Found Comedy: The Rulers of the Cheezburger Empire and their World Wide Web Relatives

It makes sense that the King and Queen (CEO and Founder Ben Huh and his wife, Emily) of internet comedy have named for themselves an empire, within which they house all of their monumental innovations of online humor. These include FAIL Blog, The Daily What, I Can Has Cheezburger?, and There, I Fixed It, among countless other sites the husband and wife duo have added to their Cheezburger family (such as two new additions: the Sketchy Bunnies site and the Go Cry Emo Kid site).

The comedy revolves around found photographs, which are either presented with a caption or a text inserted onto the photograph itself. This is essentially the basis of most internet humor: the manipulation or re-invention of previously existing photographs, films and ideas. Spoofs and parodies rack up views on Youtube (consider the success of The Lonely Boys*), while jokes about popular culture and current events reign supreme on Twitter and similar text-oriented sites

In the case of FAIL Blog and I Can Has Cheezburger?, these are sites that are now referenced and accepted into modern conversation (amongst the younger generation) as casually as the weather or traffic might be. Beyond that, terms like "Epic Fail" and references to LOLcats have materialized as a by-product of these sites, adding new phrases and ______ to the vocabulary of the North American youth culture.

I Can Has Cheezburger? is the combination of two incredibly simple things: a photograph or a dog or cat (or both) and the addition of text onto the picture in the misspelt LOLcat vernacular that the Huh's have developed. The spelling and phrasing they have created is now immediately recognizable as pertaining to  Lolcats and dogs. To roughly translate that last sentence into said vernacular would sound something like: Da speelin dey created iz now instant recugnize by all teh lolkitttties end puppehs werld-wide.
For instance, the image below was accompanied by a separate caption "eberyfingz bettur in teh mudderland!'

The Huh's, in addition to their site, have books and countless novelty items for sale that give voice to hundreds of cats and dogs of the English speaking variety. I admit to having a copy of their small, coffee table book, I Has Hotdog, in my living room...

FAIL Blog is even simpler. Anybody can submit an article, photograph or video of a "fail" to the Huh's, who will publish the best ones, along with their own findings in the realm of failure. Users will rate the fail, sometimes calling it a "win," if the circumstances are right. Here are three examples of congratulated fails that were recently posted on the site (with the title that accompanied them):

Flags FAIL

Cheap Desk FAIL

CLASSIC: Spelling FAIL

The Official Website of the Cheezburger Empire

*Being Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone. Their rise to fame will be the subject of the next post.