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Longtime Web-Weirdness Site Fark Faces Ad Pinch (bsky.app) 93

Posted by BeauHD from the beacons-are-lit dept.
sandbagger writes: Fark.com is ancient in internet terms. It's not social media. It's not quite a news site. It's a holdover from the dot-com era and is invisible to Google, which makes its community great but has necessitated begging. "[W]e won't survive this year without more TF subscribers," wrote founder Drew Curtis in a post on Bluesky. "Spread the word."

For the unfamiliar, Fark is one of the web's OG community news sites that features a wonderfully weird mix of user-submitted links, absurd headlines, Photoshop contests and comment-section mayhem. It has also been featured numerous times on Slashdot over the decades, from a 2007 review of founder Drew Curtis' book and a 2010 story about his skepticism of "the wisdom of crowds" to a full Slashdot interview with Curtis in 2015. For longtime readers of both sites, Fark feels like an old neighbor from an earlier, stranger and arguably more fun era of the internet.

Longtime Web-Weirdness Site Fark Faces Ad Pinch More | Reply

Longtime Web-Weirdness Site Fark Faces Ad Pinch

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  • What we're all thinking (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    How could they be profitable without the foobies?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rei ( 128717 )

      Meh, I knew of Fark back when all that was at the site was a single photo of a squirrel with large genitals.

      I used to play on the mud Three Kingdoms in the mid '90s, and Drew was a Wizard (admin) there (named "Cletus"). When Fark became a link aggregator, I used to visit for the Photoshop contests (then ended up drifting off to Worth1000 when that became a thing). I'm not surprised that he ended up launching a porn site, because, well, Drew, but they launched a TV service that ended up getting gobbled up

  • Fark sucks (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Monday July 20, 2026 @06:43PM (#66248648)

    N/t

  • Fark has no significant redeeming qualities, so I guess... OK, thanks for the update, dustbin of history is just on your left.

  • finally! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    that smartass with the fark.com sig file will finally go away

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I remember that one time I farked your mom.

  • so long, it's been good to know ya (Score:4, Insightful)

    by spoot ( 104183 ) on Monday July 20, 2026 @07:00PM (#66248670) Homepage

    Yea. I once paid for totalfark. But as it slid into a political echo chamber, I got bored real quick. The fact that Drew posted his begging for dough on blue sky is telling. The whiskey must have saturated the servers beyond repair. Good riddance.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Wolfling1 ( 1808594 )
      I terminated my TF subscription for the same reason. I may lean to the left, but Fark is a far left authoritarian echo chamber, and it manifests the most toxic characteristics of that political leaning. Its almost funny, as they've done more harm to the left than they'll ever really understand. Perhaps its demise will actually be good for the world.

      • Re:so long, it's been good to know ya (Score:4, Insightful)

        by He Who Has No Name ( 768306 ) on Monday July 20, 2026 @11:06PM (#66248920)

        I have a Fark account that's nearly 25 years old, including more than one submitted headline that made it to the pre-TF front page.

        I don't think I've even visited Fark in maybe 15 years. They got... how do I put this gently... *extremely* thought-police-y in a Orwellian-Kafka-esque way that straight up made my skin crawl. Later on what they were doing escaped containment and was known more widely as "woke". They were one of the early zealot converts and, well, it didn't work out very well for them long term.

        So long and thanks for all the foobies, I guess.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Archfeld ( 6757 )

          I've been at fark since Drew was begging for beer. It's a hole these days sadly echoing echoing echoing...

          "They were one of the early zealot converts and, well, it didn't work out very well for them long term." ---------This very much

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Rei ( 128717 )

          This is so weird. I haven't visited the site the early Afghan War, maybe early Iraq War era, but I remember it being rather US-jingoistic, pretty right wing? And the site tilt was pretty heavily "white American male" not a famously left-wing demographic.

