I have a major girl crush on the dynamic duo behind #whatshouldwecallme. Not only are they hilarious, but they’ve managed to turn their Gchat jokes into an advertiser-friendly website.
#Whatshouldwecallme, a Tumblr-based humor blog, has captivated college females (and males!) nationwide and has rightfully earned itself a spot on my “Top Sites” tab.
I was dying to know more about the geniuses behind my favorite study-time distraction, so I talked to Tom and Jerry*, the blog’s 24-year old co-creators.***
HC: What is #whatshouldwecallme?
#Whatshouldwecallme: For us, it’s a unique way to keep in touch; but technically, it’s a Tumblr blog co-authored by us, two 24-year-old best friends living on different coasts, that fits captions to .gifs using our own perspective on life.
HC: How did you come up with the concept?
WSWCM: We always sent each other .gifs over Gchat during online conversations, and we would crack each other up. Since we don’t have the same class schedules and we are in different time zones (three hours apart), we couldn’t always catch each other online — so we thought that making a Tumblr where we both posted the captioned .gifs (and that we could both check throughout the day) would be a good way to keep in touch.
HC: What does the name mean?
WSWCM: Its origin was in a Gchat typo; when we were creating the Tumblr account, Tom meant to type to Jerry “What should we call it?” But instead he wrote “What should we call me?” We both thought it was a funny typo and decided that it should be the name. It wasn’t something we put any thought into, which is something that — in retrospect — seems appropriate for our blog.
HC: How did you publicize the blog/increase viewership so dramatically in such a short period of time?
WSWCM: We actually didn’t. The only initial “publicizing” we did was put the site’s URL up as our Gchat statuses. The next thing we knew, people were posting it on their Facebooks and writing features about it in their own blogs. It was truly a happy accident.
HC: How did you make the jump from blog to business (with the inclusion of advertisements)?
WSWCM: We’d had a lot of advertisers contacting us, but initially we weren’t interested because we didn’t want ads to detract visually from our posts. The company that currently runs our ads gave us enough examples of blogs that they work on that look great- and this convinced us that they could do it in a way that wouldn’t overwhelm the site.
HC: Who are you? (i.e. What law school do you attend? There are two of you. Are you roommates? etc.)
WSWCM: We are two 24-year-old best friends who met when we were 17; we went to the same college in Boston, and we ended up being placed in adjacent dorm rooms. We lived together after freshman year (with a few of our other friends), and after college, Tom moved to Washington, D.C., and Jerry moved to San Francisco.
When we started the blog, Tom was in a serious relationship and Jerry wasn’t; once it came out that two girls were behind the site, we got a lot of messages and tweets saying that they finally understood how the person behind #Whatshouldwecallme could be making posts about her boyfriend and a guy she brought home from the bar all at the same time.
HC: Favorite #whatshouldwecallme post?
WSWCM: Way too many to name, but we both agree that our favorites are actually ones that the other posted.
One of the funny things about our blog is that we don’t “check” with the other about our posts; in other words, we don’t run anything by the other before a post goes public. That way, each post is a complete surprise to the other, and that makes this really fun.
HC: Where do you see this blog going? Would you pursue it as a career?
WSWCM: We both agree that we’ll stop doing this blog the minute it stops being fun. And realistically, we have trouble planning ahead for lunch, let alone for the future of this site.
We’ve had a lot of agencies contact us about the different directions our blog could go in, and we’re open to all of their ideas — but honestly, we’re a bit more concerned about which direction the bar is in right now.
***The popularity of #whatshouldwecallme has led to spinoff sites like #howdoiputthisgently, #mylifeasakitten, Greek Life-themed #collegegreeks, and UNC-themed #chapelthrills.
With pages and pages of #whatshouldwecallme posts and more WSWCM-inspired sites popping up every week, Finals Week should be chock full of entertaining distractions to help collegiettes power through monotonous study sessions.
*Names changed for anonymity.
Sources:
whatshouldwecallme.tumblr.com