Me, You, and Meme Reviews: The Three Wolf Moon Shirt
Ah, the Three Wolf Moon Shirt. If you’re unfamiliar with it, then don’t go anywhere- you might get lost, seeing as it’s your first time in the big, wide internet.
Apologies, I don’t mean to condescend. And I am aware that cult classics have that moniker for a reason, that they didn’t appeal to the broad populace, but instead found a highly devoted and enthusiastic following. So too did the Three Wolf Moon shirt. Or maybe more accurately, so did its review section.
In a time long ago, called 2008 (ask Fergie about it), a man named Bee-Dot-Govern, or Brian Govern to his mother, left an Amazon review for a product he did not own - the Three Wolf Moon shirt - thereby igniting a powder keg of creative writing and creative reviewing.
Of the shirt, he wrote:
Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women
Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the 'guns'), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark.
From here, the floodgates were open, and today some 4,000+ reviews sit on the Amazon page for the Three Wolf Moon shirt, many following the same themes of the shirt imbuing its wearer with supernatural wolf abilities, or if nothing else, making them far more appealing to the opposite sex.
The shirt is available to purchase both on Amazon and on TheMountain.com, and The Mountain has many similarly styled shirts featuring various animals and various natural phenomena. But no one shirt has captured the furor, the fervent adoration, or the frenzy of the Three Wolf Moon. No other shirt has reached meme status, produced spin-offs on fan sites or in video games, or has been the center of so many YouTube videos or blog posts.
But while these reviews are good for a laugh, they don’t really help a legitimate buyer decide whether or not the shirt is right for them. Because they don’t provide much in the form of facts or real experiences with the shirt. They embellish, color, and flavor the language, captivate the mind and imagination, titillate even, but they fail to inform.
And therein lies the problem with meme reviews. As I have written in the past, meme reviews are more concerned with the joke than the review, and everybody loves getting in on a joke. We hate being on the outside of an inside joke, don’t we?
Well. Computers can be difficult. We know from misinterpreting text messages that sarcasm can be hard to detect. And we all know someone of an older generation who is both computer illiterate and sarcasm-blind. What happens when they wander into the corner of the internet where meme reviews like the Three Wolf Moon live? Are they gonna make it out unscathed, or will the wolf bite?
All I’m saying is that if Great Uncle Denny knows you like wolves and is looking to buy you a nice shirt for your birthday, meme reviews won’t tell him if he’s making a good choice. More likely, he’ll end up sending money to someone in Canada pretending to be you. The internet is a troubling place, but sometimes, even with the best intentions, we make it worse.
SO WHAT’S THE POINT OF ALL THIS?
Glad you asked. I bought myself a Three Wolf Moon shirt. I aim to at least balance myself out, if not the entire internet, by writing a meme review and a real review of the shirt. You’ll just have to wait another week to see it.
Howl on, wolf pack!
Listen to the first Me, You, and Meme Reviews segment in Episode 15: Gamer Girl Heaven
