Once a week we’ll get a “tip” that just includes a link to some new St. Louis blog and we’ll check it out, be unimpressed and then get back to what important stuff we were doing, like reading a book (which is code for trying to get Jaleel White to retweet us). Last week though was different, not because we didn’t get a link to some new St. Louis blog, but because we got the same link sent to us 25 times and when we took a look it was actually funny. The blog was “What High School Should We Call Me” (.tumblr.com) and the premise is as simple as it is effective: headline setup, pre-made gif punchline. (You know how much we love gifs!)
“When My Friend Looks Away From Her Order of T-Ravs“
“When I Find Out My Crush is a Cubs Fan“
“When My Friend Passes Me the Flask She Snuck into the Cards Game“
We wanted to do a post right away to get the word out, but the word was most certainly already out. However, we still had questions and a burning desire to meet a fellow St. Louis Satirist, so we tracked them down with our amazing sleuthing reporter skills, and got a quick interview:
There are actually two authors of the blog, both remaning anonymous with “super original and mysterious pen names”.
This blog seemed to have come out of nowhere. What made you start it?
The Deb: Outsider – I’ll let you take this one.
The Outsider: I won’t lie and say this was an original idea since clearly it’s a blatant rip-off of What Should We Call Me, along with its numerous copy-cats. But I kept bookmarking all these new gif tumblrs, and I thought, why hasn’t anyone started one for St. Louis yet? Clearly there’s enough to make fun of. I realized that my loves of the internet and making fun of people could finally combine for the greater good, so I decided to be that person. I pulled in the Deb ASAP because she’s funny and watches more reality TV than me.
The name is obviously a play on everyone’s favorite intro question, “What high school did you go to?”, but I didn’t intend for it to be all about that. It just seemed like such a quintessential St. Louis phrase, although the high school thing certainly gives us a lot of material.
It’s seems that way, but direct question: Are you keeping yourself anonymous?
The Deb: As much as we’d like people to publically acknowledge how funny we are, we don’t want to intimidate all of our friends with our incredible wit. Also, there are probably some angry catholic school girls out there.
The Outsider: It’s been entertaining to see friends post links on my Facebook wall (“omg this is totally you!!!”…yes, it literally is), and sitting at happy hour last Friday while we scrolled through page after page was a real gem. Knowing me, some night I’ll get slightly overserved and spill in order to one-up someone or get an attractive person’s number, but until then, we’re like Anonymous, only way less powerful and interesting.
How many GIFs have you gone through to find all the St. Louis appropriate ones?
The Deb: All 164 pages of RealityTVGIFs.com, but who’s counting? If I had to guess, it’s somewhere in the thousands.
The Outsider: I have 96 saved on my desktop right now. I’d also estimate that nearly all of my Google searches over the last week have been something like “Maury Povich gifs” or “lunch is canceled due to lack of hustle gif”.
We too have a messy desktop, but ours is full of cat photos and Larry Connors gifs.
Was there a specific day when traffic exploded?
The Outsider: We “launched” on Tuesday, May 15, but things really blew up Thursday of that week. We had 68,000 pageviews in one day compared to 6,000 the previous two days combined. I’d like to thank Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook for that surge since more than 80% of our traffic comes from good old FB.
…you’re in luck! Facebook stock is such a good deal right now!
How long do you think you can keep this up?
The Deb: As long as the Real Housewives series continues.
**The Outsider: **http://bit.ly/k08JGH
We’d like to thank “The Deb” and “The Outsider” for taking time out of their busy gif Googling schedule for this interview.
If you think you’ve found the one gif that they haven’t, you can submit your own to them and maybe they’ll post it…or maybe they’ll just laugh privately at how stupid your suggestion is and not post it. The pressure is enormous, but do it anyway because otherwise you’re a whiny pussy who no one likes. You want to be Charles Jaco for the rest of your life?! Didn’t think so. No one wants to be Charles Jaco.
Here’s our submission:
After Sitting Through Yet Another South County Wedding With a Full Catholic Mass Ceremony, and a 3 Hour Break Before the Reception of Crappy Pasta and a Cash Bar
