The junk that the mainstream media passes as news stories can be funny, saddening and downright dumb.  When Congress approved an additional $70 Billion for the war on terror, CNN had a more important top news story for their readers: “What will you tell kids about Britney’s sister?” they asked.  Since February of 1999, FARK.com and its massive community has been making fun of said “news”.  GearCrave sat down for an interview with the founder of FARK.com and the godfather of social news, Drew Curtis.  Farkers, myself included, salute Curtis as a bit of a hero.  Continue reading to learn more about the man, the movement, and the hilarity that is FARK.com.

For the uninitiated on GearCrave, what is FARK?

Best description I’ve heard of it is ‘what if the Daily Show ran the Drudge Report’.  Except we pre-date the Daily Show (at least the Jon Stewart part), and almost predate the Drudge Report.

When was FARK founded, and why?

February 1999.  I was emailing strange news stories to friends of mine and thought they might be getting annoyed by it, so I decided to put them on a webpage instead.

In the long history of Fark, what have been a few of your all-time favorite articles ever posted?

There have been so many, very few actually stick out.  Mainly because a lot of the truly funny stuff has actually repeated itself over the past few years.  My favorite one is printed in the end of my book on junk news. It involves a crucifix, a penis, a nail gun, gasoline, and beer.  And winning a bet.  Good times…

On a day-to-day basis, what do you spend most of your day working on with FARK?

I spend most of the day reading the queue submissions, although I spend a surprising amount of time on the phone.  Most of the time it’s useful conversations but it never ceases to amaze me that people will hold huge ass conference calls to discuss something that can be handled in a single email.  I gotta get someone to start sitting in on those for me.

FARK blazed a trail that social media sites like Digg and Reddit later followed.  While imitation is the highest form of flattery, it can be a bit annoying.  That said, let’s put you and Kevin Rose of Digg in the ring.  Who would win in a fight?

No idea what he does on a regular basis but I play soccer four times a week.  I knocked someone out with a hard shot to the face a few years ago. Not on purpose and I’m sure there was flukey stuff involved but there you go.  Doubt I could pull it off again.  I’d really like to fight Uwe Boll if I had my pick.

You’ve held a very public, very long-lasting love affair with the beer Heineken.  Are there any other beers you hold in similar acclaim?

I like anything made by Unibroue.  It’s like what if the French had a sense of humor?  We’d call it Quebec.

Late last year, you filed an application to trademark the phrase “Not Safe for Work”. While that phrase certainly did originate on FARK, have you had any success with that?

No which is too bad because we had a hell of a joke to go along with it. Still not over though.  Stay tuned.

In the nearly ten years in which FARK has been in operation, you’ve seen a lot of really, really dumb stories covered by the media.  Do you see social commentary on the web, on websites and blogs just like FARK, holding the media to task and creating a positive change?

I do notice a few things getting picked up that media either didn’t see or couldn’t figure out context for.  By that I mean that any story works provided you can get the reader interested by explaining how it affects them.  That’s how Fark works, except with us the context is humor.  If it makes us laugh, it goes.

There have been quite a few things over the years that got noticed because of bloggers picking up on them.  I kind of wish that bloggers had been around last time the big entertainment companies got a 20 year extension on when fictional characters pass into the public domain.  That happened in the late 90s.  I’d kind of like to see what a public domain superman movie or comic would look like.

Any new plans on the way for Fark that you can hint about here on GearCrave?

Yeah but they take too long to explain.  Next one’s due out any day now. I don’t expect it will make a big splash but we’ll see.  It’s an add-on that initially doesn’t seem to fit with Fark but we’ve seen our readershup actively trying to use our site to do the same kind of thing so we wrote a data structure for them to use instead.

Last, what is your all-time favorite Fark cliche?

Duke sucks

Yes they do, my friend.  Yes they do.  Thanks for talking with us, Drew.  GearCravers, if you haven’t visited FARK.com in a while, you’re overdue for a visit!  For the one or two of you who may have never been to FARK before, first– welcome to the internet, make yourself comfortable.  Second, start here to learn more.