Get Gnomed (Dark Web)

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About

Get Gnomed is an onion website on the dark web (accessible via the Tor browser) in which a buyer can purchase a "gnoming" service that entails garden gnomes being anonymously placed at a selected person's address, invading their daily life and creeping them out. The website became well-known on TikTok in 2022 and 2023 due to TikToker Thunder Keck's (@thunder_keck) documentation of the service. Thunder Keck is a football player and computer science major at Stanford University, living in New Hampshire. Thunder Keck's documentation went viral in which he showed what was getting delivered to his house, where he was finding gnomes and what quests he was sent on. The series inspired viral discourse as to who was behind the Get Gnomed service, including speculation of Thunder Keck himself.

History

The Get Gnomed^[1] website was created on an unknown date sometime before November 2022. Its homepage describes itself as, "The best gnoming service on the dark web," and further advertises, "Someone bothering you? Gnome their yard. Our basic service utilizes over 500 gnomes. We will place them regardless of security measures." Ultimately, the service that Get Gnomed provides targets a selected person whose home is "gnomed," as in, garden gnomes are anonymously placed around and inside their home to an excessive and invasive degree (screenshots of the Get Gnomed^[1] homepage shown below).

TikToker Thunder Keck's (@thunder_keck) Documentation

Get Gnomed was first referenced by TikToker^[2] thunder_keck on November 13th, 2022, in a video that was "Part 17" of his ongoing series "Into the Dark Web" in which he highlighted strange, onion websites he found on Tor. In the video, he went over the Get Gnomed homepage and asked his viewers in the description to decide if he should buy the service. Over the course of two months, the video received roughly 12.8 million plays and 1.8 million likes (shown below).

On the following day, November 14th, 2022, TikToker^[3] thunder_keck posted a video in which he revisited the website and stated that he was going to buy the service after bargaining over Proton Mail. The video earned roughly 1 million plays and 73,400 likes in two months (shown below, left). On November 16th, 2022, TikToker^[4] thunder_keck posted a video in which he revealed the reply email that he'd received from Get Gnomed. The email used many "gnome" adjacent puns and ultimately led to thunder_keck getting a discount. The video received roughly 981,000 plays and 81,900 likes in two months (shown below, right). He ultimately bought the service that day because his next TikTok^[5] was about how he'd received a gnome shipping date of November 28th, 2022, however, the date later changed to December 2nd, 2022.^[6]

In the early morning of December 3rd, 2022, thunder_keck posted a TikTok^[7] in anticipation of the gnomes' arrival and hinted that he was going to go Live because he had just received an email reading, "Let the gnoming commence," gaining roughly 4.5 million plays and 351,000 likes in one month (shown below, left). Ultimately, an animatronic gnome was placed next to thunder_keck's window that night which sang Christmas carols and lit up (shown below, right). At the end of its song, the gnome glitched out every time and started speaking Hebrew. A TikToker (foxylady0401) in thunder_keck's comment section^[7] translated the Hebrew to English: "Cancel files. Do you really think that's it? Just one? Like Christmas? No, welcome to the housewarming party."

TikToker thunder_keck continued to document himself getting gnomed going into January 2023, eventually leading to his golf cart getting stolen and covered with gnomes,^[8]^[9] his car getting covered in gnomes,^[10] the main "gnomer" nicknamed "Gnomeo" pursuing him when he moved from his college dorm to his home in New Hampshire for Christmas break^[11]^[12] and a saga of videos started on December 26th, 2022,^[13] in which he received a package with a gnome outfit and coordinates for him to follow, where at the end, he found an inflatable gnome decoration in the New Hampshire woods.^[14]

Spread

Other TikTokers joined thunder_keck in buying the gnoming service, such as TikToker^[15] darkw3bz on December 13th, 2022, whose primary video received roughly 261,300 plays and 15,600 likes in one month (shown below, left). On December 15th, 2022, TikToker^[16] darkw3bz posted another video that allegedly caught a video of the "gnomer," gaining roughly 428,900 plays and 24,100 likes in one month (shown below, right).

You've Been Gnomed

You've Been Gnomed is a computer animation of a gnome named Noggin Clontith, who taunts the viewer at the end of the clip by saying "You've been gnomed!" It became a notable bait-and-switch trend in 2018 but the animation was made in 2008. The meme was likely an inspiration for the creators of the Get Gnomed service.