How the pet food recall gave birth to the LOLCats empire

Anyone who was around here during the 2007 pet food recall is familiar with Itchmo, one of the other blogs that investigated and reported on the story when the traditional media was ignoring it (and its implications).



Itchmo went silent shortly after the recall ended, although its forums continue to provide an important resource for pet owners interested in the safety of the food they buy for their cats and dogs.



Itchmo was the project of Ben and Emily Huh, and what they did after they put their blog on hiatus is the subject of my current column for SFGate.com:

Even if you're not a cat lover, if you know which button to push to turn on your computer you're probably familiar with ICanHasCheezburger.com.



It's the wildly popular Internet meme factory that takes quirky, user-submitted kitty photos, lets other users add equally quirky captions in a special language known as LOLspeak, and uploads them for the amusement of millions of users each month.



Ben Huh is the guy behind LOLcats and the vast network of sites that grew out of it, including its canine cousin I Has a Hot Dog and the ultimate archive of communications disasters, FAILblog.



[....]



"My background is in journalism, and I still think there's a need for a really good animal news aggregation blog," he said. "But what Emily and I found when the recall was over is that most of the pet news out there is sad and upsetting. It didn't jive with the world I knew from living with a dog, which is that it's happy. Getting a dog was one of the happiest things I'd ever done in my life."



When ICanHasCheezburger came along, the two philosophies just matched, he said. "This is about pets and it's about happiness. I can do this long term. This makes sense to me."

You can read the whole story here. 



Photo of Ben Huh taken at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin by Clint Gilders.

Comments

[ericka]

ICHC is on my toolbar list of favorite sites.



Every night I end the day with my Macbook on my lap as I relax in bed.



I check last minute emails. The end of my day routine is to click ICanHasCheezburger.com for a smile.

[Ingrid King]

I never knew the background of ICHC - great story!

[ICanHasCheapburger]

Exploited humans can't afford high quality, safe pet food, so how can Itchymo promote that concept with such self-righteousness? That is, IF Huh is still the owner of Itchymo. If not, then an entity as secretive as Mars, Inc. must have bought that site.



http://gawker.com/5486025/is-the-lolcat-empire-built-on-exploited-humans