Good Luck and Bubblewrap.com

Published: December 30, 2004

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Pop Goes the Woofer

This penultimate day of the year is a good one for quiet reflection, and there’s no better way to rack up some quality idle time than by doing something mindless like, say, popping bubble packaging. If you have never had the pleasure, thanks to Katherine Fernie, you can – even if you don’t have any of the stuff hanging around.

At www.virtual-bubblewrap.com, a pristine cybersheet of the wrapping is there for your amusement. (A supersophomoric version makes distasteful sounds.) Ms. Fernie is a Web designer who lives in Centreville, Va. And she harbors no delusions about her site.

“It started back in the day when the funniest things on the Internet were sites like ‘the big red button that doesn’t do anything’ and other absurdist ‘useless’ sites,” she said in an e-mail interview. “My friend and I were wanting to put up a site that topped them all in uselessness, so we brainstormed to think of what would translate least well to an online medium. Bubble Wrap was our natural choice. It is an almost completely tactile experience, so how could that possibly translate to a computer screen?”

Ms. Fernie and her friend created several other versions before the Flash animation that is currently available was posted. She has many fans, among them the Sealed Air Corporation, the maker of Bubble Wrap, which has given her permission to use the name of its product.

Fans write in her guest book, including one who typed: “i dont know who it was where it was when it was who invented this game but you are totally awsome dude and you have my vote for the totally addictive game dude.”