A 17-year-old high schooler built the viral website that's generating handwashing infographics to your favorite songs
- William Gibson wanted to make handwashing memes using his favorite songs so he built a website to do it for him.
- The site, washyourlyrics, has since gone viral.
- More than 200,000 people have made handwashing posters on his site since Sunday.
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William Gibson, a high school student in Northamptonshire, UK, got a kick out of the meme that encouraged people to use Gucci Mane's "Money Machine" lyrics to ensure they're washing their hands long enough.
The 17-year-old, who has been building websites and apps since he was nine, wanted to make his own hand washing infographics to his favorite songs. He built washyourlyrics.com to automate the process, and more than 200,000 people have since used it to make their own posters.
"I saw that meme and I wanted to make a version for every song I listen to, so I made a web app to do it for me," Gibson told Business Insider on Tuesday. "It was really fun and I launched it and it kind of went viral."
The CDC has said that washing your hands for at least 20 seconds is one of the best ways to prevent the coronavirus. It's long been a practice to teach children to sing the Happy Birthday song twice to make sure they're scrubbing long enough. Because that song can get kind of boring, people have been identifying other tunes that could work as well.
Gibson's site automatically populates a boilerplate handwashing poster with any song available on the lyrics site Genius.
Over 1,000 people have created posters to the lyrics of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."
Toto's "Africa," Smash Mouth's "All Star," Brittney Spears' "Toxic," and Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" are also among the most popular, Gibson said.
Gibson said he knew the site would be somewhat popular but is still surprised by the attention it's getting.
He noted that he hasn't monetized the site over ethical and legal concerns about using copyrighted song lyrics.
His projects - and there have been a few- are always for fun.
In fact, Gibson is hoping that he eventually can make a career out of the "silly things" he enjoys working on.
"I don't want to be at university because it's not my thing," he said.
As for the coronavirus, Gibson said he's been taking precautions - like handwashing - but he's not too concerned
"It hasn't affected my day-to-day life so far," he said.
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