David Thorne (writer)

27bslash6

The name of Thorne's website (27bslash6) is a reference to George Orwell's address - Apartment 6, 27B Canonbury Square, Islington London. The phrase "27B stroke 6" is also used by Terry Gilliam in his movie Brazil. 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 United States. 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 Thorne and 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, United States, 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.

Controversy

Former colleagues say that Thorne's email exchanges with them were faked, but their names and photographs were real, leading some to feel suicidal after being hounded and abused by his fans. Thorne acknowledges "every person on the site is real, not constructed" but maintains the exchanges on his site are "verbatim".

Thorne claims he was arrested for posting a fabricated internal McDonald's memo, but released without charge.

The Internet is a Playground

Thorne's first book, a collection of articles from the website titled The Internet is a Playground, sold almost 80,000 copies in its first month of release. The book was originally 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 US. 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 four on The New York Times Best Seller list the following week.

I'll Go Home Then, It's Warm and Has Chairs

Thorne's second release, a collection of both unpublished articles and ones from the website titled I'll Go Home Then, It's Warm and Has Chairs, sold over double the copies of his first book in its first month of release. The cover of its first edition featured a drawing of a Penguin giving the finger, leading to Penguin Group claiming trademark infringement and demanding the cover be changed. The cover was eventually changed to feature a cat dressed as an astronaut, holding a snowboard after a sarcastic negotiation with Penguin Group, which was published on the 27bslash6 website.

Kate's Birthday Party

On 25 April 2010, David Thorne created a Facebook 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.

Personal life

David Thorne is married to Holly, with whom he has a son, Sebastian.

Publications