The Bananaphone is the latest in a long line of internet fads. It started off innocently enough, as the latest production of 'cookiethievery', a small site with a hardcore following. Bananaphone was no different from any of their other works, consisting of a background image, a wiggling sprite, and a mutated MP3, but for some reason this particular combination (an ASCII-art representation of Osaka from Azumanga Daioh, a Gundam robot in a banana suit, and a speeded-up version of Raffi's 'Bananaphone') had enormous mass-market appeal. After being featured on several high-profile blogs, cookiethievery's bandwidth exploded by several orders of magnitude overnight.
I don't have to accept getting 33,000 hits in one day when I don't advertise my site. Gtfo.
There already is [a forum], but not for you weirdos. 99% of visitors don't care to help this site NOT DIE. They don't deserve a forum. They're lucky to get this thing.
Having their guestbook invaded by illiterate morons complaining about dolphin porn1, and having to pay for the privilege has not exactly sat well with cookiethievery's admins. I suspect that they think that if they are rude and abusive enough, maybe all these people will go away. The chances of them every getting their cosy community back are slim-to-none, and they're rather bitter about it.2
!= I ♥ My Pony
Like any good internet fad, the Bananaphone was spoofed. The 'Badgerphone' combines the graphics of 'Badger Badger' with the soundtrack and sprite of the Bananaphone. While just as guilty of stealing copyrighted material wholesale, the 'Badgerphone' has got quite a lot going for it: it's well choreographed, actually has some animation, and is even funny. In addition, the author isn't a raving misanthropist with his head lodged up his arse. I'd recommend it to anyone that enjoyed Badger Badger.
The song! You hear it now too...
The best thing to come out of the Bananaphone affair is The Fuck Society's Bananaphone animation, a twisted little tale built on a horrific premise: What if you had to listen to the Bananaphone song for the rest of your life? This short film is original, well-directed, and darkly comic.
If not for the inspiration of the original fad, this wonderful animation could never have existed. This alone pardons the Bananaphone of its crimes against humanity.
Due to mass amounts of bandwidth being used, this site is now offline.
I can no longer afford to keep it running.
Thanks for your non-support.
Thanks for killing my site.
Cookiethievery is no longer serving shockwave animations. I can't say I'm surprised, and I can't say I have much sympathy of them. Their 'art' is nothing more than a cobbling together of other people's copyrighted material; none of their animations contain any original graphics or sound whatsoever. To complain that people are 'stealing' their art by viewing their website and not donating, while at the same time taking others' work and not paying them any royalties is rather hypocritical.
Only a complete idiot contracts for hosting capable of delivering tens of gigabytes a day without considering how to pay the bandwidth bill should such a thing actually happen; had their site just curled up and died from the outset, it would not have the problems it's having now. Had they hosted adverts on it, they would have enough money to cover their bandwidth bill. As much as they enjoy blaming other people, at the end of the day, their site could have been the next weebl's stuff, but instead it's shut down, and it's their own mismanagement that's caused it.
1 - Cookiethievery's other famous project featured a man being masturbated by a dolphin hand puppet, to the tune of the theme from flipper, speeded up. To say that it didn't go down well with the public would be an understatement.
For the complete 'Bananaphone Experience', check out the following websites:
*Not safe for work
**Contains
harsh language
*** offline until further notice****. For a similar experience, watch the 'badgerphone' with the monitor turned off, and then visit the node
How to have sex with a dolphin.
****Though unofficial 'mirrors' of it can be found on
google.