A Serious PROBLEM
the bits I did were: chief silly officer, design, artworking, production, judge, host
Years ago while playing some games online, my friends and I got a good chuckle out of the idea that a goose would have a bumper sticker that said “Honk if HONK HONK HONK HONK”. I can’t say who came up with the joke, but I know it got run into the ground by us all for a good while.
Then a little while later, while printing out some labels that were suspiciously bumper sticker shaped, I thought “okay, what if I made that goose one though”. Ten somehow appeared out of the printer minutes later.
Under the cover of darkness, after scheming with a close confidant, we attached them all to an unknowing friend’s bumper. Once their confusion, then rage, then amusement subsided, we wanted to see it escalate.
After looping in said earlier confidant, we schemed up 20 challenges and rounded up participants, sending wax sealed envelopes across the world to those with the whimsy to participate.
Challenges started hitting people’s instagram feeds, and it became a brutal race and competition to see people push the competition further than we ever expected. With a lot of rule bending, risk taking, and general stupidity, we saw people put in frankly unnecessary effort to win what were fairly cheap to buy anyway prizes.
Most importantly, though, The Honker Games became a beacon of joy for those running it and all participating. It helped build friendships and start new ones, and as more and more people looped in their friends for a competitive advantage, the number of hopeful entrants to the sequel competition grew.
It ended with a prize giving ceremony, and a promise that it would NEVER happen again. But the more I sit idly on slow sunny days, the less true that promise grows…
Months later, and after a thousand stickers ended up leaving the printers, a second great idea struck me. The sticker had gained local infamy but we didn’t want to give them away aimlessly.
To combat boredom and heavy doses of seriousness, The Honker Games was born.
Ideated as a short term competition to induce silliness into everyday life, it was framed as a series of challenges with increasing stakes (and worthy prizes) to force people to “honk” (affix their stickers) to silly, tricky, or potentially impossible things in specific ways.
