Twitter Lingo: Fail Whale

A phrase meaning: The picture that appears on Twitter’s website when its servers are down. Use: “Stop tweeting so much or you’ll cause the Fail Whale!” Every once in a while, Twitter’s tremendous growth becomes a little too much for its servers to handle, and that’s when you see the error page, complete with a cute image of Twitter birdies holding up a whale. That picture has become known as the Fail Whale because it’s instantly recognizable and symbolic of Twitter’s tendency to “fail” in the face of massive usage (or various other reasons). The Fail Whale has become so well known (and even well liked) among dedicated twitterers that it has spawned fan groups and T-shirts dedicated to the peaceful whale’s image.