"Fark" redirects here. For other uses, see FARK.

Fark.com is a community website created by Drew Curtis allowing users to comment on a daily batch of news articles and other items from various websites. Links are submitted by Fark members, which are then approved for posting on the main page by admins.

TotalFark.com is a premium version of Fark. Members are able to see, and comment on, all submitted articles (not just "greenlighted" articles on the main page). TotalFark requires a monthly fee to join, unlike "regular fark", or "Fark lite," which is free. Members of TotalFark have established an online community and frequently participate in "TotalFark discussions", which are submitted links not meant to be greenlighted, but rather commented and discussed by TotalFark members only.

History

Originally, the web server on Drew Curtis' fark.com domain (Fark being a euphemism for fuck) contained no content, except for an image of a squirrel with large testicles. Later, in 1999, the site introduced what would evolve into its current format, as a way for Curtis to share what he considered interesting news postings with his friends rather than sending them numerous emails. Features such as link submission and forums have slowly been added over the years, as popularity and participation grew.

Tags

The signature of Fark has always been the "tags" given to stories by submitters - e.g. stupid, interesting, dumbass, etc. - that are displayed prominently alongside often witty headlines and a link to a forum to discuss that specific article. Articles discussing Wil Wheaton, an arguably famous member of the Fark community, are given the "Wheaton" tag. Articles discussing Christopher Walken are given the "Walken" tag, though Walken has never participated on Fark. Tags that say "advice" or "survey" are used for discussion threads where comments are often voted upon. Tags that say "photoshop", "audioedit" or "videoedit" are used for threads where digital content is edited for a humorous or artistic effect. Tags that say "boobies" or "weeners" are used to post adult content or discussions. Finally, the news tag (and newsflash for even more important news) is used for news which is a matter of important breaking news, and an email is sent to the administrators notifying them that someone has submitted a "Newsflash". Members are told to use this tag very sparingly and only for matters of extremely important breaking news. All of the links that are posted on Fark are submitted by users and "greenlighted" by unpaid administrators or Drew Curtis himself. The administrators are personal friends of Drew, as are the moderators. The tags next to the articles represent the submitter's feelings on that article and do not necessarily represent the views of Fark or the administrator who greenlighted the article.

Next to an article on Fark appears a number in parentheses, such as (105). Clicking on this number goes to the discussion about the article. The number in parentheses is the number of comments users have made. The discussion part of the thread is where readers are encouraged to comment, discuss, and often argue the content of the link. When the number of comments accumulate to various larger numbers, the number changes into something humorous such as "(∞)", "(ℵ₀)","(π)" or even "(√-1)".

Farkisms and clichés

Fark's comments threads are often smattered with "Farkisms" or "FARK.com clichés" (essentially, in-jokes) which are an integral part of the community culture and used in myriad discussions at the website, regardless of whether they apply to the topic at hand. Many of these clichés are not exclusive to Fark. A few examples include:

• / (slash) - Best thought of as a combination of "postscript" and the /me command from IRC, a tongue-in-cheek reference to closing tags in HTML; posts often have several rows at the end.
• Abe Vigoda - Numerous joking references are made to Vigoda, mostly about his vital status (i.e. whether he is alive or dead). The joke derives from a People article from 1982 which erroneously declared him dead. When Fark.com won the naming rights to the TD Banknorth Garden for a day, they attempted to name it the Abe Vigoda Memorial Center.
• Admiral Ackbar's "It's a trap!" line from Return of the Jedi.
• "Asshat" - A euphemism for the NSFW term "asshole". Probably popularized by director Kevin Smith. The information on the official "asshat" etymology website is suspect.
• Bubb Rubb, the name of a man dubbed in Internet circles as the "Woo Woo guy", who became an Internet meme after imitating the sounds of a whistle while being interviewed on a local TV news station.
• Chuck Norris, in reference to random Chuck Norris Facts. Example: "Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits." Posts referencing Norris usually include a reference to a "roundhouse kick to the face".
• Domo-kun - An odd-looking Japanese TV channel mascot, often appearing in Photoshop contests.
• "Duke sucks" - Drew Curtis is from Kentucky and thus hates Duke Basketball with a passion because of the 1992 East Regional Final in the NCAA Mens Basketball tournament, which Duke won at the last moment in double-overtime. See Christian Laettner for details.
• [fap fap fap] - the sound created by a masturbating male, often accompanies pictures or discussions of attractive women.
• Flying Spaghetti Monster, aka "FSM." Often used to mock or point out silliness of "Intelligent Design" arguments.
• France surrenders: Frequently used in news of a military nature, e.g. "US declares war on Iraq, France surrenders." A reference to the rapid surrender of France to Nazi forces in World War II. This is a variation of a theme found in The Onion's Our Dumb Century, which is a collection of fake newspaper articles supposedly published all across the 20th century. One of the jokes is that every time there's a war (World War I, II, Vietnam, etc) the words 'French Surrender' follow the headline.
• "HA! HA! guy", a.k.a. the "Laughing Quaker", or "Ha! Ha! I'm using the internet" picture. First appearing with said original message it has become increasingly popular to edit the phrase after "ha-ha" to say myriad varying thread-specific phrases (example).
• Heineken looter guy - from the semi-famous Hurricane Katrina aftermath picture.
• "Here comes the science" - originally uttered by actor Ben Affleck and actress Jennifer Aniston in L'Oreal shampoo commercials aired in the UK.
• Hot cocoa sampler box - This phrase came from a discussion on Fark regarding Christmas bonuses. One Farker received a hot cocoa sampler box as a bonus. This led to an amusing discussion and an imaginary chain of events that led up to this hot cocoa sampler box bonus. Original Thread.
• "I, for one, welcome our new [insert thread topic here] overlords..." - from The Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer", where an ant floating past the TV camera on the space shuttle causes TV anchor Kent Brockman to jump to the conclusion that the shuttle has been taken over by a "master race of giant space ants," and follows up by saying, "I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves." This cliché is also frequently found on Slashdot.
• "In Soviet Russia... ": A reference to the humor of Yakov Smirnoff. This line became a cliché on Fark in order to make fun of any given topic in a thread. However, it was used so much it became unfunny, and was then censored, now filtered by the infamous Fark filters.
• "I saw a turtle." Old cliché featuring a turtle picture, was kept alive in Fark classified ads for some time. Originating as a cliché in the TotalFark Forum perhaps as early as late 2002, the picture and phrase gained wider currency in a March 2003 Fark story, and stays relatively current despite its longevity.
• "The Internets" - Reference to President Bush making the following statement: "I hear there's rumors on the internets that we're going to have a draft." [1]. Often written in the 'voice' of someone ignorant of Internet culture (i.e. IN ALL CAPS), or used on purpose (i.e. like saying 'nucular' instead of nuclear)
• "I would like to subscribe to your newsletter." - A reference to The Simpsons episode "Mountain of Madness" (4F10). Bart Simpson complained, "Sharing is a bunch of bull, too. And helping others. And what's all this crap I've been hearing about tolerance?" to which Homer Simpson replied, "Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter."
• "Jailarity ensues." Used when writing headlines for stupid criminal stories. Jail + hilarity = jailarity.
• Killing kittens, a euphemism for masturbation, in reference to the Internet meme "Every time you masturbate... God kills a kitten."
• "Liter" (lighter), a term differentiating regular, unpaid fark.com users (subscribers to so-called 'Fark Lite') from "TotalFarkers", users of the paid service totalfark.com.
• "Moran": Misspelling of moron, referring to a well-known picture of a redneck holding two signs saying "Get a brain! Morans" and "Go USA", in response to anti-war activists protesting the US invasion of Iraq. The image was originally taken at a Boeing plant in Saint Charles, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis), shortly after the war began in March 2003, and was originally posted on the web site of the St. Louis Independent Media Center. (The original article and images have apparently since been archived.) A Google image search for "morans" is a useful way to find the picture.
• French newscaster Mélissa Theuriau, often in conjunction with "Got nothing."
