I can haz interview

I've found a few interviews with Cheezburger Network founder, Ben Huh which could be useful for us to understand just how significant this platform has become for the generating and spreading of memes. Before I Can Has Cheezburger, one of the only places you could reliably find memes was on the community image site 4Chan however they had little organisation and moderation of these images. Since 2007, the Cheezburger Network has formalised, categorised and certainly shaped the internet meme genre. I think it's particularly interesting to see the amount of advertising profit the network is raking in (because of the sheer size of their audience base) - considering the site is based around a series of image macros, most of which have incorrect grammar, as opposed to news/ article based websites. Huh estimates there are more than 16 million unique users monthly and more than half a million submissions per month.

Photo: Eugene Hsu

(With Wailin Wong from the Chicago Tribune. January 25 2012)

Q: What is the typical life cycle of an Internet meme and how has it changed since you founded the Cheezburger Network? 

Huh: We started the company back in 2007 when the life cycle of a meme was much longer. People didn't know what a meme was. You had to educate them as to what it was, although you didn't have to know it in order to enjoy it. You knew that it was a format of a joke. Now what's happening to memes is they're getting smaller and smaller. So the life cycle is actually much, much faster. It's a matter of days at most. There are very few memes that break out of that life cycle.
*Worth mentioning when discussing the spread of memes over time to a broader audience base.

(With Michael Learmoth from Advertising Age, Vol. 80, Issue 34. 10 December, 2009)

Q: Is it OK to call you a blog mogul? Do you aspire to be a big media company?

Huh: We're just going through the process of creating content that makes people happy for just a few minutes a day. We are not trying to be a TV network; we're not trying to be a big media company. We are growing small things that are gathering loyal audiences. When you show up and you want to laugh or take a break from your daily work, then we have this little blog for you. You go, load the page, you scroll, and you're done. 

Q: If users are submitting the photos, and the captions, how do you keep it funny (and clean)? 

Huh: Everything we do is screened by a moderator. We see 10,000 submissions a day across all the blogs. So they look at everything that comes in to see that it meets our terms of use, that it is editorially appropriate, and then they classify and tag it. So if there is nudity, violence toward animals, racism-the stuff advertisers fear, their worst nightmare-we guarantee that that does not happen. Then the editorial control is turned over to the users, who tell us what is funny. But before something is promoted to the home page, there is one more check to make sure it is advertiser-friendly, and then we put it on the blog.

(With Johanna Ambrosio from Computerworld, Vol. 44, Issue 10. 24 May, 2010)

Q: We live in an increasingly politically correct world, yet you have sites that some might find offensive, such as "Engrish Funny." Are you worried that this kind of humor might become outdated or irrelevant at some point?
Huh: Our data seems to [show] that people will share less but will still come to visit. People are very much in pursuit of happiness - human beings do that naturally - and as long as we can deliver on that promise, we'll still have an audience.

Q: Are you at all concerned about contributing to the grammatical delinquency of a generation?
Huh: I'm halfkidding, but educators do point to more "iM-speak" showing up in term papers and homework. And some Of the names of your sites.... [Laughs.] One of the beauties of the English language is its ability to adapt. We've been complaining about our children for thousands of years. It is a valid concern, of course, but that's how English works - and the language will hopefully continue to grow.