# Three Wolf Moon Three Wolf Moon is a graphic t-shirt sold by The Mountain that turned into an ironic Amazon sensation in 2009 after a Rutgers law student posted a satirical review praising its mystical, girth-flattering powers. The joke snowballed into thousands of mock reviews, mainstream news coverage and parody videos, becoming the defining example of customer review comedy. ## Origin The Three Wolf Moon design has been sold by The Mountain for years, but the meme traces to a single Amazon review posted on November 10, 2008 by Brian Govern, a Rutgers School of Law student in Camden, New Jersey[1]. Govern told ABC News he was searching Amazon for a textbook when the recommendation engine surfaced the shirt, and he wrote the review on a whim with lines about his "girthy frame" and the shirt attracting women at Walmart[1]. He did not actually own the shirt. Govern's post sat quietly until early 2009, when it was picked up by other reviewers and the editors at CollegeHumor, triggering waves of copycat tongue-in-cheek reviews on the Amazon product page[1][3]. By mid-2009 the review thread had grown into hundreds and then thousands of entries, with Know Your Meme logging more than 2,200 reviews on the page by September 2012[3]. - **Platform:** Amazon (ironic reviews) / BBC and NYT (viral spread) - **Creator:** Brian Govern (originator of the ironic review); shirt artwork by Antonia Neschev - **Date:** 2008 ## Overview Three Wolf Moon is a graphic tee showing three howling wolves in front of a full moon, designed by Bulgarian wildlife artist Antonia Neschev and manufactured by New Hampshire apparel company The Mountain[3]. The meme is not really about the shirt itself but about the pile of exaggerated Amazon reviews people wrote underneath it, hyping it as a mystical babe magnet, a cancer cure and a soul-level garment[1]. ABC News documented reviewers claiming the shirt attracted women at Walmart, delivered vision quests and would be improved only by glowing in the dark[1]. The format fits what Know Your Meme calls customer review comedy, the same joke pattern seen with Tuscan Whole Milk and the Laptop Steering Wheel Desk, where strangers coordinate to flood a mundane product page with absurd testimonials[3]. The humor keeps the sincere Amazon-review voice, five-star rating, verified fit notes, personal anecdote, but swaps the content for tall tales about supernatural powers[2]. The shirt itself is a straight-faced piece of airbrushed wildlife art, which is what makes the gap between object and reviews land. ## How It Spread The joke jumped off Amazon in early 2009. On January 7, 2009, a user on the Bodybuilding.com forums posted a sincere thread about buying a wolf tee, and another member replied with a link to the Amazon page, which helped push the reviews beyond their original audience[3]. A Facebook fan page for the shirt went up on May 20, 2009 and collected thousands of likes over the next few years[3]. Mainstream press turned it into a full-blown story that same week. On May 21, 2009 the BBC reported that Amazon sales of the shirt had jumped 2,300% thanks to the ironic reviews, with Amazon senior manager Russell Dicker confirming it had become the top seller in the clothing store[3]. ABC News followed on May 27 with an interview with Govern, noting the shirt was moving more than 100 units an hour and had reached the number one spot in Amazon's apparel category[1]. The Washington Post and The New York Times ran their own write-ups the same week, with the Times tracking down Govern as a law student who had written the review on a lark[3]. Parody content followed the coverage. On May 26, 2009, YouTuber Dr. Coolsex uploaded a Three Wolf Moon music video set to a rewrite of "Colors of the Wind" from Disney's Pocahontas, built from real Amazon review lines[4]. On November 19, 2009, CollegeHumor released a sketch titled "Twilight: Three Wolf Moon" starring a pre-Parks and Recreation Aubrey Plaza[3]. Years later, Lifehacker revisited the shirt in an October 23, 2015 "Lifehacker Reviews Anything" entry and concluded that The Mountain's medium-weight cotton was rougher and faded faster than nicer tees, treating the running joke as a straight product review[2]. ## How to Use The format is to write an Amazon review in the earnest voice of a satisfied customer while making outlandish supernatural or sexual claims about an ordinary product. Common conventions include noting fit and fabric like a real reviewer, then crediting the item with granting vision quests, attracting mates, or triggering mystical insights, as collected in the Three Wolf Moon review pile[1]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Three Wolf Moon? Three Wolf Moon is a wildlife graphic t-shirt from The Mountain that became an ironic Amazon hit in 2009 after shoppers flooded its product page with mock reviews praising mystical powers[3]. ### Where did Three Wolf Moon come from? The meme started with a single satirical Amazon review by Rutgers law student Brian Govern on November 10, 2008, which inspired thousands of copycat reviews[1]. ### What does Three Wolf Moon mean? In meme usage it refers to the pile of over-the-top Amazon reviews treating the shirt as a magical babe magnet and life-changing garment, a template for customer review comedy[1][3]. ### How do you use Three Wolf Moon? The format is to write an Amazon-style review of an ordinary product in a sincere voice while crediting it with absurd supernatural effects, as collected on the Three Wolf Moon product page[1]. ### Is Three Wolf Moon still popular? It is a classic 2009 internet moment that gets revisited in retrospectives, including Lifehacker's 2015 straight-faced review of the actual shirt[2]. ## References 1. [https://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=7690387&page=1]() 2. [https://lifehacker.com/a-t-shirt-connoisseur-reviews-the-renowned-three-wolf-m-1738117414]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/three-wolf-moon]() 4. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPB45AUmchM]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/three-wolf-moon Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library