Talk Like a Pirate Day: Will The Web Audience Ever Grow Up?
by
on September 19, 2008,
Sometimes I have a feeling that the entire web industry is full of hip and cool kids - no matter how old they are and how expensive their toys like iPhone and Apple MacBook Air are. Today’s example is the Talk Like A Pirate day that seems to be absolutely everywhere.
I woke up today to hear the news of FriendFeed rolling out the beta version to everyone. Once I opened the lifestreaming service I realized something was wrong with the logo - it looked suspiciously pirate-themed. My first thought was that it was a part of the redesign intended for the new version but I quickly realized it was actually the Talk Like A Pirate Day with serious (usually) people creating pirate names and speaking something intangible (especially when English is not your native language) everywhere on FriendFeed. And it soon seemed to me pirates were absolutely everywhere around the web.
So what do we have here? First Facebook started the craziness by adding a pirate language to the selection currently available to users:
FriendFeed changed the logo:
Google rolled out a special search page in pirate language:
Even TechCrunch changed the logo for the day as well:
And we even have a special iPhone application ayePhone in the Apple store for $1 to speak like a pirate for you if you can’t manage it yourself:
The irony of this total craziness everywhere (and I’m sure we’ll see further examples during the day as well) here is incredible: only yesterday Tim O’Reilly called for a useful web 2.0 where the brightest minds in the industry are supposed to work on things that change the world and bring true value to life. And as soon as today everyone is telling pirate jokes and wearing pirate names with the best internet companies doing their best to participate.
And participate actually means money here, right? They pay for logo designs and they pay for translations to be implemented, for example - all for the sake of entertaining users for one day over some strange recently invented and popularized holiday. Is this what true value supposed to be?
I do see some value in it for FriendFeed with very active conversations today - it actually seems more active than what I’ve recently seen myself. And of course I do see a value for the iPhone application that does nothing but plays a few random pirate phrases - after all, the developers actually sell it so it’s not such a total joke for them at least.
But is there anything that Google or Facebook can achieve by giving proper attention to the pirates day? Honestly, I don’t see anything but entertaining users for a few minutes. After all, I highly doubt Google or Facebook need to work hard on user engagement - last time I checked both were pretty successful companies with millions of loyal users.
And while it is understandable that people do need to relax from time to time and having such a strange holiday may not be a bad idea, it is still very disturbing to see serious companies wasting money on such initiatives and the entire web audience behaving like kids despite their age and seriousness of businesses outside of this one day. Am I the only one thinking it is a little too much?
And to help me think it over now bring me one noggin of rum, won’t you, matey?
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Svetlana Gladkova
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
Ye’ll not be hornswoggling me and throwing a Cap’n Hook into me grog! Seriously, growing up’s for those who want to stick one peg into the grave!
I’m not sure how much money companies would be spending on this… I would imagine that a lot of them have people more than willing to do the “special editions” for free because it’s funny. Everyone needs an excuse to lighten up now and then. I feel more endeared to the companies that participate because it makes them seem like there are real people behind them instead of some cold corporate entity.
some people say tech can be dehumanizing.. today was a good example of how it is not
Glad I missed it all then
(As if anyone could.) Seriously though, if people want to have a bit of fun, well fine, but don’t they already feel like they are connected in a myriad of different communities? As for the choice of “pirate” for a theme, well that’s a bit more interesting. Now what is it that pirates do for a living again..? 
Some of us think piracy is a big issue (and protecting consumers). Same for frivolity. Keep the net weird!
Argh, you scalawag!
Get a sense of humor. You’re probably a boring person in real life.
So Tim O’Reilly declares “We’re all grown ups, now”, and we’re all supposed to what, Become Serious and All Important?
Tim re-invents Web 2.0 annually. We can either follow along, like lemmings, or we can celebrate the web the way we want. Sometimes this means creating something important; sometimes it means being a little silly. Above all, it means being an individual.
Arrr
I don’t think Talk Like A Pirate Day is something only done by “Hip and cool kids”. Obviously serious companies/websites know how to enlighten our Friday by participating in this silly “Talk Like a Pirate” day.
This is exactly what the “web audience” needs for a change. Something to make the day extraordinary.
There’s no need to be a party-pooper. <;c)
“Arrrgh”
-Pavel
For me, those companies get much more value from it. It’s kind of cool, when a company shows that they are still have humor, or is a kind of geeky (if you want to call it like this).
It helps to bound me to it, and making fun using it, even after that day.
And yes, I love pirates. The old one, and the new “Cyber☠Pirates”. So it’s obvious. It can help a company’s trying to be “cool”. And that is very, very important for a web-based company.
The internets would like to apologize for the immaturely themed “Talk Like a Pirate Day”. As a collective, we thought it would be good for you of the flesh to take a break from the isolation of your applications and share in the collective humor.
Our marketing department hears you and is responding. Next September, we will still celebrate taking a break and sharing the collective zeitgeist but will focus on more relevant and productive topics. Sept 19th will be “Discuss My Prostate Day” and the 20th will be “Discuss My Mammogram Day”.
Feel free to spend the next 364 days preparing.
This has been the internets. Thank you. [end of line]
@Lindsey: I do understand what you mean and I do think that some of the companies will earn some additional supporters by going the pirates way. But about the someone doing it for free I can hardly believe - they have their staff workers doing this fun part and most probably in their work hours and they pay salaries anyway even for all the fun staff
@MiniMage: Sorry, did not mean any offence here to anyone in particular
Er it’s just a bit of fun. Lighten up buzz kill
No offense; it was just an excuse to participate! I do believe in being childlike as often as is feasible. For me, the only other option is curmudgeonism.
It took us about 10 minutes to create the special TechCrunch pirate logo. I think we’ll all be okay.
