The FAIL Meme Continues

Posted on October 22, 2008

Everyone is using the term FAIL now to signify failure and screw-ups and this may mean the meme is close to peaking. It is unlikely FAIL is going to spread so deeply into the mainstream media that major newspapers start using it in headlines but FAIL does thrive online. There is Twitter's Fail Whale and the popular Failblog. If someone tells you to look at this FAIL video on YouTube you know that you are probably about to watch someone, or possibly a creature (most likely a cat or dog), experience a personal disaster of some kind.

The Examiner's Internet Buzz blog explainsthat FAIL is useful online because it shortens what might take maybe seven to ten words to explain into a single word. It can also be very funny.

Reserved mostly for mocking the misfortune and mistakes of others, FAIL has become the fastest, most to-the-point way to express a sentiment such as "you utterly screwed the pooch on that one" or "this is by far the best example of human stupidity I have ever seen."
It's one word. It's incredibly fun to say - especially high volume and elongated through the vowels: "FAAAAAAAAAAAAAIL".

The Examiner article also notes the even more magnificent type of FAIL - the EPIC FAIL, which it says is the "FAIL to end all FAILS."

Slate tried recently to track down the origin of the meme in this article. They suggest that an arcade game called Blazing Star may be the source. Slate says if you complete a level in Blazing Star the screen displays the words: "You beat it! Your skill is great!" However, if you lose the game mocks with you with: "You fail it! Your skill is not enough! See you next time! Bye bye!"

That seems like a likely source. IThe Guardian's headline is clever: "All your FAIL are belong to us."

For more fun memes check out our collection of writing-related memes.