Drew Curtis
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Drew Curtis (born February 7, 1973) is the founder and an administrator of Fark, an Internet
news aggregator In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, content aggregator, feed reader, news reader, or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates digital Content (media), content such as online newsp ...
. 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. He is a guest on WOCM's morning show '' The Rude Awakening Show'' every Tuesday. Curtis was the Independent gubernatorial candidate for Governor of Kentucky in 2015 but lost to the Republican nominee Matt Bevin.


Fark

Fark began in 1993 when Curtis was in England, sending links back to his friends. Curtis registered Fark.com in 1997 but did not begin posting links on the site until 1999. The first story on Fark was a news article about a fighter pilot who crashed while attempting to expose his buttocks to 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, Curtis 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 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture, and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, a ...
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. It all sucks. Don't even get me started on how they vote for elected officials. There's certainly a place for that kind of thing but it's not on Fark.
According to Curtis, Web 3.0 will be "something called Good Editing." Speaking at a media conference in
Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...
hosted by the
Poynter Institute The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a non-profit journalism school and research organization in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. The school is the owner of the ''Tampa Bay Times'' newspaper and the International Fact-Checking Netw ...
, 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." In 2006, Curtis 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. On November 28, 2007, Curtis filed an application to
trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...
the phrase "
not safe for work Not safe for work, also called not suitable for work (NSFW), is Internet slang or shorthand used to mark links to content, videos, or website pages the viewer may not wish to be seen viewing in a public, formal, or controlled environment. The ...
" a common phrase on Fark. 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 A bestseller is a book or other media noted for its top selling status, with bestseller lists published by newspapers, magazines, and book store chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and specialties (novel, nonfiction book, cookb ...
. 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 " urtiseven seems to go after the audience – his audience – for indulging in ot-real-newsCurtis seems to want us to be repulsed by them instead." Curtis's book peaked at #12 on Amazon.com's
non-fiction Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or content (media), media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real life, real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to pre ...
bestseller list. Media critic
Jack Shafer Jack Shafer (born November 14, 1951 is an American journalist who wrote about media for ''Politico'' until June 2024. Prior to joining ''Politico'', he worked for ''Reuters'', wrote and edited for ''Slate'', and edited two city weeklies, ''Washi ...
noted that despite the book's success, it received "scant attention" from mainstream media outlets. "For all its insight, Curtis' book has gotten scant attention from the mainstream press." The book was later released in paperback.


Personal life

Curtis graduated from Luther College in
Decorah, Iowa Decorah is the largest city in and county seat of Winneshiek County, Iowa, Winneshiek County, Iowa, United States. The population was 7,587 at the time of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Decorah is located at the intersection of Iowa ...
in 1995. From 1996 to 2002, he owned and operated DCR.NET, an ISP based in
Frankfort, Kentucky Frankfort is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It is a list of Kentucky cities, home rule-class city and the county seat, seat of Franklin County, Kentucky, Franklin County in the Upland Sou ...
. He is a graduate of the Berkeley-Columbia Executive MBA program, a joint venture of New York's
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
and the
University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...
. Curtis lives in the suburbs of
Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city coterminous with and the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the city's population was 322,570, making it the List of ...
with his wife, Heather, and children, Chance, Storm, and Sierra.


Gubernatorial campaign

Curtis announced his candidacy on January 23, 2015, for the 2015 election for the
Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky The governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky is the head of government of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Kentucky. Sixty-two men and one woman have served as governor of Kentucky. The governor's term is four years in length; sinc ...
. The platform revolved around a "Citizen Candidate" philosophy of common sense and data-driven decisions, no experiments, leaving people alone, having no party alignment, and taking special-interest money out of the political process. The stated hope was to build a blueprint for regular, real people in all 50 states/commonwealths to be able to create constructive disruptions in a broken system, in order to run competitively in elections. With his wife Heather as his running mate, Curtis faced the Republican Party nominee, businessman Matt Bevin, and the Democratic Party nominee, Kentucky
Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...
Jack Conway, in the November 3 general election. In the election held on November 3, 2015, Curtis lost the election to Bevin, receiving 35,629 total votes, or 3.7%.


State Auditor campaign

In January 2019, Curtis filed to run as a Democrat for the post of State Auditor for Kentucky. Faced with a primary against three other Democrats, he withdrew on April 11, 2019, citing "other commitments". Due to his late withdrawal, Curtis' name remained on the primary ballot, but votes in his favor were not counted. The primary was subsequently won by Democratic candidate Sheri Donahue, who lost by a 14.62% margin in the general election to incumbent Republican Mike Harmon.


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Curtis, Drew Living people Writers from Lexington, Kentucky American Internet celebrities American online publication editors American social sciences writers Luther College (Iowa) alumni Kentucky independents Columbia Business School alumni Haas School of Business alumni 1973 births