David Thorne (writer)
Encyclopedia
David Thorne is an Australian humourist, satirist, Internet personality and New York Times best-selling author. His work has been featured on the BBC
, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Ellen DeGeneres Show
, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien
. Thorne gained public recognition in late 2008 for an email exchange in which he attempts to pay an overdue bill with a drawing of a seven-legged spider. The exchange spread virally via email and social networking sites, leading to a surge of visitors to his website 27b/6 (27bslash6). 27b/6 features a collection of humorous emails and articles from Thorne's life. These and additional essays appear in Thorne's book, The Internet is a Playground. Published by Penguin Group
and released on 28 April 2011, the book debuted at number 4 on The New York Times Best Seller list.
Thorne says that he has been a long-time fan of satirists such as Ross Amorelli, Mil Millington
, Chris Lilley
and Shaun Micallef
, stating that they have all been a "constant source of amusement over the last few years." Much of Thorne's humour is autobiographical and self-deprecating, often concerning his immediate family and work associates.
lived in Apartment 27b on level 6 while writing the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four
. The phrase "27B stroke 6" is also used by Terry Gilliam
in his movie Brazil
. Thorne states that he was unable to secure the word stroke and instead chose the word slash. The website went from receiving a hundred hits a week from a small and consistent group of people to gaining a larger mainstream audience – a few thousand hits a day – when the article I Wish I Had a Monkey was listed on the Bored At Work website. Following the spider drawing page being posted on Digg
, the 27bslash6 server crashed after taking over half a million hits in a 24-hour period before being moved to a dedicated server. The second server crashed following Thorne's next article, "Party in Apartment 3," in which Thorne repeatedly RSVPs for a party he has not been invited to, before the site was moved to a third server in the US and has since continued to receive a large volume of traffic.
The spider drawing itself became so popular that it was auctioned on eBay
, where a user posted a high bid of US$10,000 but subsequently said he had no intention of paying. When asked how he felt about the refusal of the buyer to pay, Thorne stated, "The internet is a playground and I would not have it any other way." The spider email has also been featured on several television and radio programs including BBC's Have I Got News for You
in the UK and the Late Show with David Letterman
in the US. The news article regarding the spider email was voted most popular news story of 2008 in Australia, where it received five times the views of any other article for the year.
Thorne has also had international success with many of his other articles from the 27bslash6 website such as 'Missing Missy', a series of correspondences between a secretary who requires a missing poster designed for her lost cat, 'Strata Agreement' and "Party in Apartment 3," which became so popular that it was read out during a prime time
broadcast on BBC Radio in the United Kingdom and reprinted in more than 300 newspapers worldwide. Thorne's article regarding a former client contacting him for pro-bono work titled "Simon's Pie Charts" (November 2009) became such a viral hit due to being passed on by email and social networking sites that it has been described as one of the most passed on viral emails of all time and has been mentioned on Twitter
by many celebrities, read out on radio throughout the UK, US and Germany, and featured on The Ellen Degeneres Show
, Australia's The 7PM Project
and Late Night with Conan O'Brien
.
On 3 March 2010, the website was taken offline for several hours and any attempt to access it was directed to a page stating the account had been suspended. Thorne had published an article a few days earlier detailing an email exchange with an officer from South Australia's E-Crime unit regarding an earlier article in which Thorne wrote of purchasing drugs to sell at a profit. Following the correspondence with the officer, Thorne replaced the word drugs with cats in the original article to avoid the threat of having the website shut down.
. Released on 28 April 2011, Penguin renamed the book The Internet is a Playground, Irreverent Correspondences of an Evil Online Genius and the book debuted at number 4 on The New York Times Best Seller list the following week.
event titled "Kate's Birthday Party". The hoax event, a birthday party for an Adelaide woman named Kate, was supposedly accidentally left open to public security settings, allowing anyone to RSVP
. Following several links being posted on the image board 4chan
and Reddit
, the event amassed more than 60,000 attendees. Several blogs picked up on the event as an example of security flaws within Facebook. Thorne created an "I Attended Kate's Party" T-Shirt and began selling it on his online store, whilst numerous Facebook groups were spawned in reference to the event. The event, originally scheduled for Saturday, 1 May at 8:00 pm, was eventually taken down by Facebook.
