Misplaced Pages

Failure: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 14:18, 1 July 2010 view sourceIronGargoyle (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Administrators152,133 editsm Reverted edits by 82.219.217.19 (talk) to last revision by Jusdafax (HG)← Previous edit Revision as of 23:23, 1 July 2010 view source 180.222.15.223 (talk) →Internet memesTag: section blankingNext edit →
Line 24: Line 24:
*See also ] *See also ]
* ] * ]

==Internet memes==
{{redirect|Epic fail|the ''House'' episode|Epic Fail (House)}}
]]]
"Fail" is the name of a popular ] where users superimpose a caption, often the word "'''fail'''" or "'''epic fail'''", onto photos or short videos depicting unsuccessful events or people falling short of expectations.<ref name="redorbit">{{cite web|url=http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1306942/memes_help_keep_internet_interesting/index.html|title=Memes Help Keep Internet Interesting.|date=March 22, 2008|publisher=''''|accessdate=August 9, 2009}}</ref> In July 2003, a contributor to ] wrote that the term, "fail," could be used as an interjection, "when one disapproves of something," citing the example: "You actually bought that? FAIL." This most likely originated as a shortened form of "You fail" or, more fully, "You fail it," the taunting "game over" message in the late ] Japanese video game '']'', notorious for its ].<ref name="fail_NYT">{{cite news|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/magazine/09FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=3&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all|title=How Fail Went From Verb to Interjection.|last=Zimmer|first=Ben|date=August 7, 2009|publisher='']''|accessdate=August 9, 2009}}</ref><ref name="origins">{{cite news|last=Schofield|first=Jack|title=All your FAIL are belong to us.|publisher ='']''|date = 17 October 2008|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/oct/17/2|accessdate=August 9, 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |first=Christopher |last=Beam |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Epic Win |url=http://www.slate.com/id/2202262/ |work=] |publisher= |date=2008-10-15 |accessdate=2009-08-21 }}</ref> There is an entire Internet site dedicated to "fails" called ].<ref name="fail_NYT"></ref> The #fail ] is used on the microblogging site ] to indicate contempt or displeasure, and the image that accompanies the message that the site is overloaded is referred to as the "fail whale."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/failure+others+gone+competitive/2940572/story.html|title=Joy in the failure of others has gone competitive|last=Malik|first=Asmaa|date=24 April 2010|work=Montreal Gazette|accessdate=21 May 2010}}</ref>

The term "]" has also been popularized as a result of a widely known "]ing," which caused ]es for the term to turn up the White House biography of ].<ref name="snopes">{{cite web|url=http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/google.asp|title=Someone Set Us Up The Google Bomb.|last=Mikkelson, Barbara; Mikkelson, David P.|date=August 13, 2007|publisher='']''|accessdate=August 9, 2009}}</ref>


==See also== ==See also==

Revision as of 23:23, 1 July 2010

Template:Pp-pending

For other uses, see Failure (disambiguation).
Train wreck at Montparnasse, France (1895).

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.

  1. Failure to anticipate
  2. Failure to perceive
  3. Failure to carry out a task

Loser is a derogatory term for a person who is (according to the standards of the observer) generally unsuccessful.

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."

See also

Further reading

References

External links

Categories: