2016·The platform era·unexpected
Boaty McBoatface
A British research council asked the internet to name a polar research vessel, and learned what happens when you do that.
You might remember it as RRS Sir David Attenborough naming
It happened on television
This Moment began as a web page, not as a video. Originally published on web.
- SourceNot an upload originally
- MediaNot held by ViralWorld
What this was
In March 2016 the Natural Environment Research Council opened a public poll to name a new £200m polar research ship. A former BBC presenter, James Hand, suggested Boaty McBoatface as a joke. It won by an enormous margin, crashed the voting website, and became an international news story within days.
It first appeared in 2016, during the platform era.
It is the founding case of what is now a standard institutional risk, and the reason a great many organisations no longer run open naming polls. It is also a better story than the joke suggests: the public engaged with a fisheries research ship in numbers no communications budget could have bought, and the name was funny precisely because the subject was so solemn.
The council named the ship RRS Sir David Attenborough and gave the name Boaty McBoatface to one of its autonomous submarines instead — a compromise widely judged to be the correct call. Boaty has since completed genuine Antarctic missions and returned data on deep-water mixing and climate. The naming convention it started has produced a horse, a train, a snowplough and a gritter fleet.
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Grouped by explicit relationships where evidence exists, and by shared theme otherwise.
Behind the recordWhere it came from
There is no original upload to identify: this Moment did not begin as one. ViralWorld holds no copy of it either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is the record.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This Moment began as a web page, not as a video. Originally published on web.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
- What happens
- In March 2016 the Natural Environment Research Council opened a public poll to name a new £200m polar research ship. A former BBC presenter, James Hand, suggested Boaty McBoatface as a joke. It won by an enormous margin, crashed the voting website, and became an international news story within days.