Metro HotCars: Derailing a transit authority with a viral parody.

Platform Web
Role Design / Code
Year 2013

The static site was designed and built using JavaScript, CSS3, Sass, and Compass.

Originally a lighthearted animation experiment, Metro HotCars went viral overnight, drawing 25,000 visitors and media attention before a transit authority cease-and-desist turned it into a case study in poor PR handling.

After receiving the cease-and-desist, the site was "redacted" with hand-drawn style marker overlays on all local transit authority logos and names. The redaction brought another round of media coverage from local print and TV news teams.
Browser mockups showing the Metro HotCars site after receiving the cease-and-desist, scrubbing all mentions of the local transit authority with joking marker-style hand-drawn overlays.

Details

Turning up the heat (and legal pressure) on your commute.

Initially built as a humorous single page site to test out some new CSS3 animations and development techniques, Metro HotCars quickly struck a chord with DC residents fed up with the failings of the local regional transit authority. Exploding overnight based on a single tweet, the site saw over twenty five thousand unique visitors within twenty-four hours and was covered by DCist, Washington City Paper, and even the CBS local news.

After receiving a cease and desist from the transit authority’s lawyers, the site was quickly redacted, with all references, copyrights, and trademarks scribbled out in the style of confidential documents. This, of course, elicited another round of coverage from the local media, heaping scorn on the transit authority’s handling of the situation. What started as a simple design experiment launched in the middle of the night escalated into an example of how not to respond to social media and satire online.

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