@Geegory: True, the web still feels human, even the tech blogosphere. But I personally never felt like I was talking to a group of machines anyway but today just felt way too childish even if we admit that we do need to relax and take a break from time to time.
@Linda: Thanks for reminding of what pirates actually are, probably this is what caused my grudging here - I just feel it’s not exactly right to behave like pirates when there are so many things that need attention and our time.
@Jason: I sure am boring, glad to see such a visionary bothering to leave a comment here only to comment on my personality after reading one post here. Thank you.
@Shelley: Reasonable comment. I myself think that Tim O’Reilly stating the web should become useful does not mean it will become (take a look at my post linked from here about O’Reilly’s). I honestly think that we waste too much time on entertainment without even trying to do something useful - not necessary useful for the entire mankind but at least offering some real value for a buiseness or another real-life task and I just wanted to mention that the irony here is immense when comparing the two days.
@Pavel: Your comment just proves that everything here is very similar to what we had in high school - once anyone decides to tell anything that does not meet the generally accepted point of view (admiration for pirates in this case), this poor person is immediately called a boring party-pooper. You sure there’s no need to grow up?
@Ryo: That’s what I think and that is why FriendFeed and TechCrunch could do it but does Google really need to be cool to ensure customer loyalty? Do you fee we are not loyal enough?
@The Internets: I don’t feel like it’s actually funny to talk about health problems that harm millions of people around the world. I may have spoiled the party for everyone and I do understand it is important to take a break from time to time but it already feels like we spend 365 days per year having breaks and only one day doing something useful. Pity no one here wants to admit it.
@Mark: True, it was obvious that Techcrunch dressing up for the day did not take much (same as it was for FriendFeed) but I can imagine it took longer to have the special search page on Google and even longer for Facebook - and these two companies sure have quite nice salaries for developers that wasted some of their time for a single day of entertainment.
@MiniMage: I was already told I’m a curmudgeon at least 5 times because of this post so sorry I tried to spoil the fun
So that’s what the fuss was about? I’d seen the Google page and the eyepatch on FriendFeed but never put 2 and 2 together.
Argg!
Ari, lucky you are, you must have friends that decided they did not want to talk like pirates themselves because I bumped into pirates reading my friends’ staff everywhere constantly during the day
@Svetlana, I really don’t think you have any reason to be sorry!
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@MiniMage: I’ve already told that every time I try to go against a trend, someone makes me feel sorry in comments
svetlana, the only revenge for that, start a trend!
I really hope not.
@Gregory: Brave idea but I highly doubt it will be as funny as it is with pirates. Though I’ll be happy to offer all the tools needed to speak like a Russian and maybe even eat Russian food. Though it depends on the place to be able to dress like a Russian as it’s quite cold here already and I don’t think you will want to wear coats if you don’t have to
be russian for a day .. how does one do that?
Talk like a russian day
Россия и Германия: Мы вместе
and those great hats ..
This could help with some basic Russian phrases http://www.waytorussia.net/WhatIsRussia/Russian/Part2.html Very similar to the selection used for the pirates day
@Ryo: Where did you get the quote, I wonder
Добрый день. Добрый день, Что нового? … russian day, haven’t you heard
And this one is even larger, enough to be understood by all the Russians here - http://www.lingvozone.com/main.jsp?do=phrasebook-book&language_id_from=5&language_id_to=14&x=11&y=11
@svetlana: From here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/geekcantina/2800066017/ I think it’s about that latest caucasian conflict. Most german people, unlike their government, backing up russia
@Ryo: I see now and yes, it sounds absolutely logical - the people everywhere tend to support Russia in this situation, even if their governments don’t.
@Ryo: I see now and yes, it sounds absolutely logical - the people everywhere tend to support Russia in this situation, even if their governments don’t.
@LL: But you must use some device to write this message - which means you still have some expensive toy - no matter what manufacturer here. Hope you enjoyed the day and glad I did not spoil the holiday for you since you only arrived today
@LL: But you must use some device to write this message - which means you still have some expensive toy - no matter what manufacturer here. Hope you enjoyed the day and glad I did not spoil the holiday for you since you only arrived today
Nevarrr. I don’t own a MacBook Air or iPod or anything Apple actually. I don’t own any toys all at really. And I had a lot of fun with Pirate Day. Sometimes folks need to lighten up and amuse themselves, I see nothing wrong with that.
Nevarrr. I don’t own a MacBook Air or iPod or anything Apple actually. I don’t own any toys all at really. And I had a lot of fun with Pirate Day. Sometimes folks need to lighten up and amuse themselves, I see nothing wrong with that.
@Gregory: I wonder what exactly you do in IT being such a polyglot?
get ready, all names in cyrillic … it is a warm-up for chinese day later in the year …. 点击阅读重庆晚报’您的画廊’中文网站北京启动仪式相关报导
get ready, all names in cyrillic … it is a warm-up for chinese day later in the year …. 点击阅读重庆晚报’您的画廊’中文网站北京启动仪式相关报导
mostly i am an artist with a weird mind … fired from boeing for failure to maintain satisfactory attendance (spring came) … founding member of polyglots anonymous .. website designer for sites that just won’t load no matter what i do … chinese day would be almost as big a hit as russian day would be … get some new blood
Gregory, we already share 2 things (in addition to IT, I mean) in common - I used to work in aviation myself and I used to call myself a polyglot as a child myself (even won some prize at a local contest, I remember). And with no skills needed to code a site, I am sure I could do better in creating sites that will never load
Chinese day is a great idea, I guess I will write a special post about how we could increase our knowledge of other nations with such attention days. Will try to do it tomorrow and we’ll see what the reaction is here.