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Ellen DeGeneres Show
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
The Ellen DeGeneres Show, often shortened to Ellen, is an American television talk show hosted by comedian/actress Ellen DeGeneres. Debuting on September 8, 2003, it is produced by Telepictures and airs in syndication, including stations owned by NBC Universal. For its first five seasons, the show...
, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...
. Thorne gained public recognition in late 2008 for an email exchange in which he attempts to pay an overdue bill with a drawing of a seven-legged spider. The exchange spread virally via email and social networking sites, leading to a surge of visitors to his website 27b/6 (27bslash6). 27b/6 features a collection of humorous emails and articles from Thorne's life. These and additional essays appear in Thorne's book, The Internet is a Playground. Published by Penguin Group
Penguin Group
The Penguin Group is a trade book publisher, the largest in the world , having overtaken Random House in 2009. The Penguin Group is the name of the incorporated division of parent Pearson PLC that oversees these publishing operations...
and released on 28 April 2011, the book debuted at number 4 on The New York Times Best Seller list.
Thorne says that he has been a long-time fan of satirists such as Ross Amorelli, Mil Millington
Mil Millington
Mil Millington is a British author of humorous books.-History:Millington first came to public prominence as a writer when he created a web-site entitled Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, describing arguments and misunderstandings between Millington and his German girlfriend Margret,...
, Chris Lilley
Chris Lilley
Chris Lilley may refer to:*Chris Lilley , Australian comedian*Chris Lilley , technical director, W3C...
and Shaun Micallef
Shaun Micallef
Shaun Patrick Micallef is an Australian actor, comedian and writer. After ten years of working in insurance law as a solicitor in Adelaide, Micallef moved to Melbourne to pursue a full-time comedy career in 1993...
, stating that they have all been a "constant source of amusement over the last few years." Much of Thorne's humour is autobiographical and self-deprecating, often concerning his immediate family and work associates.
27bslash6
The name of Thorne's website (27bslash6) is a reference to the fact that George OrwellGeorge Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
lived in Apartment 27b on level 6 while writing the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
. The phrase "27B stroke 6" is also used by Terry Gilliam
Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...
in his movie Brazil
Brazil (film)
Brazil is a 1985 British science fiction fantasy/black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam. It was written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard and stars Jonathan Pryce. The film also features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm...
. Thorne states that he was unable to secure the word stroke and instead chose the word slash. The website went from receiving a hundred hits a week from a small and consistent group of people to gaining a larger mainstream audience – a few thousand hits a day – when the article I Wish I Had a Monkey was listed on the Bored At Work website. Following the spider drawing page being posted on Digg
Digg
Digg is a social news website. Prior to Digg v4, its cornerstone function consisted of letting people vote stories up or down, called digging and burying, respectively. Digg's popularity prompted the creation of copycat social networking sites with story submission and voting systems...
, the 27bslash6 server crashed after taking over half a million hits in a 24-hour period before being moved to a dedicated server. The second server crashed following Thorne's next article, "Party in Apartment 3," in which Thorne repeatedly RSVPs for a party he has not been invited to, before the site was moved to a third server in the US and has since continued to receive a large volume of traffic.
The spider drawing itself became so popular that it was auctioned on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
, where a user posted a high bid of US$10,000 but subsequently said he had no intention of paying. When asked how he felt about the refusal of the buyer to pay, Thorne stated, "The internet is a playground and I would not have it any other way." The spider email has also been featured on several television and radio programs including BBC's Have I Got News for You
Have I Got News for You
Have I Got News for You is a British television panel show produced by Hat Trick Productions for the BBC. It is based loosely on the BBC Radio 4 show The News Quiz, and has been broadcast since 1990, currently the BBC's longest-ever running television panel show...
in the UK and the Late Show with David Letterman
Late Show with David Letterman
Late Show with David Letterman is a U.S. late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on CBS. The show debuted on August 30, 1993, and is produced by Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants Incorporated. The show's music director and band-leader of the house band, the CBS Orchestra, is...
in the US. The news article regarding the spider email was voted most popular news story of 2008 in Australia, where it received five times the views of any other article for the year.
