As I sat down to draw this, I thought, "A flying giraffe... there's something new." It wasn't until after I'd drawn it, colored it, and given the sketch away to one of my Facebook fans that I started wondering just how original the concept of a flying giraffe was. I Googled it and found 1,260,000 other flying giraffes... so, not quite as original as I had hoped. At that point, I couldn't help but wonder how many non-flying giraffe images Google would find, so I did a second search for the simpler, more conventional "giraffe." That one yielded 2,430,000 images. So it turns out that only about one-in-three of the internet's giraffe population is capable of flight... which I'm pretty sure is the actual percentage you would find if you just went outside and looked around.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Flying Giraffe
As I sat down to draw this, I thought, "A flying giraffe... there's something new." It wasn't until after I'd drawn it, colored it, and given the sketch away to one of my Facebook fans that I started wondering just how original the concept of a flying giraffe was. I Googled it and found 1,260,000 other flying giraffes... so, not quite as original as I had hoped. At that point, I couldn't help but wonder how many non-flying giraffe images Google would find, so I did a second search for the simpler, more conventional "giraffe." That one yielded 2,430,000 images. So it turns out that only about one-in-three of the internet's giraffe population is capable of flight... which I'm pretty sure is the actual percentage you would find if you just went outside and looked around.
A similar thing happened to me recently...
ReplyDeleteI follow Chris Kennett, who posted this:
http://crikeyboy.blogspot.com/2011/05/victorian-giraffe-riding-penny-farthing.html
and I commented on the post with a piece I did last Fall:
http://loganpearsall.blogspot.com/2010/10/giraffe-finals.html
I think giraffes might just be awesome, and the world is catching on!
I love yours by the way!
Hahah I love the way you think about these things. It's always interesting to see what goes inside an artists head :)
ReplyDeleteI would totally tame that giraffe so I can ride it!
Yeah...Google sucks. Every time I think I'm original, Google tells me otherwise.
ReplyDeleteRight on.
ReplyDeleteI experienced the very same thing. With the exact same motive. Flying Giraffe. I made this in December 2009. At least its right on top of the google image seach. :'D
ReplyDeletehttp://www.feyrah.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2eike5
I laughed so hard at this article!
Years later though, the number of giraffes doesn't seem to have changed much and you can find your giraffe among the top results when googling "flying giraffe". I'd say mission accomplished.
ReplyDelete