Posterous is using an interesting version of the ‘cautious’ error mascot/fail pet idea that I pointed out towards the end of my Evolution of Fail Pets article. It is copying the well-known image of the US power socket having a surprised and slightly sad face. This is very much like the emoticon-ised error mascots/fail pets of Adobe, Google Chrome, Apple, and Microsoft, although this one happens to draw on a real-world version (and, interestingly, a metaphor for being without power, since there is nothing plugged in).
I was reminded that the Commodore Amiga had the awesome “Guru Meditation” error message.
(Thanks Tin Man!)
Gallery of Reddit’s “down for emergency maintenance” page and all text messages (that I can find). Reddit is bucking the trend against using a site mascot on their error page… (as per my article on the evolution of fail pets), those crazy rebels. Indeed, Reddit is making down time downright fun (sorry) with their downtime banana drawing subreddit (see bottom right of the first image).
Chrome crash reporter follows the lead of Firefox by using only text and not including a fail pet/error mascot. Even the text has a similar flavour of informal recognition of an embarrassing accident:
- Chrome: Whoops. Let’s fix that.
- Firefix: Well, this is embarrassing.
Imgurrrrrr’s mobile “over capacity” error page follows the time-honoured tradition of referring to the error as involving people running around with their hair on fire. Lovely.
(Submitted by NB - Thanks!)
It’s all your fault
I find this error interesting because the site takes absolutely no responsibility for the error. The possible reasons they offer you are 1) “you entered an incorrect url” 2) if you’re a site owner, “you didn’t upload content,” and 3) you came from a bad link. It seems most of these clever errors attribute the problem to some unknown technical error that will surely be remedied shortly, and not, as this site does, attribute the fault exclusively to one or more users. The humor of the image also suggests the discomfort of making embarrassing and isolating social decisions, which further contributes to the message “this is all your fault… boy are you embarrassed.” Does this work toward the clever error’s intended ends?
P.S. as an interesting aside, every single page on that site produces that 404 error, except for the home page astoes.info which displays a standard server error. Whose fault is it now?
(Submitted by BV - Thanks!)
Github has at least two different fail pets/error mascots. The Octocat is featured on two pages. The 404 page is a Star Wars themed South Park style paper cut-out 3D (long enough description for you?). The background and foreground move around depending on where your mouse is over the image. Oh yeah, and the Octocat is dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi (of course). The 500 error page has a similar 3D paper cut-out image of the Octocat falling down a canyon.
The 503 page has an older static image of angry pink unicorn with a rainbow mane.
I’m torn between which I prefer, but will probably side with the Octocat…
Clint Shryock has a great collection of clever errors. I have two favorites from his collection.
1. The HP Cloud “I’m a little Teapot” error page is simply bizarre (and there is such a thing as a 418 Teapot error!)
2. The Dropbox 404 error brilliantly combines the site logo with MC Escher
Bit.ly’s Fail Pet: The pufferfish. Bit.ly uses an unnamed pufferfish site mascot as a sutble metaphor for the way in which the service shrinks and grows URLs. The pufferfish is not named but it appears throughout the site’s pages. If an URL fails to expand properly, Bit.ly shows the somewhat maudlin image of a sick/dead pufferfish floating upside-down in the ocean.