• Missing Marine. Wassef Ali Hassoun went missing in Iraq. Since then, there have been so many conflicting reports of what supposedly happened, then did not happen. Eventually the headline accumulated into the like of "missing marine that was kidnapped, beheaded, not beheaded, released, not released, released to family and now in Lebanon, released to family and now in Lebanon but which that time was a hoax and then moved to in Germany says he was really abducted." The cliché has been occasionally copied. This was itself a copying of a format used for articles relating to Yasser Arafat as he was dying. [2]
• Mustard Man, a picture of a large man standing in what appears to be a kitchen holding a large jar of mustard, in which he seems to have previously buried both his arms up to the elbows. Enterprising bloggers were able to find Mustard Man and determined that he is actually a Toronto comedian named Mike 'Nug' Nahrgang. See Mustard Man, Revealed! for more info on the origins of the Mustard Man photo.
• "O RLY?" Owl; reached critical mass on a (Fark thread with hundreds of Photoshopped O RLY owls).
• "Old and Busted: __. The New Hotness: __." (e.g.: "Old and busted: Boobies links. New hotness: Cell porn") A reference to Men in Black II.
• "Owes me a new keyboard / monitor": used to indicate that the poster has spat coffee or a similar substance over his computer after reading a particularly funny joke. Similar to the Usenet saying 'C&C (Cat And Coffee) warning please', referring to the painful scratching that can result from bursting out laughing while having a cat on one's lap.
• Ric Romero: A Los Angeles television reporter for KABC, noted for reporting on blogging as if it were a new discovery, years after it had hit the mainstream. Ric Romero is usually mentioned when the media reports on established Internet or technology happenings long after they have already entered the mainstream.
• "Sammich": Usually in the context of "This girl needs a ___", referring to overly thin models in "Boobies" posts. Possibly originated by the kid in the movie 'Bad Santa'.
• "Get this motherfarkin' snakes off my motherfarkin' plane": a reference to the movie Snakes on a Plane, which makes fun of the movie's obvious plot.
• Squirrel - The origin of Fark.com was Drew Curtis' desire to post a pic of a squirrel with big testicles.
• "Still no cure for cancer": referring to pointless scientific studies. The first reference appeared on January 23, 2002 in the headline "Bored scientist constructs Olympic Rings logo using live nerve cells. In other news, still no cure for cancer." but didn't seem to catch on until another headline appeared in May of the same year.
• "teh ghey": An intentional misspelling of "the gay", used to describe something as effeminate or otherwise characteristic of homosexuality. Often used to sarcastically refer to homosexuality itself as some kind of contagion, e.g. "I watched Brokeback Mountain last night, and I think I caught teh ghey.".
• "The goggles, they do nothing!" : A response to a posting of a particularly grotesque image. A misquote from the Simpsons episode, "Radioactive Man" (2F17), wherein the actual quote does not contain the word "they".
• Three steps to Profit: "Step 1: (something stupid). Step 2: ?????? Step 3: Profit." This is the business plan of the Underpants Gnomes from episode 217 of Comedy Central's South Park. Also frequently seen on Slashdot.
• UFIA - an acronym, meaning "Unsolicited Finger in the Anus". It became a fark.com cliché due to a Discussion Thread on March 12, 2004, where it was featured prominently. UFIA was prominently used again when in February of 2005, Fark's creator, Drew Curtis, purchased the naming rights to the Fleet Center in Boston, Massachusetts before it became TD Banknorth Garden for the single day of February 28th, 2005: The consensus choice of Fark.com's readers was that it should be re-dubbed the "Fark.com UFIA Center". In the end, however, Boston Garden was chosen as the name. Link to original thread In April 2006, a Fark member convinced the Tennessee Department of Transportation to erect an Adopt-a-highway sign in the name of UFIA on the 2 miles of TN Highway 63 west of the intersection of TN 63 and US 25E. The Department required a definition of UFIA, which was explained as "Uniting Friends in America".[3]
• "Ugly-ass baby _____": Used to reference births of baby animals at zoos.
• "UltraFark" - Originated in a TotalFark thread announcing a paid classified ad to jokingly mock "Fark Liters" and their supposed inferiority to TotalFarkers. While some considered it to be good natured ribbing (and a way to bring in a few new TotalFark subscribers to see what all the fuss was about), others considered it to be somewhat elitist. The idea was then brought up in of the even more elite and mysterious "UltraFark", whose members engaged in wild acts of debauchery and were rewarded with lavish and expensive prizes. Link to original thread (TotalFark only) The term has continued as a way of mocking the supposed "perks" of being a TotalFarker and is always followed by the interruption of the poster (usually in mid sentence) by the words **NO CARRIER**, suggesting that the user's internet connection was interrupted by the secretive organization before they could divulge any information. A mock website was also created here which added to the UltraFark myth.
• "Your dog wants ____" (original line is "your dog wants steak"). Credited to Fark submitter Dr.Fey. An anonymous Farker (Dr. Fey?) left this explanation at Urban Dictionary: "I wrote it as part of an approved Fark submission for the Japanese device. It was NOT from a commercial or one of the actual stock phrases. I repeated it on an approved Fark submission the next day for a device that supposedly translated a human baby's cries. After two approvals with the phrase, a bunch of lightbulbs went off." Although a few details are off, this corresponds with the Fark archives, which show a thread from October 8, 2002: Telepathic communication with pets. Your dog wants steak. This was followed two days later by a second thread on October 10: Inventor designs a detector that reads baby's thoughts. Your dog wants steak. This seems to make it likely that the October 8 thread is, in fact, the origin of the "your dog wants" cliche.

