Remember the classic fable? Today the internet decided to put it to the test.
The rules were simple: to win, one must completely cross the line. That’s really more of a condition for the tortoise though, since the hare could obviously hop over the finish line whenever it wanted.
Note: if you just want to watch the “race” for yourself, or have it on in the background, the video is embedded just below. Otherwise, read on for the results.
The match started with the tortoise refusing to budge out of its shell and the hare sniffing around at everything in its vicinity. But then the hare sat on a patch of astroturf by the side, and proceeded to do bugger all. But around the 11 minute mark, the hare got curious and for a brief moment it looked like the faster animal might – inadvertently, at least – cross the finish line:
The hare then moved back to the end, however, and proceeded to chill out. It got to the point where the tortoise just stared at the hare, as if to say, “Seriously, what are you doing?”
After a few minutes, Team Tort decided it had enough of staring at the hare with its seventeen chins, inching its way to the finish line. And the tortoise was pretty happy to chill on the line, even going backwards at one point. But the hare remained completely content to stay well the fuck away from any humans and cameras, perched on the back corner of the starting line.
And after 39 minutes, the internet finally had its answer: the tortoise was faster than the hare, although predominately thanks to the hare not giving a single shit for 39 minutes. Or maybe it was more scared of the cameras and humans at the other end. We’ll never know.
It shows that, after everything, Aesop’s Fables were pretty consistent. A race was run between a tortoise and a rabbit last year at an event, although it’s pretty clear from the footage that the rabbit was spooked as all hell throughout. The hare in today’s livestream was far more chill, perhaps too chill to actually bother going anywhere. (That said, you can’t discount it as a factor.)
Super Deluxe, who organised the stream, said another race was scheduled for today but they haven’t announced who or what species is competing.
Comments
5 responses to “The Internet Just Ran A Real Life Race Between A Tortoise And A Hare”
If they did the same thing with Little Red Riding Hood there’d probably be a fair few commenters on this site saying the wolf was in the right.
Miss Muffet? Good on the spider. Serves her right for eating curds and whey.
Don’t get them started on Goldilocks……
Red and Muffet are fine in my book.
But Goldilocks, whoooh, that house squatting thief took from a baby, she is a monster!!
HAHA! that’s awesome! great way to spend the morning.
Strikes me as similar to how dog-owners claim that dogs are smarter than cats because they’re better at running obstacle courses… by which they mean, dogs actually fucking bother to do the courses, while cats look bored and go take a nap because there’s nothing in it for them. Declaring this a test of intelligence seems to indicate fundamentally misunderstanding what intelligence is.
Yeah, the old adage about how dogs think they’re smarter than cats because they’re active, follow instructions and spend their time trying to get along with the humans they live with, while cats just sit around, act like they’re entitled and take advantage.
Cats think they’re smarter than dogs for exactly the same reason…
Also: Suki the Agility Cat is very funny and awesome.