Failure™ Magazine

Yiying Lu: The Failure Interview

Creator of Twitter’s Fail Whale presents her first solo exhibit.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under Arts & Entertainment, Life

What about this business of the Fail Whale becoming endangered? With Twitter more stable these days, one doesn’t see it as much anymore.
I’m very happy about Twitter becoming more stable because that’s the way it should be. But the Fail Whale itself will never be endangered because I will be creating friends to support it. So graphics-wise I’ll be looking after the whale. During Twitter’s stable time it will be swimming in the sea, saving the birds some work as well [laughs].

Tell me about Fail Whale’s new friends.
Fail Whale’s next friend will be an orange cat with turquoise eyes called Fish Cat. And I’ve got a deer too. It has the same expression [as Fail Whale]; the eyes are closed and it’s daydreaming.

I’m also launching an extended family for Fail Whale. For example, there’s Traffic Stopping Giraffe, which will make its debut at my exhibition, [opens October 2 at the Web Directions South Conference in Sydney]. Three of the spots on the giraffe’s body become a traffic light, and one of the dots is blinking red. It’s a traffic light giraffe.

I would be remiss if I didn’t ask about Foul Owl.
Foul Owl is one of my other creations—a licensed usage by Twitter. Since then other companies have also commissioned me. For instance, Glam Media commissioned a Fail Dolphin for Tinker.

I’m sure Fail Whale has created many new opportunities for you. What’s the downside of being associated with such a widely recognized image?
The downside is that my inbox gets clogged [laughs]. I get so many emails from people that I can’t respond to them all, and I get less time to sleep.

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