See also

• Recurring jokes on Slashdot
• Snowclone
• List of snowclones
• Neologism

Farking

The term "farking" is used as a verb; many smaller websites referenced by Fark headlines have been "farked", meaning they have received so much traffic that they have stopped responding completely. This is also known in some internet circles as the Slashdot effect, and in blogging circles as an Instalanche.

Photoshop contests

Fark.com also features regular "Photoshop contests" where users use a graphical editing program (such as Adobe Photoshop, from which the contest draws its name, or GIMP) to create various funny pictures derived from an image provided by the creator of the contest, or less commonly, according to a set theme as set out in written form.

Clichés (more accurately, inside jokes) are common in the resulting works; some of the most common recurring clichés include: the "HA! HA! guy", an engraving of an 18th-century Anglican priest or Quaker, used in an advertisement in an unknown 19th-century newspaper (along with the words "HA! HA!"), which is excessively submitted with custom remarks, Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars yelling "It's a trap!", the killing of kittens, Bat Boy, the Mustard Man, Bubb Rubb, the aforementioned large-testicled squirrel, and Domo-kun, a squarish toothy brown monster from Japan (who also originated the kitten-killing cliché). Often in entries that are offensive or sacrilegious (or, especially, entries involving the September 11th terrorist attacks) the submitter will kiddingly ask for a "one way ticket to hell, please". This is often abbreviated, so a poster with an obviously disrespectful topic may just say "one ticket, please" or even simply "aisle seat".

