Paying Bills with Spider Drawings (Seven-Legged Spider) (2008)

added Jun 29, 2009 at 07:32PM UTC

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Original & Known Variations of Seven Legged Spider

About

In general, Seven Legged Spider (a.k.a Paying Bills with Drawing of Spider) refers to the e-mail conversations that took place in October, 2008 between David Thorne and Jane Gilles. More specifically, Seven Legged Spider is a comical drawing made by David, who offered his stick-figure artwork as a payment for his overdue utility bills. Needless to say, his drawing was rejected by Jane (the company’s representative), but the playful/cutesy e-mail exchange between them lived on to become internet famous.

E-mail Exchanges

In October 2008, David Thorne received a payment notice via e-mail, stating that his utility bills were overdue by $233.95. Unable to make the ends meet at the time, David responded to the payment request with a pathetic drawing of a seven-legged spider:

Interestingly enough, this seemingly impossible exchange went on between David and Jane (company’s representative) for some time, during which his offer of payment with spider drawings was rejected by the representative not just once, but twice:

Shortly after their exchange, David posted the original conversation on his website, 27bslash6.com, which was then picked up by Digg and subsequently disseminated throughout the web. People’s reactions after reading David’s e-mails were astonishing and the site’s server crashed after being hit by hundreds of thousands of people.

A self-proclaimed internet prankster, David has posted a series of other “internet jokes” on his website, including:

eBay Auction of Seven-legged Spider

In November 2008, David took his joke to another level by auctioning off his drawing of the seven-legged spider. The classic eBay joke caught on quickly, after a user known as Patrick made the winning bid of US$ 10,000 for the drawing while others put up customized/accessorized versions of David’s spider, such as Santa’s hat and Buddhist’s robe.

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15 Comments

Leo
Jul 01, 2009 at 11:45PM UTC , Leo wrote:

While funny, this isn’t widespread enough to be a meme.

glitch
Jul 02, 2009 at 10:38AM UTC , glitch wrote:

I remember this

Noone Atall
Jul 02, 2009 at 05:40PM UTC , Noone Atall wrote:

It’s not really a meme do to the fact that nothing was really done with it. I mean most people heard the story but it didn’t really go anywhere after that.

Paracosmos
Jul 02, 2009 at 08:19PM UTC , Paracosmos wrote:

Not a meme. Deadpool.

Taryn
Jul 08, 2009 at 10:20AM UTC , Taryn wrote:

Is a meme. Confirmed.

sixtaz
Jul 11, 2009 at 02:14AM UTC , sixtaz wrote:

I don’t care if its a meme or not, this is awesome!

svoksis
Jul 14, 2009 at 07:25AM UTC , svoksis wrote:

It’s only funny for some people and that’s it. There’s nothing meme about it.

JSin1276
Jul 17, 2009 at 08:53PM UTC , JSin1276 wrote:

I concur as this isn’t really meme material.

BA_moooper_4000
Jul 22, 2009 at 08:47PM UTC , BA_moooper_4000 wrote:

It’s like that pancake bunny picture. It’s meme-ish, but not a meme.

Pyroco101
Aug 06, 2009 at 08:13AM UTC , Pyroco101 wrote:

OLD MEME IS OLD

Marten
Aug 10, 2009 at 11:20AM UTC , Marten wrote:

Sigh… I wonder when do you people learn, that the only difference between someone, who argues about whether something is or is not a meme, and someone, who hasn’t got a life, is, that there really isn’t any. :-/ I’m sorry to break it to you that way, but it’s actually true. :(

stickmeister
Aug 31, 2009 at 03:38AM UTC , stickmeister wrote:

Something spread around the Internet is a meme, this is exactly that as it was spread by Digg and eBay at some extent. What people think as a meme is usually memes by 4chan, Something Awful, the like, but really it can be anything.

Take for example “Three Wolf Moon.” A strange meme spawned and used ina strange place, but it IS a meme because it is widely known and acknowledged throughout the Internet.

Another example, the Golden Machine Gun was a “meme” on the Steam forums, but only on the TF2 forum, and didn’t spread throughout most of the Internet.

Anyway, this is indeed a meme, a common amusing image spread through several places.

Martin / brother Bagge
Oct 19, 2009 at 06:25PM UTC , Martin / brother Bagge wrote:

“In November 2008, David took his joke to another level by auctioning off his drawing of the seven-legged spider.”

That’s not true. David gave the spider to a person named Andreas (last name witheld but I can supply that) living in Stockholm, Sweden. Andreas then put the auction at ebay.

I made the fabric patch shown in one of the pictures (in fact the hand is Andreas’). The text reads “7 legs == 78845:-”, the value there is 10000 US dollars converted to the Swedish krona late November 2008.

heydudehey
Nov 06, 2009 at 10:05PM UTC , heydudehey wrote:

It is a meme because it’s under “meme” therefore your argument is invalid.

Fluffy, the Destroyer of Worlds
Jan 15, 2010 at 07:36PM UTC , Fluffy, the Destroyer of Worlds wrote:

From: F,TDOW
Date: Wednesday 8 Oct 2008 12:37pm
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Overdue Witty response

Dear Jane,
I do not have a witty comment so I am posting this drawing I copied of a spider instead. I value the picture at “So witty that you cannot argue with me without being wrong”, so trust that this settles the matter.
Regards, F,TDOW.

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