Timeline

2007

July

• July 26, 2007 - At the San Diego Comic-Con, "Jokerized" $1 bills are found that lead to Whysoserious.com, a page advertising jobs as Joker henchmen. The page includes coordinates to a location near the convention and a countdown clock set to go off the next day.

• July 27, 2007 - Hundreds gather at the time and place listed on Whysoserious. At 10 am, a phone number is written in the sky, launching the game. Collaborating with friends online, the assembled crowd (now wearing Joker face paint) is sent on a scavenger hunt throughout the city. After solving all the clues, a fan was selected to be abducted and killed in place of the Joker. The participants at San Diego were given clown masks as a reward, while online players were rewarded with the teaser trailer for The Dark Knight.

• July 30, 2007 - Whysoserious is shut down and replaced with Rent-a-clown.com, a clown rental company whose "employees" are the fans from WSS. The page contains the message "made you look" in its source code.

October

• October 17, 2007 - Whysoserious is reactivated, with a Halloween theme - a single pumpkin lit by a candle, with the mouth carved in the shape of a bat. The pumpkin carving resembled the jack-o-lantern from the graphic novel "The Long Halloween" by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.

• October 31, 2007 - After watching the pumpkin rot (only on the left-hand side, a possible metaphor for Two-Face) and the candle burn out over the course of a few weeks, at the stroke of midnight Whysoserious updates with a workbench linked with 49 locations.

November

• November 1, 2007 - The community uploaded images of 49 different letters onto the Whysoserious website, spelling out the message "the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules". Clicking on the solution played a clip of the Joker saying "tonight you're going to break your one rule", followed by a new image of the Joker. Clicking on the image led to a new website, RorysDeathKiss.com, challenging participants to take photographs in clown make-up by major national landmarks in groups.
• November 18, 2007 - Midnight, the end of the deadline for photo submissions, Rorysdeathkiss.com was updated with a new note indicating that all who had submitted a photo would receive something in the mail shortly after Thanksgiving.

• November 21, 2007 - Community members who uploaded photo submissions to the Rorysdeathkiss website receive copies of The Gotham Times. This reveals the websites Thegothamtimes.com, Wearetheanswer.org, and the email humanresources@whysoserious.com.

• November 23, 2007 - More websites are found in the Gotham Times: Thehahahatimes.com, Gothamnationalbank.com, Gothampolice.com, Gothamcityrail.com, Rememberinggina.org and Whysoserious.com/Personalityprofile.

• November 27, 2007 - A new clue was sent to participants who emailed humanresources@whysoserious.com, revealing Whysoserious.com/mausoleum.

• November 27, 2007 - More websites are up and running. Calling the Gotham Cab company Gothamcab.com at 1-877-530-2227 and entering extension 6773 will play a hidden message.

• November 30, 2007 - Participants who submitted a phone number with their tip to Wearetheanswer.org are receiving a threatening phone call from a corrupted police sympathizer. He divulged the existence of an important document, which was then found on Gothampolice.com/secureinternaldocuments. Also, a note was found on pg4 of Thehahahatimes.com, leading the participant to a new puzzle, Whysoserious.com/theperfectgetaway