About
Apology Cakes refer to confectionery goods that are gifted as a way of apologizing, often for having done something mischievous or trivial in nature. On Tumblr, people often superimpose a custom apologetic message over the cake’s surface in Comic Sans typeface.
Origin
In April 2003, an apology cake (shown below, left) appeared as an Easter Egg in a flash animation that was part of the Strong Bad Email series on Homestar Runner.[19] Though the cake was exchanged between the characters Strong Bad and The Poopsmith, the cartoonists created a physical cake that users could then add toppings to in the animation.[18] Photos of apology cakes exchanged offline have appeared online as early as June 2008 when Cake Wrecks[1] posted a picture of a cake with the custom message reading “sorry I’m so stupid” (shown below, right).
Spread
Throughout 2009, Cake Wrecks continued to post images of apology cakes[2] and in 2010, a viral image of a cake with the text “Sorry I got semen in your eye” began circulating the web, appearing on several image-sharing sites FunFoll[3], FoodBeast[4] and FunnyJunk[5] that year. In 2011, Buzzfeed[6] featured 20 photos of apology cakes from across the web, some of which were reposted on FunnyJunk[7] and Pop Hangover.[8] In 2011 and 2012, additional apology cakes appeared on the Examiner[9], Dorkly[10], Cake Wrecks[11] and College Humor.[12]
Notable Examples
On Tumblr
On December 20th, 2012, Tumblr user epictoasters[13] shared a photo (shown below, left) of a professionally decorated cake (shown below) with the phrase “sorry my tree fell on your fence” written in Comic Sans font overlaid over the photo. He explained that a neighbor had left the photo on his Facebook wall the morning after a night of powerful winds knocked over a tree into his backyard. Two days later, user tardistribute[14] posted an image using the same cake (shown below, right), apologizing for not tagging his fandom-related posts. His post gained more than 17,600 notes in a month and a half.
On February 3rd, 2013, that-stupid-tardis-sound[15] posted a photoset of ten apology cakes using a different professionally decorated cake template, apologizing for a range of blogging-related activities. Within fifteen days, this post gained more than 28,000 notes. Additional digitally edited apology cakes, including general sentiments as well as fandom-specific messages of concession, can be found with the Tumblr tags “apology cake”[16] and “apology cakes.”[17]
Search Interest
External References
[1]Cake Wrecks – The Way All Apologies Should Be Made
[2]Cake Wrecks – The Apostrophe is Silent
[3]FunFoll – Sorry Cake
[4]FoodBeast – The Best Apology Cake
[5]FunnyJunk – Apology Cake
[6]Buzzfeed – 20 Cakes That Are Sorry
[7]FunnyJunk – awesome apology cakes
[8]PopHangover – 10 Hilarious Apology Cakes
[9]Examiner – Funny Photo: The best apology-cake of all time (yes, “apology-cake”) (Photos)
[10]Dorkly – Skyrim Apology Cake
[11]Cake Wrecks – 10 Oddly Specific Apology Cakes
[12]College Humor – UNUSUALAPOLOGYCAKE
[13]Tumblr – epictoasters: We had these powerful winds last night and my neighbor just posted this on my wall oh my goodness I’m dying.
[14]Tumblr – tardistribute: Apology Cake
[15]Tumblr – that-stupid-tardis-sound: i’ll probably need these at some point in my life…
[16]Tumblr – Posts tagged “apology cake”
[17]Tumblr – Posts tagged “apology cakes”
[18]Homestar Runner Wiki – big white face
[19]Homestar Runner – big white face