By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
When the history of the beginnings of the Internet is written, one web phenomenon that will be discussed will be so-called “Internet meme”. For the great unwashed, an Internet meme is is a phrase used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an esoteric inside joke. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although this concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.
Perhaps the most famous early Internet meme was the so-called “lolcat”.
A lolcat is an image combining a photograph of a cat and a humorous caption in language that typically parodies Internet slang. In this case the slang LOL for “laugh out loud”.
I Can Has Cheezburger? sparked an Internet phenomenon by creating a weblog that featured lolcats. Launched in January of 2007 by Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami, the site was sold to Pet Holdings, Inc., a Web startup based in Seattle.
Pet Holdings, Inc. then started the Cheezburger Network.
This new media company includes over 30 popular humor sites including I Can Has Cheezburger , FAIL Blog,
There I Fixed It (), and Lovely Listing. The network has over 13 million unique visitors and 230 million page views a month.
Its founder and CEO, Ben Huh is a former journalist turned dot com entrepreneur. He has been credited with bringing Internet memes to the mainstream and popularizing Internet culture. The success of Cheezburger Network is attributed to his knowledge of memes, viral content, and crowd sourcing.
The sites can be very fun to use. For instance, FailBlog launched in January of 2008 and sold to Pet Holdings in April of 2008 features pictures and videos of someone (or something) failing at something they are supposed to do, or displaying blatant stupidity or incompetence, captioned with the words “fail” or “epic fail”, although occasionally there are some cases of “wins”.
The Cheezburger Network has monitored and sifted through viral phenomena and Internet buzz and bought or built sites around the few memes that seemed to possess universal, permanent appeal. In the process, the company has managed something that few others online—not even YouTube—have been able to pull off. It has turned memes into a profitable business.
, catchphrase , humor sites , internet culture , lolcat , million unique visitors , parodies , web startup
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