dick run claire

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Did this d*ck-drawing Instagram star steal her gag from a rival runner?

Two influencers named Claire are at odds. But one clearly did it first.

Jan 22, 2019, 12:00 pm

Internet Culture

 Brittany Vincent 

Brittany Vincent

There ain’t room enough in this town for two dick runners.

It looks like two fitness enthusiasts named Claire with a penchant for running in routes shaped like penises are having it out on social media. The rub? One is reportedly ripping off the other.

Self-proclaimed dick runner and Los Angeles-based writer Claire Wyckoff claims Instagram user Claire Pisano, otherwise known as dick_run_claire, is reportedly trying to steal her thunder. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “dick run,” it’s exactly what it sounds like—running a route and mapping it with an app like NikePlus, taking deliberate paths to draw a penis. It’s pretty funny.

Since Wyckoff’s successful dick runs have been circulating as of late, some have instead credited Pisano with kicking off the trend, which Wyckoff is understandably miffed about.

“When I ran my first dick in 2014, to my knowledge I was the first,” Wyckoff told the Daily Dot via Twitter. “At that stage GPS art wasn’t even a thing, much less GPS dick art—which is why my work was picked up and made famous by media outlets like Jezebel, CNN, Vogue, Shape, Perez Hilton and Popular Science. I became Dick Run Claire.

“I think I got picked up because as far as everyone knew it hadn’t been done before,” she said of her viral fame. “GPS art wasn’t even a thing to anyone’s knowledge. And I took the balls (get it) and ran with them, figuring out how to read roads and manipulate Nike+ to run dicks all over San Francisco. I turned it from a funny accident into an art form.”

A quick look back through Claire’s Instagram reveals that she did indeed create her first bit of dick art all the way back in June 2014. It was a bit boxy, sure, but it was absolutely clear what her intentions were.

Meanwhile, Pisano didn’t post her first attempt until June 2016.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHSA9NBBhW1/

Pisano claims she’s been doing these things since 2015 and has a ton more to share with her followers that never made it to Instagram since she hadn’t been using the service. But even if that’s the case, Wyckoff’s runs do still predate Pisano’s.

View this post on Instagram

#waybackwednesday – thank god there’s a hashtag for this, or I wouldn’t have posted this. Here’s a #dickrun from this day 2 years ago. WHICH I NEVER POSTED BEFORE. Turns out even though I’ve been doing dickruns since ’15, I wasn’t really into the ‘gram until sometime in the latter half of 2017. So basically there’s a whole secret archive of dickruns that I’m going to be able to pull out of the vault to share with you guys. While on some throwbacks to the start of 2017, swipe for some throwback photos [email protected] that time (and even a NYE video, we’re doing shots at midnight). Takeaway: I definitely used to party a lot more then. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I’m older now, maybe not more mature though. . . . . . #humpdaymotivation #beatyesterday #pursuesweat #wearetherunners #runnersofinstagram #motivation #runhappy #runderful #womensrunningcommunity #influenster #noexcuses #justdoit #runaddict #runningmotivation #motivation #instarunners #beabeast #fitstagram #fitspiration #runrunrun #runtimefuntime

A post shared by Claire 🏃🏼‍♀️🍺🌮 (@dick_run_claire) on

You’ve still got to ask yourself at some point, though: Is this really something that necessitates all the infighting? Can’t we all just draw dicks in peace?

“I work in a creative industry so I might see it differently,” Wyckoff explained. “For me, this is kinda like a comedian stealing another comedian’s joke. It’s something you just don’t do. There’s a code that creative types live by, and she broke it.”

But as it turns out, Wyckoff wasn’t actually the first person to post a dick run to Instagram. Browsing through the #dickrun tag on the photo service alone reveals that the first usage belongs to a man named robdobi, posted on May 13, 2014. For all intents and purposes, he’s the first known dick runner on Instagram to use the hashtag. Outside of that, though, who knows?

Wyckoff can certainly be credited with popularizing the runs, that much is true. Wyckoff indeed appeared in several articles around the internet when her first 2014 dick runs went viral, as referenced in this piece via Nursing Clio.

It’s only grown out of control from there, as several users have co-opted the dick run for their own Instagram purposes, making for a hilarious variety of different shapes and sizes that reflect the variety of real dicks in the world.

It’s impossible to sift through all of Instagram to see who came up with the dick run idea in the first place. It’s difficult to say at this point without endlessly clicking through profile after profile, many without hashtags or descriptors, so we may never know.

https://www.instagram.com/p/rOA38FPIlZ/

Pisano took to Twitter in response to the drama, noting that there are multiple runners under the hashtag and that there’s “enough road dicks” for everyone out there.

What does social media think? There is outrage and intrigue.

https://twitter.com/BenLaBolt/status/1085981575383261184

https://twitter.com/jcneal27/status/1085958080242827265

So where do we go from here? How do we determine who the best dick runner is, once and for all?

“It feels like the appropriate way to handle this is with a Dickrun-off. A dickathalon. Whoever runs the best dick wins. Loser changes her first name,” said Wyckoff.

Sounds like a great idea to us.

We’ve reached out to Pisano for her side of the story and will update with further details if we receive them.

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*First Published: Jan 22, 2019, 12:00 pm

Brittany Vincent

Brittany Vincent has covered gaming, anime, tech, and entertainment for over a decade. When she’s not writing, she’s replaying Um Jammer Lammy or Day of the Tentacle for the hundredth time while pining for a Harvester sequel. Find her on Twitter @MolotovCupcake.

Brittany Vincent