# Tree Swing Cartoon Parodies Tree Swing Cartoon Parodies is a multi-panel exploitable webcomic that pokes fun at how corporate teams mangle a simple project, with each panel showing a different department's bungled version of a backyard swing[3]. A blog post titled 'Typical Project Life' put the online version up on September 9, 2003[1]. By September 2010, Japanese fans had turned the last panel's caption, 顧客が本当に必要だったもの (What The Customer Really Needed), into a standalone catchphrase on Nico Nico Pedia[7]. ## Origin The online version first appeared on September 9, 2003 in an English blog post titled 'Typical Project Life' on weblog.cemper.com, which laid out seven panels illustrating the perception gaps baked into software development projects[1]. A Japanese translation under the title 'This is How IT Projects Really Work' followed on February 22, 2004 via Dashi Blog, where the author called the strip an accurate description of real IT work (translated from Japanese)[2]. Variations of the tree swing joke predate the internet by three decades. According to Know Your Meme, the earliest documented version appeared in the March 1973 issue of the University of London Computer Center Newsletter, and the same illustration was reproduced in 1975 inside architect Christopher Alexander's book The Oregon Experiment[3]. The career advice site BusinessBalls maintains an archive of pre-internet variants from corporate training booklets and consultancy pamphlets[5]. - **Platform:** Personal blog (weblog.cemper.com) / The Project Cartoon (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2003 ## Overview Each parody uses the six to seven panel layout where the first image shows 'how the project leader described it,' moves through analyst, programmer, and sales representative versions, then closes on a humble tire-on-a-rope that was all the customer actually wanted[4]. Remixers substitute the swing for whatever industry they want to roast, from government software contracts to design agency briefs, with the deadpan captions left intact[3]. Humor comes from how each panel's drawing fails in a specific way: the engineering version is impossibly overbuilt, the installation version is upside down or in the wrong tree, and the documentation panel is often blank[5]. Portability drives the format's long life. Blog posts about agile methodology, PowerPoint decks on requirements gathering, and university lectures on systems engineering borrow the layout to make a quick point about communication gaps[5]. Japanese remixers focused on the final 'customer' panel specifically, where the simple tire swing stands in for the much smaller feature that users actually asked for[7]. ## How to Use Create a comic with six to seven panels, each showing a different team's version of the same product, from the initial brief through engineering, sales, and installation. The final panel usually shows the much simpler thing the customer actually asked for. The Project Cartoon website offers an interface for mixing and matching existing panels into a custom version[4]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Tree Swing Cartoon Parodies? Tree Swing Cartoon Parodies is an exploitable multi-panel webcomic that satirizes miscommunication in software projects by showing how each department imagined, specified, or installed a simple tree swing[3]. ### Where did Tree Swing Cartoon Parodies come from? The online version first appeared on September 9, 2003 in a blog post titled 'Typical Project Life' on weblog.cemper.com, though print variations of the gag date back to a March 1973 University of London computing newsletter[1]. ### What does Tree Swing Cartoon Parodies mean? It satirizes the gap between what customers ask for, what engineers design, what managers approve, and what actually ships, using the metaphor of a simple backyard swing[3]. ### How do you use Tree Swing Cartoon Parodies? Make a six to seven panel comic where each panel shows a different department's take on an identical goal, with the final panel showing the tiny, modest version the customer actually wanted; The Project Cartoon site has a tool for building these[4]. ### Is Tree Swing Cartoon Parodies still popular? Yes, the format is a classic in corporate humor contexts, with The Project Cartoon site offering a build-your-own interface and the Japanese catchphrase 顧客が本当に必要だったもの still used on social media[7]. ## References 1. [https://web.archive.org/web/20061018024303/https://weblog.cemper.com/a/200309/09-typical-project-life.php]() 2. [https://web.archive.org/web/20060211001426/https://www.dashiblog.com/blog/archives/000140.html]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tree-swing-cartoon-parodies]() 4. [http://www.projectcartoon.com/]() 5. [http://www.businessballs.com/treeswing.htm]() 6. [http://2chart.fc2web.com/itkakumei/]() 7. [https://dic.nicovideo.jp/a/%E9%A1%A7%E5%AE%A2%E3%81%8C%E6%9C%AC%E5%BD%93%E3%81%AB%E5%BF%85%E8%A6%81%E3%81%A0%E3%81%A3%E3%81%9F%E3%82%82%E3%81%AE]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/tree-swing-cartoon-parodies Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library