Otterly astounding
Before I left for work this morning, I posted a photo-set on Tumblr called Otters Who Look Like Benedict Cumberbatch. Too flimsy to be worth posting on Livejournal, I thought: just the sort of quick visual joke that Tumblr was made for. Nonetheless, I imagined that a few people would be amused. Enough to justify the time it took me to match up the photos in the first place, anyway.*
I'm not quite sure what happened next but by lunchtime, "Otters Who Look Like Benedict Cumberbatch" had become a UK trending topic on Twitter.
It seems that various links did the rounds and were retweeted by famous folk including Nick Frost, Caitlin Moran, Katy Brand, Lauren Laverne, Jennifer Ehle*, Sarah "wife of Gordon" Brown and even Amanda Abbington (Martin Freeman's other half!). The topic even got a mention from Sherlock's Molly herself.
At time of writing, my original Tumblr post has more than 15,000 notes (a new personal best) and has garnered me more than 300 new Tumblr followers (most of whom will probably have unfollowed me by Thursday, bless them). The Cumberotters have even made it onto the Huffington Post (and yes, they asked me nicely first!). Edited AGAIN to add: And they've now become the subject of a blogpost on The Independent's website. And they were mentioned on FARK.com and Boing Boing and have made it to The Sun and Metro (who have used a different otter pic, weirdly).
Crikey.
How was your Monday?
P.S. In the interests of balanced reporting, it's only fair to point you all towards hedgehogs who look like Martin Freeman.
Tuesday's otter update: the otters have now spread to The Mirror and Now Magazine, and have even been mentioned in passing in a serious article in Wired. Curiouser and curiouser.
* In case anyone's wondering, I found a selection of likely-looking otter pictures first and then hunted for suitable Cumberbatch screencaps to match them. As you might imagine, this was not exactly an onerous task.
** I'm particularly chuffed about her presence in the list, since I was rewatching Pride and Prejudice only yesterday. And also because my mum has heard of her!
I'm not quite sure what happened next but by lunchtime, "Otters Who Look Like Benedict Cumberbatch" had become a UK trending topic on Twitter.
It seems that various links did the rounds and were retweeted by famous folk including Nick Frost, Caitlin Moran, Katy Brand, Lauren Laverne, Jennifer Ehle*, Sarah "wife of Gordon" Brown and even Amanda Abbington (Martin Freeman's other half!). The topic even got a mention from Sherlock's Molly herself.
At time of writing, my original Tumblr post has more than 15,000 notes (a new personal best) and has garnered me more than 300 new Tumblr followers (most of whom will probably have unfollowed me by Thursday, bless them). The Cumberotters have even made it onto the Huffington Post (and yes, they asked me nicely first!). Edited AGAIN to add: And they've now become the subject of a blogpost on The Independent's website. And they were mentioned on FARK.com and Boing Boing and have made it to The Sun and Metro (who have used a different otter pic, weirdly).
Crikey.
How was your Monday?
P.S. In the interests of balanced reporting, it's only fair to point you all towards hedgehogs who look like Martin Freeman.
Tuesday's otter update: the otters have now spread to The Mirror and Now Magazine, and have even been mentioned in passing in a serious article in Wired. Curiouser and curiouser.
* In case anyone's wondering, I found a selection of likely-looking otter pictures first and then hunted for suitable Cumberbatch screencaps to match them. As you might imagine, this was not exactly an onerous task.
** I'm particularly chuffed about her presence in the list, since I was rewatching Pride and Prejudice only yesterday. And also because my mum has heard of her!