Spiders Georg
About
Spiders Georg is a fictional character that was created on Tumblr as a joke about a false statistic regarding the average number of spiders a person may consume each year.
Origin
According to Snopes,[8] a myth claiming that "the average person swallows eight spiders per year" originated from a 1954 collection of common misconceptions regarding insect folklore. In 1993, the claim was reprinted in an article written by columnist Lisa Holst in PC Professional, which contained a list of false statements mocking misinformation that had been circulating in a viral e-mail. The false factoid subsequently circulated widely across the Internet as truth. On January 9th, 2013, Tumblr user Max Lavergne[1] submitted a blog post about the often-quoted factoid, asserting that people eating "three spiders a year" is actually a statistical error due to a man named "Spiders Georg" who consumes "over 10,000" of the arachnids each day.
“average person eats 3 spiders a year" factoid actualy (sic) just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted”
Spread
On March 13th, 2013, the Spiders-Georg Tumblr[5] blog was launched, featuring posts written from the perspective of the fictional spider-eating character. On May 16th, Tumblr[3] user Jdniemand submitted a blog post arguing that Spiders Georg would actually have to eat "over fifty-seven million spiders per day" to cause the statistical error averaging to three spiders per person on the entire Earth. On June 15th, a Facebook[4] page titled "Spiders Georg" was created, which highlighted a poster featuring actor Nicolas Cage as Spiders Georg paired with a camel spider (shown below).
On August 20th, Redditor brostrider quoted Lavergne's Tumblr post in the comment section of a submission to the /r/todayilearned[7] subreddit. The following day, Lavergne[6] highlighted a screenshot of the comment, which gathered upwards of 38,800 notes in the next year (shown below). On November 17th, The Daily Dot[2] published an article about the fictional character's Internet popularity.
![brostrider 16 points 4 hours ago "average person eats 3 spiders a year" factoid actualy just statistical error average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted permalink parent ↑ [-] Quixotic-Delights 8 points 3 hours ago gunna have to call b------- on this. by my calculations Spiders Georg would have to eat 58,405,479 and a half a day. About 41 thousanda second. obviously Spiders Georg is f------ insane. permalink parent](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/760/827/48f.png "48f.png")
Search Interest
External References
[1] Tumblr – Spiders Georg Blog
[2] The Daily Dot – The itsy bitsy saga of Tumblrs Spiders Georg
[4] Facebook – Spiders Georg
[5] Tumblr – Spiders Georg
[6] Tumblr – gunna have to call bullshit on this
[7] Reddit – average person eats 3 spiders a year
Top Comments
Slapperfish
May 22, 2014 at 06:34PM EDT
ProjectENDO
May 22, 2014 at 10:45PM EDT in reply to