LarrysFace.com
Image from Web Project Mushrooms Into Cultural Phenomenon
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“It's a sort of Barbie doll for geeks -- you can dress Larry up and make him look silly. How often do you get the opportunity to humiliate a helpless victim?”Bruce Goldfarb, creator of the LarrysFace.com Web site
All Things Considered, May 15, 2003 · A couple of months ago, Bruce Goldfarb created a Web site to practice his Photoshop and HTML skills. He needed a test project, and found a picture of his brother Larry with a peculiar look on his face.
Goldfarb made a Web page for the amusement of friends and family -- adding photos now and then -- and pretty much forgot about it.
Usually, Goldfarb's Web site gets a handful of vistitors a day, maybe 1,000 hits a month -- mainly by people who stumble across a link through a search engine. But one week ago, Larry's face was mentioned at another Web site, and within about eight hours it had generated 36,900 page hits. It was mentioned at some other Web sites, and by last Wednesday exceeded 100,000 page hits per day.
Last Sunday, Larry's face was the subject of a Photoshop contest at the hugely popular Fark.com. That day, Larry's Face generated more than 12,000 unique visitors and nearly 250,000 page hits. Yesterday there were about 15,000 unique visitors and 300,000 page hits. The volume increased so much that Goldfarb had to host the Web page at its own domain -- LarrysFace.com.
People are leaving questions for Larry, sending in dozens of tricked photos. Goldfarb has heard from people in Montreal, Canada, in Australia -- in short, from all over the place. Goldfarb says he's as baffled as the next person at the response.
"I don't know why it's popular," Goldfarb writes. "Maybe people are weary from war and SARS, ready for a break. I think the fact that it's funny, rated PG and safe for work lends itself to this kind of viral replication. It's a sort of Barbie doll for geeks; you can dress Larry up and make him look silly. How often do you get the opportunity to humiliate a helpless victim?"
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