      • Who really pays attention to Fark? They would need an audience to cause any actual harm.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by guinsu ( 198732 )

        I am not sure you know what far left means. That site turned into a vote blue no matter what they do and genocide supporting hellhole. Plus all the racism towards Chinese, Russians and Muslims. It is like a perfect microcosm of middle aged, white suburban democrats.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Rei ( 128717 )

          It sounds like you said it is simultaneously far left and far right?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by guinsu ( 198732 )

            Genocide has become a liberal value because of Genocide Joe

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by flink ( 18449 )

            Supporting genocide and racism towards immigrants are both treasured neoliberal values. A label that applies to both mainstream Rs and Ds. The only difference is one side makes the cruelty and xenophobia a talking point and the other side tut-tuts about it and hides it behind bureaucracy. This isn't a "both sides the same" argument, just a "both sides less different than they admit in public" observation.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Rei ( 128717 )

              Racism is a classic right wing associated political position (far right: immigrants, minorities, deviants, and the far left cause all our problems; far left: rich people and the far right cause all our problems). Anti-muslim racism in particular is associated strongly with the right (including, one can mention, there are 4 US representatives who are Muslims - all Democrats). On China the divide isn't as stark but is still pretty strong, with the right usually more hawkish and the left more dovish. On Rus

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Rei ( 128717 )

                (As a side note, far-left supporters of Russia, aka internet commies who still think of Russia as the USSR, are some of the dumbest people on Earth)

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Rei ( 128717 )

                Oh wait, they said genocide-*supporting*. So the stances they claimed it's a hotbed of are "right, right, middle, hard right", and then they said it's far left. Baffling.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      It might have been okay if the /pol/ people just stayed in their little ghetto, but they cross-posted to the main tab while bringing their (even more than usually) biased moderators. That made the main tab toxic as well.

    • Same here. Fark's only redeeming quality was poking fun at everything and everyone. Then the political junkies swamped it, and I stopped visiting. I'd forgotten all about it til now. Tried my old login. Says the password has expired.

      *shrug*

      • Even at its best (back when Fark was an internet humor site), it was nothing more than a pale imitation of SomethingAwful from the pre-4chan era.

        • I used to wonder, in the early days of the transformation, how much was Drew changing moderation and selection criteria, and how much was becoming popular enough to attract a critical mass of political junkies. It's been a long long time, but my memory says it was a fast transformation, days or weeks rather than months, but not overnight, and could have cut either way. I sent a few emails, never got any response, and quit logging in as often, and soon not at all.

    • Ditto

      Walked when I got temp-banned by an over zealous fark-mod after using the word "retard" in an actual sentence like "may retard the flow of traffic"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dwywit ( 1109409 )

        Similar reason for my departure. Some noob was shitstirring and I told them to pipe down (I did NOT use abusive or nasty language), got a complaint lodged against me, resulting in a warning.

        Bye bye, never been back.

    • I left fark when name-calling became the de-facto substitute for intelligent discourse. Good riddance, I say.

  • Longtime Farker sez (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sandbagger ( 654585 )

    The Daily Ukrainian War Thread on Fark https://www.fark.com/comments/... [fark.com] is worth looking at.

    Also, poop threads.

  • It's funny.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rendus ( 2430 ) <<rendus> <at> <gmail.com>> on Monday July 20, 2026 @07:20PM (#66248690)

    The number of people questioning the relevance of Fark on Slashdot, as if Slashdot has been relevant in the last decade.

    Slashdot USED to do SOME original journalism, long long ago. Now, it's nothing more than a very low-volume link aggregator itself, with occasional effort put into some posts here and there.

    • To be fair I only come here for the comment section these days. Still some insightful people here. The articles are terrible in many cases others just lack so much information they may as well not have been posted. Even worse are the ones with affiliate links built into them.

      • To be fair I only come here for the comment section these days.

        Its like the election pamphlets with initiatives or referendums. The original arguments for or against are not the most interesting or informative (like the slashdot articles), its the rebuttals to them, and the rebuttals to the rebuttals where the real info leaks out.

    • The idea that you have to be relevant to point out that something else is irrelevant is merely an elitist attack. The claim isn't that they're not 1337 enough, the claim is that since they're irrelevant, they don't need to be saved by charity.

      If slashdot was begging most slashdotters would make the exact same point.

      It's funny and interesting that it's still here, but perhaps that doesn't make it a thing of value.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Archfeld ( 6757 )

      The people that made things got tired of the BS and moved on. The people that TALK about making things are going as strong as ever...

  • Be able to make it rain in the Champaign Room.

  • Lost me a long time ago. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Revek ( 133289 ) on Monday July 20, 2026 @07:36PM (#66248716)
    I was there for the beginning and in the end they went way overboard on the SJW. They started really looking forward to the smell of their own farts. Not to mention in the entire time they were having those fark parties they have never once came withing two hundred miles of me. So fuck you drew while you stew in problems of your own creation.

