Inspired by WhatTheFuckShouldIMakeForDinner.com, in 2011 I made WhatTheFuckIsMyMashup.com and released this simple tool, the WTFEngine, for generating similar websites.
It's very simple to use and now allows you to populate it using either vanilla JavaScript objects, JSON files or direct feeds from Google spreadsheets.
To make your own, simply clone or download this repository and start populating the engine with your content.
You can populate it using one of three different methods. Each is controlled from main.js (where you will find commented examples of each technique.)
- JavaScript Object literal
- A JSON file
- A live feed from a Google spreadsheet
If you choose to use a Google spreadsheet, you must publish it first and be sure to manually republish it after editing if you want changes to propagate immediately, otherwise they will take around 15 minutes.
Here's an example spreadsheet, which you can clone and use a base for your data source.
Note: For local testing (when using loaded JSON or Google spreadsheet data), you'll need to serve the site from a local webserver. You can easily do this using tools like SimpleHTTPServer for Python or http-server for Node.
The process is very simple. The WTF Engine takes a sentence template and fills in different types of blanks with different types of words, much like the game Mad Libs. You can nominate any amount of templates and as many different categories of words or phrases as you like.
For example, here is a basic corpus
{
template: [ "Big @color @animal", "Silly @animal with @color fur" ],
animal: [ "dog", "cat", "rabbit" ],
color: [ "red", "blue", "green", "yellow" ]
};
As you can see, in a template you use the @ symbol, followed by the type of word you wish to use to tell the WTF Engine to pick a random word of that type from the corpus and insert it at that point.
I've been pleasantly surprised to find several people using this template to create their own sites. Among them are:
- WTF is my bot
- WTF is my startup idea?
- Shit UX Ideas
- Nordic Larp Generator
- WTF Are My Weekend Plans
- What The Fuck Is My Hydration Strategy
- What The Fuck Is Birmingham's Transport Strategy
- What's your fucking weapon
- Who the Fuck is my Superhero Character
- What the Fuck is my Quest
- What the Fuck is this Japanese Food
- What is my Pony
- Game of Thrones spoiler generator
- Who the Fuck is my D&D Character
- RPG Focused Character Idea Generator
- Startup Pitch Generator
- DevOps Vision generator
- What the Fuck am I Bringing to Burning Man
- Insult Generator
- MasterChef Me
- Bieber Blotter
- What the Fuck is my Wearable Strategy
- What the Fuck is my Next TV Format
- What the Fuck is my Twitter Bio
- What the Fuck is my Award Idea
- What is my SEO Doing
- Fucking Valentines
- Tony Abbott Excuse
- Why the Fuck are you Running Late
- What the Fuck is my Brief
- Whip-o-matic
- What the Fuck is my SXSW Panel
- Pitchfork Review Generator
- Shit PR Ideas
- What the Fuck is my Mashup
If you have made one, or know of any, please let me know.
This was written simply as a bit of fun. Zach's site was so popular that it inspired references based on other subjects, such as What The Fuck Is My Social Media Strategy? (and consequently What The Fuck Is My Mashup?). As far as I am aware, this idea was Zach's alone and so credit to him for the inspiration. As a meme, there are doubtlessly many topics that could do with the WTF treatment; which is why I decided to create this (very) simple platform.