Zoondoggle's Gurn-a-Thon: send in a digital photo of your best silly face

Jake at Zoomdoggle (above) invites you to make a silly face and submit the photo for his Gurn-a-Thon.

Welcome to the first annual Zoomdoggle Gurn-a-Thon.

What’s a gurn? I hear you cry. A gurn, or gurning is the ancient English art of pulling very silly faces. Usually through a giant horse shoe. I’m not making this up. From Wikipedia: “Gurning contests are a rural English tradition. They are thought to have originated in 1297 at the Egremont Crab Fair”

I don’t have a horseshoe but I do have a face and a digital camera - and so, dear reader, do you.

QUICK: Make a Face (the Zoomdoggle Gurn-a-Thon)

[#1 posted by Agies, April 17, 2009 8:37 AM]

Gah! That is not a silly face at all, that is a horrifying visage. At once fleshy and skeletal it reminds us all of the looming death that is the human condition. For such a memento mori I request, nay demand, a unicorn chaser.

[#2 posted by Anonymous, April 17, 2009 8:45 AM]

not a giant horse shoe you ninny! a horse collar!

[#3 posted by RainyRat, April 17, 2009 8:49 AM]

It's not a proper gurn, either; you need to be able to do it without touching your face with your hands, once your head's through the horse collar (not shoe).

[#4 posted by Anonymous, April 17, 2009 8:53 AM]

Old-School gurners were usually old men with no teeth, which helped.

[#5 posted by SamSam, April 17, 2009 9:06 AM]

According to the WP article he's citing, that's not "gurning" at all. Gurning involves thrusting the lower jaw out and covering your top lip with your bottom. Like this guy or these guys.

Why doesn't he just call it a silly face contest? That way he wouldn't have pedantics like me correcting him.

[#6 posted by freeyourcrt, April 17, 2009 10:03 AM]

An oral goatse

[#7 posted by delta5, April 17, 2009 10:54 AM]

@#5: pedants, perhaps? ;)

[#8 posted by Ghede, April 17, 2009 11:37 AM]

Man, I could do a much better silly face, if only I shaved my beard. You can't get the full effect until you see my chin. I call it my "Christmas Special" face. It makes me look like one of the dolls from the frosty those stop motion christmas specials, I think it's the narrator.

[#9 posted by Anonymous, April 17, 2009 11:56 AM]

@samsam - my bad - I wrote the piece and just wanted to use the term, 'gurn-a-thon'

*heads off to buy a horse collar*

Floyd Hayes.

www.twitter.com/twipple

[#10 posted by Anonymous, April 17, 2009 12:03 PM]

Predator

[#11 posted by mikebee, April 17, 2009 12:11 PM]

In the 90's, Gurning was most well known, to me & my friends at least, as the faces pulled while feeling the (sometimes very intense) rush of being high on Ecstasy; UK dance music mag Muzik used to have "gurner of the month" photos in the back pages, usually of some unfortunate soul off their tits on E and shot unawares at some rave or other. Those photos were, of course, hilarious.

[#12 posted by Anonymous, April 17, 2009 12:43 PM]

Give em the Gas Face http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdmwmxhHmlg

[#13 posted by Bill Beaty, April 20, 2009 7:59 PM]

Heh. From 1998:

Enhanced Awareness http://amasci.com/brain/
Look in the mirror, use both hands to pull your lips wide, then snap your teeth open and closed as shown in the photo below. This makes you "AWARE OF YOUR SKULL." Why, your face is just a thin layer of meat! Now be honest, can't you feel your Death sitting up there in the future, patiently waiting?

JPEG: aware of your skull