- Drew Curtis
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For the fictional Home and Away character, see Drew Curtis (Home and Away).
Drew Curtis 
Drew CurtisBorn February 7, 1973
Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.Nationality American Occupation Publisher Years active 1993—present Known for Founder of Fark.com Partner Heather [1] Children 3 Website http://www.fark.com Drew Curtis (born February 7, 1973) is the founder and an administrator of Fark.com, an Internet link dump site. He is also the author of It's Not News, It's FARK: How Mass Media Tries to Pass off Crap as News in May 2007.
Contents
Bio
Curtis graduated from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa in 1995.[citation needed] From 1996 to 2002, he owned and operated DCR.NET, an ISP based in Frankfort, Kentucky.[2]
Fark.com
Main article: Fark.comFark's history began in 1993 when Curtis was a student in England, sending links back to his friends.[3] Curtis registered Fark.com in 1997 but did not begin posting links on the site until 1999.[4][5] The first story on Fark was a news article about a fighter pilot who crashed while attempting to moon another fighter pilot.[6] Since then, the site has become one of the most popular link dump sites on the internet[4] with nearly 50 million pageviews a month.[3] As of 2006 the site was getting over 2,000 link submissions every day.[7] It was the first indie blog to earn one million dollars a year in profit[3] and its classifieds section alone generates as much as $40,000 per year.[1]
Although Fark is a million-dollar business, Curtis takes a yearly salary of $60,000.[1] The rest of the money goes to the site's legal 'war chest' and to pay other expenses.[1] Under Curtis, Fark has purposely shied away from the Web 2.0 mantra of total user control.[7] "I don't care what anyone says, the masses are morons. You can't count on them to pick good stuff. Just check out Network TV to see what the masses want for entertainment. There's certainly a place for that kind of thing but it's not on Fark."[7] According to Drew, Web 3.0 will be "something called Good Editing."[7] Speaking at a media conference in Washington, DC hosted by the Poynter Institute, Curtis stated, "The 'wisdom of the crowds' is the most ridiculous statement I've heard in my life. Crowds are dumb. It takes people to move crowds in the right direction, crowds by themselves just stand around and mutter."[8]
In 2006, Curtis was featured on the cover of Business 2.0 magazine as the feature in a story about successful websites.[3] Lexington Weekly named him one of their businessmen under 40 to watch[4]
On November 28, 2007, Curtis filed an application to trademark the phrase "not safe for work" a common phrase on Fark.com.[9] His application was denied.
It's Not News, It's FARK
Curtis published his first book, It's Not News, It's FARK: How Mass Media Tries to Pass off Crap as News in May 2007.[10] It soon became a bestseller. An in depth analysis of the state of modern media, It's Not News, It's Fark slams news organizations for running smaller versions of his not-real-news. In his review of the book, Farhad Manjoo of Salon.com said that "[Curtis] even seems to go after the audience -- his audience -- for indulging in [not-real-news] Curtis seems to want us to be repulsed by them instead."[11]
Curtis's book peaked at #12 on Amazon.com's non-fiction bestseller list. Media critic Jack Shafer noted that despite the book's success, it surprisingly received "scant attention" from mainstream media outlets.[12] The book was later released in paperback.[13]
Presentations
- "Patterns in the Media and the Fark backend" at Notacon in 2005.[14]
- "Stupid Media Tricks: Which will kill us all first, the Bird Flu or Janet Jackson's nipple?" at Notacon in 2006.[15]
- Appears on the radio show/podcast Free Talk Live periodically
- Appears on Twitch and ZRock Morning Show with hosts Twitch and Mary Jane on ZRock 103.3 FM every Thursday in Lexington, Kentucky
- SXSW (South by Southwest) Mar. 2009 -- Building Strong Online Communities
- Poynter Institute Sensemaking Seminar, May 2009
- Poynter KSU Media Ethics Workshop, Sept. 17 2009
- Pecha Kucha Lexington, Dec. 3 2009
- SXSW (South by Southwest) Mar. 16 2010 -- How to Save Journalism
- Poynter Institute Sensemaking Seminar, May 5 2010 -- Farking Metrics
- Poynter Institute "Fact or Friction" conference at the Newseum, June 29 2010 -- Innovation and Audience
- SXSW (South by Southwest) Mar. 2011 -- Coordinator, Community Engagement Workshop
Books published
- Curtis, Drew (June 2007). It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News. New York City: Penguin Group (USA), Inc.. pp. 278. ISBN 978-1-592-40291-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=0Ak9Veq_CTgC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false.
Bibliography
- Notes
- ^ a b c d "Fark.com: Making Money Off of Goofy News". NPR. May 7, 2007. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10009173. Retrieved June 6, 2008.
- ^ Hawkins, John (2010). "An Interview With Fark's Drew Curtis". rightwingnews.com. http://www.rightwingnews.com/interviews/fark.php. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
- ^ a b c d Sloan, Paul;Kaihla, Paul (2010). "Blogging for big bucks" (CNN News). CNNMoney.com. http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/21/technology/bloggingdollars0822.biz2/index.htm. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
- ^ a b c Silcoff, Mireille. "LYPA Rising Stars". Lexington Weekly. http://www.lexweekly.com/Articles-c-2008-05-29-76799.113117_LYPA_Rising_Stars.html. Retrieved 2008-06-06.
- ^ Curtis 2007, p. 4
- ^ "Panel of Web Community Founders: Utter Defiance of the "Venture Capital" Model" (Online video). guykawasaki.com. February 22, 2007. http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/02/panel_of_web_co.html. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
- ^ a b c d "Media Orchard Interviews Drew Curtis of Fark.com". ideagrove.com. July 14, 2006. http://www.ideagrove.com/blog/2006/07/media-orchard-interviews-drew-curtis-of-farkcom.html. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
- ^ Nagesh, Gautham (June 29, 2010). "Fark creator says wisdom of crowds is overrated". The Hill. http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/106231-fark-creator-says-wisdom-of-crowds-is-overrated. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
- ^ "Not safe for work". trademork.com. July 12, 2007. http://www.trademork.com/not-safe-for-work/. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
- ^ "It's Not News, It's Fark (Kindle Edition)". Amazon.com. 2010. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000V5075M. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
- ^ Manjoo, Farhad (June 26, 2007). "News you can abuse". Salon.com. http://archive.salon.com/life/sex/index.html?story=/books/review/2007/06/26/fark. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
- ^ Shafer, Jack (October 4, 2007). "Fark Founder Flattens Fourth Estate". Slate.com. http://www.slate.com/id/2175244/. Retrieved 2008-06-06. "For all its insight, Curtis' book has gotten scant attention from the mainstream press."
- ^ "It's Not News, It's Fark (Paperback Edition)". Amazon.com. 2010. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1592403662. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
- ^ "Notacon 2 Media". Notacon. April 8-10, 2005. http://www.notaconmedia.com/2005media.shtml. Retrieved January 14, 2010.
- ^ "Notacon 3 Media". Notacon. April 7-9, 2006. http://www.notaconmedia.com/2006media.shtml. Retrieved January 14, 2010.
- References
- Curtis, Drew (June 2007). It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News. New York City: Penguin Group (USA), Inc.. pp. 278. ISBN 978-1-592-40291-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=0Ak9Veq_CTgC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false. Retrieved January 14, 2010.
External links
Categories:- 1973 births
- Living people
- People from Lexington, Kentucky
- American Internet personalities
- American online publication editors
- American social sciences writers
- Luther College (Iowa) alumni
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
