Sure, you could produce a piece of local television journalism that will earn you a Peabody award and perhaps a place of honor on a wall in the station lobby. Or, you could produce a graphic as epic as KMOV’s “overnight dumpster fires” (right) that has begun blazing its way through the internet.

“No way did you make this,” one Twitter user commented, apparently stunned by the magnificence of the station’s decision to use the label “dumpster fire” nearly two dozen times in one graphic, with arrows.

@IAmSpilly @reckless someone really overestimated the impact of having tons of text vs cool dumpster fire icons. — Boolean Corporation (@BooleanCorp) July 5, 2016

@chewbecca24 I just love the graphic. Don’t tell me where the fires were, just point to them and say “dumpster fire” over and over again — Rich Hipster Kūkai (@danisapproves) July 5, 2016

The CBS station’s work was designed to illustrate a story about a rash of 23 dumpster fires in St. Louis overnight (though we counted only 22 dumpster fires labeled on the graphic), but it has taken on what will surely be a long life on the internet, being used to describe the Clinton and Trump campaigns, the year 2016, and, back in St. Louis, the Cardinals bullpen.

DUMPSTER FIRE DUMPSTER FIRE

DUMPSTER FIRE DUMPSTER FIRE

DUMPSTER FIRE DUMPSTER FIRE

DUMPSTER FIRE DUMPSTER FIRE https://t.co/p3RjGEDL0X — Robert Penner (@robpenner) July 5, 2016

I can report similar phenomena today in court. https://t.co/9M51ah1qxT — Matt Henry (@heymatthenry) July 5, 2016

Looks like my fantasy football schedule #DumpsterFire https://t.co/QGHINlXiYs — Brian Fantana (@Gode10) July 5, 2016

Worth noting: KMOV’s story about the 23 separate dumpster fires the St. Louis Fire Department investigated overnight ends with the following line: “It is currently unknown if the fires were set intentionally.”

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