Did You Know?

About

“Did You Know?” is a single topic blog featuring various trivia and factoids on a wide range of subject topics, as well as odd news stories and popular misconceptions that are factually inaccurate. This blog has led to creation of several other spin-off blogs on Tumblr, ranging from parody blogs to single topic blogs focusing on niche interests.

Origin

The Tumblr blog “Did You Know?”^[1] was launched on April 30th, 2011 with a post titled “10 Facts About You” directly addressing the reader.^[2] The blog wasn’t updated again until May 19th with a post stating that if the reader reblogged the image and clicked on it, the social networking site MySpace would appear differently than before. The blog began posting daily images on May 21st.

Precursors

Beverage company Snapple began placing “Real Facts”^[10] on the inner label of their drink caps sometime in the 1990s. In 2006, a rumor^[11] that half of the facts on the caps were fake began circulating online with an image of a cap labeled “Real Fact #0." In 2009, Snapple retired the first 675 facts^[6] and began posting image macros^[13] (shown below left) and flash animations^[14] (shown below right) illustrating their new facts designed as an Easter egg for people who search the web for facts they found on Snapple caps.

Other websites containing factoids have existed since the early 2000s, when the website didyouknow.org^[4] was created on February 18th, 2002. The site originally sorted the facts into more than 20 categories^[12], hosting jokes and inspirational quotes as well. In 2008, Mameshiba animated shorts began appearing on Japanese television, featuring anthropomorphized characters resembling beans and nuts who come alive shortly before a person is about to eat them. Upon waking up, the character says “Did you know?” followed by a random fact that ruins the person’s appetite. The cartoons were uploaded to Nico Nico Douga and YouTube shortly after airing. In December 2009, the website did-you-knows.com^[5] was created, specializing in facts presented within one sentence.

Spread

Many of the “Did-You-Kno” trivia images have spread to other image-sharing communities such as Pinterest^[29] and Instagram with the tag #didyouknow.^[19] Additional examples have been featured on design blog Untitled^[20] and religious blog Drops of Knowledge.^[21] As of July 2012, the Tumblr blog receives a monthly average of 155,900 U.S. visitors, 308,400 global visitors ^[22] and 220,854 page views. The Facebook fan page^[28] for the blog has 258,072 likes.

Notable Examples

Spin-Off Blogs

The first spin-off blog DidYou-Know^[16] was created on August 2nd, 2011, publishing 225 factoids in the first month. Two more, 1000 Did You Knows^[17] and Interesting Facts^[18] were both created in March 2012. The following month, Did Yuo Know?^[9] began publishing blatantly false or exaggerated factoids using the “Did-You-Kno” style of image macros, in an attempt to troll unsuspecting readers into believing they came from the original blog.

Did You Know Gaming?^[7], which focuses on video game trivia, began in May 2012. Their posts are also shared on their sub-reddit^[8] and Facebook^[15] fan page, which has 18,712 likes as of July 2012. Other notable “Did You Know” trivia blogs include the Pokemon-related site Did You Poke-know^[30] and the music trivia sites Metal Did You Know^[31] and Did You Know One Direction.^[32]

Outside of Tumblr

On Facebook^[23], there are several different Did You Know? themed pages, with the largest page^[24] accruing 162,635 likes since its creation in May 2011. On Twitter, the largest Did You Know? account^[25] @iTweetFacts^[26] has more than 460,000 followers and the hashtag #didyouknow^[27] has been used to share random facts.