| Revision as of 22:47, 21 June 2009 view sourceSaberwolf116 (talk | contribs)982 editsm Undid revision 296354566 by Gordonrox24 (talk) - Depicts a failure← Previous edit | Revision as of 01:00, 29 June 2009 view source Beno1000 (talk | contribs)Pending changes reviewers3,659 editsm →Internet memeNext edit → | ||
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| ==Internet meme== | ==Internet meme== | ||
| ]"Fail" is the name of a popular ] where users superimpose the word "fail" or "epic fail" onto compromising photos or short videos.<ref></ref> The meme is widely believed to have come from the arcade game ]. When the player loses, the message "You fail it! Your skill is not enough! See you next time! Bye bye!" is shown.<ref>{{cite news | ] | ||
| "Fail" (often spelled "phail") is the name of a popular ] where users superimpose the word "fail" or "epic fail" onto compromising photos or short videos.<ref></ref> The meme is widely believed to have come from the arcade game ]. When the player loses, the message "You fail it! Your skill is not enough! See you next time! Bye bye!" is shown.<ref>{{cite news | |||
| | last = Schofield | | last = Schofield | ||
| | first = Jack | | first = Jack | ||
Revision as of 01:00, 29 June 2009
For other uses, see Failure (disambiguation).
Failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. Product failure ranges from failure to sell the product to fracture of the product, in the worst cases leading to personal injury, the province of forensic engineering.
Criteria for failure
The criteria for failure are heavily dependent on context of use, and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system. A situation considered to be a failure by one might be considered a success by another, particularly in cases of direct competition or a zero-sum game. Similarly, the degree of success or failure in a situation may be differently viewed by distinct observers or participants, such that a situation that one considers to be a failure, another might consider to be a success, a qualified success or a neutral situation.
It may also be difficult or impossible to ascertain whether a situation meets criteria for failure or success due to ambiguous or ill-defined definition of those criteria. Finding useful and effective criteria, or heuristics, to judge the success or failure of a situation may itself be a significant task.
Types of failure
Failure can be differentially perceived from the viewpoints of the evaluators. A person who is only interested in the final outcome of an activity would consider it to be an Outcome Failure if the core issue has not been resolved or a core need is not met. A failure can also be a process failure whereby although the activity is completed successfully, a person may still feel dissatisfied if the underlying process is perceived to be below expected standard or benchmark.
- Failure to anticipate
- Failure to perceive
- Failure to carry out a task
Commercial failures
A commercial failure is a product that does not reach expectations of success.
Most of the items listed below had high expectations, significant financial investments, and/or widespread publicity, but fell far short of success. Due to the subjective nature of "success" and "meeting expectations", there can be disagreement about what constitutes a "major flop."
- For flops in computer and video gaming, see List of commercial failures in computer and video gaming
- For company failures related to the 1997–2001 Dot-com bubble, see Dot-com company
- See also Vaporware
Internet meme
"Fail" (often spelled "phail") is the name of a popular Internet meme where users superimpose the word "fail" or "epic fail" onto compromising photos or short videos. The meme is widely believed to have come from the arcade game Blazing Star. When the player loses, the message "You fail it! Your skill is not enough! See you next time! Bye bye!" is shown.
The term "miserable failure" has also been popularized as a result of a widely known "Google bombing", which caused Google searches for the term to turn up the White House biography of George W. Bush.
See also
- Cascading failure
- Debugging
- Failure analysis
- Failure rate
- Failure mode
- Forensic engineering
- List of military disasters
- List of railway disasters
- Murphy's law
- New product development
- Non-event
- Planned obsolescence (also built-in obsolescence)
- Power outage
- Product
- Product management
- Single point of failure
- Structural failure
- Tensile strength
- White elephant
- System accident
Further reading
- Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies, New Tork: Basic Books, 1983. Paperback reprint, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-691-00412-9
- Sandage, Scott A. Born Losers: A History of Failure in America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-674-01510-X, ISBN 0-674-02107-X
References
- Memes Help Keep Internet Interesting - Technology - redOrbit
- Schofield, Jack (17 October 2008). "All your FAIL are belong to us". The Guardian Technology blog. Guardian News and Media Limited.
- http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/google.asp