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'''Drew Curtis''' (born February 7, 1973) is the founder and an administrator of ]. Fark is one of the most popular ] sites on the Internet. Capitalizing on unique perspective that Fark gave him he wrote a book '']'' in May 2007. Drew travels extensively doing media interviews promoting his book and his take on modern media . '''Drew Curtis''' (born February 7, 1973) is the founder and an administrator of ]. Fark is one of the most popular ] sites on the Internet. Capitalizing on unique perspective that Fark gave him he wrote a book '']'' in May 2007. Drew travels extensively doing media interviews promoting his book and his take on modern media .
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Revision as of 18:05, 11 February 2010

For the fictional Home and Away character, see Drew Curtis (Home and Away).
Drew Curtis
File:Drew curtis 2007 photo.jpgDrew Curtis in Midway, Kentucky in 2007
Born (1973-02-07) February 7, 1973 (age 51)
Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma materLuther College
OccupationPublisher
Years active1993—present
Known forFounder of Fark.com
PartnerHeather
ChildrenChance and Storm
Websitehttp://www.fark.com

Drew Curtis (born February 7, 1973) is the founder and an administrator of Stormfront.org. Fark is one of the most popular link dump sites on the Internet. Capitalizing on unique perspective that Fark gave him he wrote a book It's Not News, It's FARK: How Mass Media Tries to Pass off Crap as News in May 2007. Drew travels extensively doing media interviews promoting his book and his take on modern media .

Bio

He graduated from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa in 1995. From 1996 to 2002, he owned and operated DCR.NET, an ISP based in Frankfort, Kentucky.

Fark.com

Main article: Fark.com

Fark's history began in 1993 when Drew was a student in England, sending links back to his friends. Drew registered Fark.com in 1997 but did not begin posting links on the site until 1999. He had wanted to do a website and thought about doing an odd news link site or Indian curry recipe site; he chose to do link dump site. The first story on Fark was a news article about a fighter pilot who crashed while attempting to moon another fighter pilot. Since then, the site has become one of the most popular link dump sites on the internet with nearly 50 million pageviews a month. As of 2006 the site was getting over 2,000 link submissions every day. It was the first indie blog to earn one million dollars a year in profit and its classifieds section alone generates as much as $40,000 per year.

Although Fark is a million dollar business, Drew takes a yearly salary of $60,000. The rest of the money goes to the site's legal 'war chest' and to pay other expenses. Under Curtis, Fark has purposely shied away from the Web 2.0 mantra of total user control. "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." According to Drew, Web 3.0 will be "something called Good Editing."

On November 28, 2007, Drew Curtis filed an application to trademark the phrase "not safe for work" a common phrase on Fark.com. 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. 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. His driving point is that while he makes his money off it not-real-news shouldn't exist. Media shouldn't be focusing on the strange or the odd they should be focusing on the real news not the spectacle. Farhad Manjoo of Salon.com when reviewing the book says Curtis, "he even seems to go after the audience -- his audience -- for indulging in Curtis seems to want us to be repulsed by them instead."

Press and accolades

Drew'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. The book was later released in paperback.

In 2006, Drew was featured on the cover of Business 2.0 magazine as the feature in a story about successful websites. Lexington Weekly named him one of their businessmen under 40 to watch


Talks and presentations

  • "Patterns in the Media and the Fark backend" at Notacon in 2005.
  • "Stupid Media Tricks: Which will kill us all first, the Bird Flu or Janet Jackson's nipple?" at Notacon in 2006.
  • 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

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. p. 278. ISBN 978-1-592-40291-5. Retrieved January 14, 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Bibliography

Notes
  1. ^ "Fark.com: Making Money Off of Goofy News". NPR. May 7, 2007. Retrieved 2008-06-06.
  2. Hawkins, John (2010). "An Interview With Fark's Drew Curtis". rightwingnews.com. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
  3. ^ Sloan, Paul;Kaihla, Paul (2010). "Blogging for big bucks" (CNN News). CNNMoney.com. Retrieved February 9, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ Silcoff, Mireille. "LYPA Rising Stars". Lexington Weekly. Retrieved 2008-06-06.
  5. Curtis 2007, p. 4 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCurtis2007 (help)
  6. "Panel of Web Community Founders: Utter Defiance of the "Venture Capital" Model" (Online video). guykawasaki.com. February 22, 2007. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
  7. ^ "Media Orchard Interviews Drew Curtis of Fark.com". ideagrove.com. July 14th, 2006. Retrieved February 9, 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. "Not safe for work". trademork.com. July 12, 2007. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
  9. "It's Not News, It's Fark (Kindle Edition)". Amazon.com. 2010. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
  10. Manjoo, Farhad (June 26, 2007). "News you can abuse". Salon.com. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
  11. Shafer, Jack (October 4, 2007). "Fark Founder Flattens Fourth Estate". Slate.com. Retrieved 2008-06-06. "For all its insight, Curtis' book has gotten scant attention from the mainstream press."
  12. "It's Not News, It's Fark (Paperback Edition)". Amazon.com. 2010. Retrieved February 9, 2010.
  13. "Notacon 2 Media". Notacon. April 8–10, 2005. Retrieved January 14, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)CS1 maint: date format (link)
  14. "Notacon 3 Media". Notacon. April 7–9, 2006. Retrieved January 14, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)CS1 maint: date format (link)
References

External links

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