“It wouldn’t be a lemon party without old dick” – how a single page website became one of the best known memes on the internet
So, What Is A Lemon Party?
Lemon Party refers to a website, www.lemonparty.org, which is a shock site comprising one page.
The single page on the site consists of an image of three naked, elderly men engaged in a sex act. One man is lying on his back kissing another of the men, while being given fellatio by the other.
Links to the site are commonly used in pranks, for example in online discussion forums, by duping people into clicking on the link.
Joke references to Lemon Party are also frequently posted on social media.
Examples
@1_swarthy_dude:
[fast-walking back towards car]
Wife:”IDIOT!”
Me:[holding meringue pie]”I know.”
Wife:”WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU THINK A ‘LEMONPARTY’ WAS?”
fthecorsage to r/circlejerk:
I learned that if you type “www.lemonparty.org” into your browser, it directs you to reddit. What other obscurities does the Internet have to offer?
jetfuelcantmeltbeams to r/ShittyLifeProTips:
Tired of Trump and Hillary? Vote for the Lemon Party! Go to www.lemonparty.org to learn more.
@virgiltexas:
Sick of liberal intolerance? #UninstallFirefox and get the Tea Party browser from lemonparty.org. #BoycottFirefox #UninstallMozilla
@pattymo:
I’m sorry, gentlemen, it’s restaurant policy to not seat you until your whole lemon party has arrived—oh god no get OUT!
History
The domain name lemonparty.org was registered on October 3, 2002. The single page site comprised the image of the old man threesome, with the song “If You Wanna Be Happy” by Jimmy Soul (1963) playing.
Lemonparty.org was one of a number of single image, shock sites that gained notoriety in the early 2000s. They were very popular for use in pranks, the aim of which would be to fool people into visiting such sites.
The other most popular/notorious shock sites around this time were Tubgirl and Goatse. Tubgirl showed a picture of an overweight woman in a bathtub smearing excrement on to her face and into her open mouth. Goatse featured an image of a man stretching his anus with his own hands.
Online discussion forums and imageboard communities frequently had links posted with a misleading message to lure people into clicking on the link. Even offline, pranksters distributed flyers and put up signs or posters to dupe people into visiting sites like lemonparty.org.
From 2007 onward, references to and discussions about lemon party started to gain mainstream public attention.
On June 25, 2007, the Opie & Anthony radio show with Jimmy Fallon featured a discussion about lemon party. Also in the same year, an episode of the American sitcom 30 Rock (“Ludachristmas”) included a reference to it, and a video discussion about lemonparty.org by the stars of the movie Superbad, Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, became very popular.
In 2010, an episode of The Cleveland Show (“It’s The Great Pancake, Cleveland Brown”) referenced lemon party, and an episode of 30 Rock (“Khonami”) featured the killer line, “it wouldn’t be a lemon party without old dick.”
In 2011 and 2012, references to lemon party were made in episodes of the TV shows Chelsea Lately, American Dad (“Killer Vacation”), Archer (“Double Trouble”) and The Simpsons (“Flaming Moe”).
On December 27, 2013, Buzzfeed reported that the owner of the lemonparty.org domain, Eric Johnson, was willing to sell the site for $450,000.
The origin of the image remains unknown, as do the identities of the participants.
Alternative Meaning
The Lemon Party was a frivolous Canadian political party, which operated on a federal level, and provincially in Quebec. The party was founded in 1987 and was deregistered in 1998. Its policies included abolishing Toronto, repealing the law of gravity and supporting global warming to allow lemons to be grown in Canada.