Criticisms

Fark is often criticized for running headlines and articles that are politically biased. However, they are accused of having both a conservative and a liberal bias. Drew has stated that rather than trying to keep it in the middle, admins enjoy running both far-left and far-right articles.[4] The top four hated "groups" on Fark.com are (in no particular order) PETA, Catholic priests, the French, and Duke University, according to founder Drew Curtis.[5]

Fark has been accused of selling preferential placement of story links on the main page.[6] Drew responded to this by saying he had considered selling links he was already going to post to servers that could handle the bandwidth, such as CNN or ABC. He claims the only type of links that are paid are some of the adult content (usually "boobies") links, and are clearly labelled as being sponsored. He also claims that thus far all sponsored links have been clearly labelled adult content links to ensure the links are trojan-free, spam-free, and spyware-free. Adult content links that aren't labelled as sponsored links are not paid for and were submitted by individual users. According to Drew, there is currently nothing in the works to sell links to sites such as AP, CNN, or anyone else. During a discussion in a forum on such accusations, the moderators would repeatedly delete comments that questioned whether this was for or against Fark.com philosophy.

Many people also complain that Fark will not publish their link to their main page or "greenlight" their articles. All of the links submitted on Fark.com are submitted by individual users and are approved based on content by administrators. Articles that are posted to the main page are selected based on the content of the article, how funny the headline is, and sometimes how much bandwidth usage the site can handle [7]. All sites wishing to be posted on the main page of Fark.com are advised to submit links through the Fark queue and follow the posting guidelines instead of emailing the administrators. The administrators will never greenlight an article because they were emailed and asked to do so.

Sites not linked to

There are certain sites which Fark.com will not link to such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, or Ananova.com. The reason for not linking to the New York Times and Washington Post is that these sites require a user registration. Submitting any link which requires registration is frowned upon by the Fark community. Members can post links to the New York Times or the Washington Post in the forums during a discussion, but may not submit these links directly through the queue.

Fark does not link to Ananova because the website was posting Fark's headlines without giving credit in addition to posting many inaccurate articles. Ananova was receiving a great deal of traffic due to Fark's links while refusing to acknowledge Fark and reciprocate the gesture. While Ananova denied using Fark's headlines, Drew specifically put a few "fake" links on the main page which Ananova then posted. Drew decided not to accept links from their website.

Similar sites

Fark and Something Awful have long been alleged rivals of sorts, culminating in a Photoshop Contest between the two sites, judged by celebrity Wil Wheaton. Contrary to popular belief, there actually is no real rivalry between Fark.com and Something Awful. This rivalry was propagated mostly as an inside joke by Lowtax, the owner of Something Awful. The joke comes from the fact that Drew and Lowtax are close friends, and that Fark.com and Something Awful share some of the same readership.

Another website, Fazed.net, is a rival despite members sharing both sites' cliches and Farkisms. Also, Fazed has a Fark counter in the sidebar which contains an RSS feed of Fark.com links. Fazed is built like Fark in that visitors may submit links, but these links generally go to games, logs and various other stuff that Fark does not usually run. Fazed also has different tags for its links, such as "Owned," "WTmotherF," and "Oh Snap!"

Fark.ru is a Russian version of Fark run by Pravda.ru with Drew's permission. The stories are different and it's not a word-for-word translation of Fark.com, as the links on Fark.ru go to other Russian sites. Drew has been told that it is the #1 website in Russia but there is no way to actually confirm this.

The Fark Travel Guide is a database of places to go that is run by, maintained by, and contributed to by Fark's readers. The guide is unabashedly geared toward FARK's readers, who, when travelling, typically want to know the following: 1. Where's the beer? 2. How much is the beer? 3. Can I get a beer? 4. Can I get another beer? 5. Where's the bathroom?

TF Kitchen is a site archiving recipes and other miscellaneous information from the weekly food-and-recipe discussion threads, generally posted on Thursday nights, on Totalfark.com. (Note: the archived threads on Fark's servers are only accessible to TotalFark members.)

Farktography is a website that lets Farkers/TFers submit themed pictures for a contest, each week a theme is picked and users submit photographs for review.

External links

• Fark.com
• Farquently Asked Questions
• Farkisms
• Farkit download and FAQ Farkit is a plugin for Mozilla Firefox which makes replying to comments on Fark easier.
• Fark RSS Feed