Sock and Awe is a minimalist 2008 Flash game created by British entrepreneur Alex Tew, recreating the Bush shoeing incident and putting the player in control of journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi who flung a shoe at George W. Bush during a news conference. Although the game was hastily put together, it went viral and received widespread news coverage right around its release, only a day after the actual incident.[1][2][3][4][5][6] It is a well-known example of a newsgame.[7] The name of the game is a pun on the US shock and awe military tactic.[8][9]
| Sock and Awe | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Alex Tew |
| Release | December 18, 2008 |
| Genre(s) | Newsgame |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Release
editAlex Tew, the author, was a "student entrepreneur" at the time, and previously "Internet famous" for The Million Dollar Homepage, a successful ploy website that helped him pay for his college tuition.[10] On December 18, the day of the shoe throwing incident, Tew was part of a group of people on Twitter trading ideas on what might be a good tabloid headline describing the incident when somebody suggested "Sock and Awe." Already by the following day, Tew had registered the domain sockandawe.com, developed and uploaded the game.[11] Two days later, the game had already been played 1.4 million times.[2] At the end of the week, Tew had managed to sell the site on eBay for £5,215 GBP to a company called Fubra.[12] Tew cheekily commented to a Reuters journalist: "From Monday concept, Tuesday launch, Wednesday growth, we’ve had a Thursday exit."[13] By December 22, 49 million shoes had been thrown in the game.[14]
Copycat games
editWhile the game's crudeness has meant it has remained mostly uncommented on in video gaming academia, the mainstream media attention it received motivated several other game developers to try their hand at similar newsgames. At least nine copycat shoe-throwing games were created, and the creator behind Raid Gaza!, Marcus Richter, later cited Sock and Awe as an inspiration for his game.[15][16][14][17] Tew developing and releasing this game was one of the reasons why Milo Yiannopoulos, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, referred to Tew as the "most annoying man on the Internet."[18]
References
edit- ^ "'Sock and awe': Zaidi-inspired game takes swipe at Bush". www.abc.net.au. 16 December 2008. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
- ^ a b Perrin, Jean-Pierre. "Le lanceur de chaussures savaté ?". Libération (in French).
- ^ Uesugi, Takashi (2009). Saishō fuzai : hōkai suru seiji to media o yomitoku. Tōkyō: Daiyamondosha. p. 256. ISBN 9784478008195.
- ^ "Sock and Awe: online schoenen gooien naar Bush". Site-DataNews-NL. 17 December 2008.
- ^ Kiss, Jemima (17 December 2008). "Sock and Awe: Your chance to whack George Bush". the Guardian. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
- ^ Visweswaran, Kamala (31 December 2013). "Introduction: Geographies of Everyday Occupation". Everyday Occupations: 1–28. doi:10.9783/9780812207835.1. ISBN 978-0-8122-4487-8.
- ^ Hernández, Iván Darío Samudio (15 December 2017). "Newsgames: periodismo y videojuegos ¿una herramienta utilizada en el ámbito informativo colombiano?". Comunicación. 37 (37): 48–49. doi:10.18566/comunica.n37.a05.
- ^ "「ブッシュ大統領に靴投げゲーム」、ネット上で大人気". www.afpbb.com. 17 December 2008.
- ^ De Lisle, Heather (2010). AMILAND: Eine Streitschrift für die Weltmacht USA. Hamburg. p. 30. ISBN 9783868507805.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ "Taking a swipe at Bush: Zaidi-inspired shoe game on Internet". The Sydney Morning Herald. 17 December 2008.
- ^ Cellan-Jones, Rory. "Five grand for Sock And Awe". BBC News. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
- ^ "Le jeu de lancer de chaussures sur George Bush vendu sur eBay". Reuters. 19 December 2008.
- ^ "Alex Tew | Swindon designer of the Million Dollar Homepage | SwindonB2B". www.swindonweb.com.
- ^ a b Koman, Richard. "Online democracy: The People want to throw a shoe". ZDNet.
- ^ "Internet flooded with shoe-throwing games in wake of Bush incident". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. 24 December 2008.
- ^ "Images: 'News games' play off today's headlines". CNET.
- ^ "Interview about video games with Marcus Richert, Raitendo". 16 January 2020.
- ^ "Is Alex Tew the most annoying man on the internet?". www.telegraph.co.uk. 23 September 2010.