differs from that of the National Park Reserve, however, allowing sustainable use of some natural resources in the area. Gwaii Haanas National Marine Conservation Area Reserve, which covers 3,400 square kilometres, is "a primary feeding habitat" of the humpback whale protected by Canada's Species at Risk Act (SARA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexis Ohanian</span> Armenian internet entrepreneur and investor (born 1983)

Alexis Kerry Ohanian is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is best known as the co-founder and former executive chairman of the social media site Reddit along with Steve Huffman and Aaron Swartz. He also co-founded the early-stage venture capital firm Initialized Capital, helped launch the travel search website Hipmunk, and started the social enterprise Breadpig. He was also a partner at Y Combinator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Defense League</span>

The Internet Defense League is an organization and network launched in March 2012 with the aim of organizing protests and other responses to perceived threats to Internet freedom and the open Internet. It was formed following the protests against SOPA and PIPA. It had 30,000 members as of 2013, consisting of organizations, websites, and individuals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hannah Mermaid</span> Underwater performance artist and marine conservation activist

Hannah Fraser, known professionally as Hannah Mermaid, is a professional model, actress, dancer, and performer who specialises in underwater and ocean-oriented freediving performances, often in mermaid costume. She is a central figure in modern mermaiding and is an ocean ecology activist.

This is a timeline of Reddit, an entertainment, social networking, and news website where registered community members can submit content, such as text posts or direct links, making it essentially an online bulletin board system.

_9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9, sometimes abbreviated to 9M9H9E9 or MHE, is the screen name of an anonymous writer of creepypasta speculative fiction on the social news website Reddit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Seibel</span> Managing director at Y Combinator

Michael Seibel is a partner at Y Combinator and co-founder of two startups – Justin.tv/Twitch and Socialcam. He first joined Y Combinator in 2013, advising hundreds of startups, and has been active in promoting diversity efforts among startup founders.