Fark

About

Fark is an online community and news aggregation website which features a wide range of news articles and other topically relevant content submitted by its users. Upon its launch in 1999, Fark quickly grew into one of the major hubsites for open discussions of current events and a prominent breeding ground for internet memes, particularly during the early to mid-2000s.

History

Fark.com^[1] was registered in September 1997 by Drew Curtis, then-the owner and operator of an internet service provider (ISP) based in Frankfort, Kentucky, who says he coined the term as a chatroom-safe euphemism for “fuck” or from an accidental misspelling while he was intoxicated.^[10] Curtis officially launched the website in 1999 to share interesting news articles with his friends without having to send the links via email.

In August 2004, Internet entrepreneur Jason Calcanis^[6] published a blog post claiming that a Fark salesman offered to give his articles preferential placement on the site for the price of $300 to $400. Curtis subsequently fired the salesman and denied selling placement for articles on the site. On January 17th, 2007, the video series Fark TV was launched, with the first episode featuring a parody commercial for the beverage “Meth Coffee.” On April 25th, Fark unveiled its first major redesign (shown below).

It’s Not News, It’s Fark

In May, the book It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass off Crap as News by Curtis was released, which criticized mass media for reporting various types of “soft news.” In November, Curtis filed a trademark for the phrase “not safe for work”,^[7] which was abandoned the following year. On January 31st, 2008, Curtis incorporated the website as Fark Inc. In May, the Cartoon Network programming block Adult Swim purchased the Fark TV video hosting site SuperDeluxe, subsequently removing Fark TV. In 2009, the newspaper USA Today became the exclusive sponsor of the “Geek” page on Fark, which highlights tech news articles. In 2012, the iPhone app “Hey! on Fark” was released, which allows users to comment on Fark submissions and provides notifications for stories submitted with specific topics and keywords.

Ban on Misogyny

On August 18th, 2014, Curtis posted an announcement^[4] about adding “misogyny” to the Fark moderator guidelines, revealing that rape jokes, referring to women as “whores” and “sluts” and suggesting that women who suffered a crime were “asking for it” were now bannable offenses on the site. On the following day, the news blog Slate^[5] published an article about the new guidelines by staff writer Amanda Hess, who argued that the new policy would be difficult to enforce, especially when determining if a comment is misogynistic or satirical.

Features

Tagging System

Users can place their story submissions under a variety of tags, including “stupid,” “interesting,” “obvious” and “dumbass.” Tags for digitally manipulated content including “photoshop,” “audioedit” and “videoedit.”

TotalFark

In 2002, the TotalFark subscription service was launched for a fee of $5 per month, allowing users to view a special TotalFark news feed, the ability to upvote and downvote headlines, early submission for Photoshop contests and participate in a special TotalFark discussion forum.

Highlights

UFIA

UFIA is an acronym commonly used on the site which stands for “Unsolicited Finger in Anus,” which became popularized in March 2004 after a news story with the headline “Judge determines unsolicited finger in anus is crude, but not criminal” was highlighted on the homepage of the site.^[8]

Ric Romero

In October 2006, the KABC-TV consumer specialist Ric Romero became a subject of ridicule on the site after publishing an article about blogging which many readers found oblivious.^[9]

Glenn Beck Rape & Murder Hoax

“Did Glenn Beck Rape And Murder A Young Girl In 1990” is an Internet hoax and grassroots smear campaign which began as a comment by Fark user oddweevil in August 2009.

Why haven’t we had an official response to the rumor that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990?

I Can’t Fap to This

“I Can’t Fap to This” is an expression indicating that a person is unable to masturbate using a specific stimulus. The phrase is often used to comment on YouTube videos and as a caption for image macros. The earliest known posting was submitted by Fark^[3] commenter KickahaOta on September 10th, 2008.

What You Think You Look Like vs. What You Actually Look Like

What You Think You Look Like vs. What You Actually Look Like is a two-pane image macro series illustrating the discrepancy between one’s own self-image and outside perceptions of physical attractiveness. The first image typically approaches the subject’s self-idealized image while performing a certain act in a positive or attractive way, followed by a second image portraying the subject in an unflattering manner. On July 20th, 2008, FARK^[2] user Control_this commented in a thread about the state of casinos in Illinois with a photograph of a young woman playing a slot machine followed by a photo of an older woman smoking while playing another gambling machine.

Identifying Wood

Identifying Wood refers to the cover photograph of the book with the same name in which a middle-aged man is shown examining the texture of a wooden panel with a microscope. On May 22nd, 2007, a thread^[3] was posted on the community website FARK requesting photoshops of the book cover. The thread, receiving 36 replies prior to being archived, produced several notable examples of the meme.

Traffic

Fark received over 50,000 page views within one year of launch. In 2000, Fark rose to one million page views for the year. In January 2008, Curtis announced the site was averaging 52 million page views per month with four million unique visitors.^[3] As of September 2014, Fark has a global rank of 3,159 and a United States rank of 1,315 on the traffic analytics site Alexa.^[2]

Search Interest

External References