If you asked me to describe last week in two words, I would say “absolutely hilarious”.
That was because I was totally invested in the chaotic Willy Wonka Experience which took the internet by storm.
It came at the right time for me, because I wasn’t in the best place mentally, and had recently had a family bereavement.
So when pictures and videos started showing up about a chaotic event which happened just over an hour down the road from me, I couldn’t stop laughing for days on end.
Made famous by Dundonians
As time went on, it got even funnier, and then I found out that the Willy’s Chocolate Experience was visually made famous thanks to people from Dundee.
The iconic photo of the sad looking Oompa Loompa was taken by Louise Dalson, and the majority of the set prop photos including the rainbow arch were taken by Stuart Sinclair, both from Dundee.
What I never expected to see next was that both commented on Dundee Culture about it with the pictures they took. Louise commented on a meme that I shared which jokingly referenced Dundonians creating iconic pictures.
The event was hilarious in many ways, from what was promised, to the end result where the police were called and the international media being in awe of what was happening.
The AI-generated scripts and characters were a highlight, with a character called “The Unknown” bringing joy to people watching the debacle that was taking place.
The event in Glasgow was compared to DashCon, an event inspired by the social media website Tumblr, that was held in 2014 in the US – as well as the infamous Fyre Festival which was a fraudulent music festival that oversold itself.
Calls for petition
The fiasco was so big, that it even spilled over to my work, with followers on Dundee Culture asking me if I could start a petition to have the Willy’s Chocolate Experience be brought to Dundee, and have it hosted at the Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA).
This was in response to another petition that was created to bring the event back which received over 2,000 signatures with £50 donated to it.
It was just so funny that something which intended to be small, caused a huge reaction on the internet.
And it feels unbelievable that The Courier was one of the first to report on the event which makes it even cooler!
If you told me two weeks ago that I would be writing a column on the subject of a chaotic knockoff event of Willy Wonka that was made famous by Dundonians, I would have questioned whether you were serious or not.
It was the funniest week I have ever had on the internet.
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