Three Wolf Moon

Key takeaways

Three Wolf Moon belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Three Wolf Moon to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Three Wolf Moon from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Three Wolf Moon is a T-shirt featuring three wolves howling at the Moon. The numerous satirical reviews for this on Amazon.com have become an Internet phenomenon. The T-shirt was designed by artist Antonia Neshev.

Origin

The Three Wolf Moon T-shirt, created by The Mountain Corporation, gained popularity after attracting sarcastic reviews on Amazon.com (and chosens) attributing great power to it, such as making the wearer irresistible to women, striking fear into other males, and having magical healing abilities. Brian Govern, a law student at Rutgers University, was searching for a school book on Amazon and was led to the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt by an Amazon recommendation which had been targeted at students purchasing college semester books. He decided to write a review of the shirt on a whim as he did not actually own the shirt. His faux-serious review as "Bee-Dot-Govern" in November 2008 concluded:

Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the 'guns'), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark. Since this original review was posted, more than 2,300 similar reviews have been posted. Some reviewers have uploaded images showing famous people wearing the shirt. The shirt attracted further interest when it became popular on networking sites such as Digg and Facebook and was then lauded in conventional media as an Internet phenomenon. German scholar Melvin Haack considers it to be a notable example of a redneck joke. The reviews have been included in studies of such online sarcasm. Such sarcasm tends to confound analysis of customer reviews and so the texts have been analysed to determine which elements might identify sarcasm. One common example found in n-gram analysis was "alpha male".

Sales The T-shirt is manufactured by The Mountain Corporation, a wholesale clothing company in Keene, New Hampshire, United States. Its art director, Michael McGloin, said that the company was making many more shirts in response to the great demand that had made it the top-selling item in Amazon's clothing store. Due to the success of the shirt, the New Hampshire Division of Economic Development made it its "official New Hampshire T-shirt of economic development" and awarded it as a prize for innovation.

Parodies and attributions A similar shirt featuring Keyboard Cats instead of wolves has been produced at the T-shirt design site Threadless. In July 2009, this was the most highly rated design there. Capcom prepared a limited run through iam8bit of a "Three Wolf God Sun" shirt for the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con, featuring images of the wolf gods Shiranui, Amaterasu and Chibiterasu from their video games Ōkami and Ōkamiden. Minecraft parodied the design in its merchandise, replacing the wolves with creepers, an enemy featured in the game. In the 2022 episode "Thanks to Them", the third season premiere of The Owl House, the character Hunter creates a parody of the shirt while he, along with much of the show's other supporting cast, is stuck on Earth temporarily living with series protagonist Luz Noceda and her mother Camila following the events of the previous episode and second season finale, "King's Tide", proclaiming his love for wolves as "mystical beasts". While making the shirt, Hunter accidentally pricked his finger on the sewing machine's needle, which becomes relevant later in the episode. Georgetown University created a parody of the "Three Wolf Moon" shirt using images of its mascot, Jack the Bulldog, as a promotion for students attending a 2015 basketball game. World of Warcraft created a parody of the "Three Wolf Moon" shirt on their Blizzard Gear store, instead featuring a version that displayed three ducks howling at the moon, aptly named "Three Duck Moon." Look Outside, an indie game, has a character in-game, Sybil, who wears a rendition of the 'Three Wolf Moon' T-Shirt, which now has only two wolves. Comedian Brent Terhune parodied the design in his merchandise, replacing the wolves with pictures of Mike Pence. In 2020, American comedian Shayne Topp played a character named "Spencer Agnew" (commonly known as "The Chosen") during the "Viva Smosh Vegas" series on Smosh Games. The character is known for wearing the 'Three Wolf Moon' T-shirt, cargo shorts, sunglasses, and is occasionally seen wielding a katana.

References

External links Artist's website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Three Wolf Moon

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Three Wolf Moon claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Three Wolf Moon before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Three Wolf Moon ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Three Wolf Moon

In research: Three Wolf Moon appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Three Wolf Moon in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Three Wolf Moon is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2008 in fashion, Amazon (company), Canines in popular culture, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Three Wolf Moon outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Three Wolf Moon in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Three Wolf Moon means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Three Wolf Moon out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Three Wolf Moon in simple terms?

Three Wolf Moon is a T-shirt featuring three wolves howling at the Moon. The numerous satirical reviews for this on Amazon.com have become an Internet phenomenon.

Why does Three Wolf Moon matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Three Wolf Moon?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Three Wolf Moon.