Thorne has also had international success with many of his other articles from the 27bslash6 website such as 'Missing Missy', a series of correspondences between a secretary who requires a missing poster designed for her lost cat, 'Strata Agreement' and "Party in Apartment 3," which became so popular that it was read out during a prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
broadcast on BBC Radio in the United Kingdom and reprinted in more than 300 newspapers worldwide. Thorne's article regarding a former client contacting him for pro-bono work titled "Simon's Pie Charts" (November 2009) became such a viral hit due to being passed on by email and social networking sites that it has been described as one of the most passed on viral emails of all time and has been mentioned on Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
by many celebrities, read out on radio throughout the UK, US and Germany, and featured on The Ellen Degeneres Show
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
The Ellen DeGeneres Show, often shortened to Ellen, is an American television talk show hosted by comedian/actress Ellen DeGeneres. Debuting on September 8, 2003, it is produced by Telepictures and airs in syndication, including stations owned by NBC Universal. For its first five seasons, the show...
, Australia's The 7PM Project
The 7PM Project
The Project is an Australian talk show television program airing weeknights across Australia on Network Ten. The formerly half hour long show premiered on 20 July 2009, and is hosted by Charlie Pickering, Carrie Bickmore and Dave Hughes, with a rotating daily guest panelist...
and Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...
.
On 3 March 2010, the website was taken offline for several hours and any attempt to access it was directed to a page stating the account had been suspended. Thorne had published an article a few days earlier detailing an email exchange with an officer from South Australia's E-Crime unit regarding an earlier article in which Thorne wrote of purchasing drugs to sell at a profit. Following the correspondence with the officer, Thorne replaced the word drugs with cats in the original article to avoid the threat of having the website shut down.
The Internet is a Playground
Thorne's first book, a collection of articles from the website titled The Internet is a Playground, sold almost 8,000 copies in its first month of release. The book was initially picked up and released by a small Australian publisher named Fontaine Press. Disputes between Thorne and Fontaine Press regarding delivery and non-payment of author royalties caused Thorne to end his relationship with them a few months later. In 2011, the rights to publish the book, along with approximately 160 pages of new content, were purchased by Penguin Group USPenguin Group
The Penguin Group is a trade book publisher, the largest in the world , having overtaken Random House in 2009. The Penguin Group is the name of the incorporated division of parent Pearson PLC that oversees these publishing operations...
. Released on 28 April 2011, Penguin renamed the book The Internet is a Playground, Irreverent Correspondences of an Evil Online Genius and the book debuted at number 4 on The New York Times Best Seller list the following week.
Kate's Birthday Party
On 25 April 2010, David Thorne created a FacebookFacebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
event titled "Kate's Birthday Party". The hoax event, a birthday party for an Adelaide woman named Kate, was supposedly accidentally left open to public security settings, allowing anyone to RSVP
RSVP
RSVP may refer to:* RSVP , request for responsesEtymologyFrom the French RSVP, répondez s'il vous plaît, meaning “reply please” or "please respond".-Music:* "R.S.V.P." , 1985...
. Following several links being posted on the image board 4chan
4chan
4chan is an English-language imageboard website. Launched on October 1, 2003, its boards were originally used for the posting of pictures and discussion of manga and anime...
and Reddit
Reddit
reddit is a social news website where the registered users submit content, in the form of either a link or a text "self" post. Other users then vote the submission "up" or "down," which is used to rank the post and determine its position on the site's pages and front page.Reddit was originally...
, the event amassed more than 60,000 attendees. Several blogs picked up on the event as an example of security flaws within Facebook. Thorne created an "I Attended Kate's Party" T-Shirt and began selling it on his online store, whilst numerous Facebook groups were spawned in reference to the event. The event, originally scheduled for Saturday, 1 May at 8:00 pm, was eventually taken down by Facebook.
Publications
- The Internet is a Playground A collection of articles and more from 27bslash6.com (2011) Published by Tarcher / Penguin Group.