How a simple squirrel photo evolved into a massive, traffic-crushing online news community
In short: Created in 1999 to share interesting links with friends, Fark grew into a digital powerhouse capable of crashing smaller websites with a single link. Founder Drew Curtis built a community where users curate news, mock the obvious, and occasionally influence real-world events through collective, often humorous, action.
Fark began as a modest project by Drew Curtis in Lexington, Kentucky, initially featuring only a photograph of a Cape Ground Squirrel taken in 1993. By 1999, it had evolved into a platform for sharing news stories, eventually growing to serve millions of page views monthly. The site operates on a user-submission model where community members, known as Farkers, suggest links that administrators then 'greenlight' for the main page. This process can drive such intense traffic that smaller websites frequently suffer server failure, a phenomenon the community calls being 'farked'.
The site's culture is defined by 'Farkisms'—in-jokes and clichés that permeate discussions. These range from mocking obvious news to elaborate pranks, such as the 2006 effort to have a highway sign erected for the acronym UFIA, which stood for 'Uniting Friends in America' to local authorities but held a different meaning to users. While often sophomoric, the community has demonstrated serious utility, providing citizen journalism during the 2009 Iranian election protests and raising over $13,000 for a toy drive after a local news personality embraced his status as a site meme.
Despite its influence, Fark remains a relatively small operation. Curtis has maintained a lean business model, funding the site through advertising and the TotalFark subscription service, which allows members to view the thousands of daily submissions that do not make the main page. The site has navigated various challenges, including a 2011 patent lawsuit that Curtis described as a 'nightmare' and the constant evolution of web design. Today, it stands as a unique intersection of news aggregation, community-driven humor, and an enduring, if sometimes overlooked, force in internet culture.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Fark
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