    • You comment is crazy, like... you're upset that you didn't feel comfortable sniffing their farts anymore... because insulting everything and everybody turned out to include you. And your snowflake melted.

    • I was there for the beginning and in the end they went way overboard on the SJW.

      Translation: people did not appreciate my racist comments.

      • I got a couple temp bans back to back for pointing out to the moderators that the spirit of liberalism and free speech means protecting speech you disagree with. I was a 15+ year reader of Fark. Once I got off the site I found the real, actual liberalism was being supported more by the right than the left now.

        • I got a couple temp bans back to back for pointing out to the moderators that the spirit of liberalism and free speech means protecting speech you disagree with.

          Translation: I told liberals they should give me a platform to be racist because that's liberal

          Once I got off the site I found the real, actual liberalism was being supported more by the right than the left now.

          Translation: I found a safe space to be racist

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Revek ( 133289 )
          Its a toxic sham. They pretend to be all SJW but in truth they are just cosplaying at it. I was never banned that I can remember. I had posts deleted for hurting feelings while their favored trolls would stir up trouble for them to laugh at. I just got tired of the forced narrative and the fact that certain folks that he partied with could do and say anything they pleased but others were banned for doing the same.

          Its pretty telling that the site is in trouble but the die hard nut cases that remain ar

  • She basically single-handedly killed the site.

    • If only the ebil witches weren't so pwowerful, you'd be smart and handsome and living your best life!

      Even if witches were real... fark is your lost utopia that the other side destroyed?!? Even in this Age of Stupid, that's... surprising. And more than a little pathetic.

  • Yeah, that's a fun site. One of their latest headlines, "Taco Bell's foot traffic takes a giant dump, much like the people who ate there.", or, "Sony: I sure am tired of all this negative press. I wish another company would take the heat off of me. LG: *takes long puff of cigarette* Hold my beer. I'm going to install adware on people's Win 11 PCs."

    • It's kinda sad that even after all these years they haven't learned the basics of writing comedy.

      At this point they qualify for "Golden" discounts and they still think, "Heh heh, you said poo" is the funniest thing in the world. And when they try to go beyond that, they don't even try to use implication so that the joke forms in the reader's mind. The end result is just, "haha, you suck, I'm so funny for thinking that." Where's the joke?

    • One of my recent favorites was: "Lindsey Graham beats Mitch McConnell to Death"

  • ...surrenders.
  • I mostly go there for the photoshop this posts. If I respond in a NON LEFTEST way, I usually get banned for 1-2 days. They are NOT a free speech place. You pretty much have to align by their views or they kick you off. Hey, it's their site, they can do what they want, but the leftist that go there aren't going to pay money to go there. Plus, the ads? I didn't even know they had ads since my blocker blocks them LOL.

    • That's fucking hilarious given the amount of super right wing trolls on there that are pets of the mods. You just happen to post outright racist shit frequently. I've seen your posts there.

    • If I respond in a NON LEFTEST way, I usually get banned for 1-2 days.

      Oh they only ban for 1-2 days for really racist posts?

      They are NOT a free speech place.

      Free speech does not mean any particular person is obligated to give you a platform for racism. If you want to be racist in company head on over to X or Truth Social.

  • I posted on the thread crying for money that they were getting pummeled on here and less than an hour later MY post was pulled. Once again proving they only like POSITIVE posts in their favor.

  • so (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    You might ask, who would pay to subscribe to Fark.com. The answer, radio DJs, because "news of the weird" is a staple of drive-time radio. Except, radio isn't really a thing anymore. The idea that every small town in Iowa would have 10 radio stations with paid DJs working almost 24/7 is a relic of the past. These days unless you live in LA or NY (or maybe Chicago) most of the DJs are either computers -- especially since the playlists have been computer optimized anyway -- or syndicated from a larger market.

  • It's as if Fark was becoming nearly as irrelevant as SlashDot. I will only truly miss one of those, though truth be told they should both exist.

  • Fark is a link aggregator, but curated by angry leftist boomers and... well I'm not really sure anyone else is there. This was the first time I visited there since before the Iraq War.

  • Figures (Score:2, Insightful)

    by PhantomHarlock ( 189617 )

    I figured if I read the comments on this post, I'd find all the incels and rednecks whining about Fark. The truth is, it hasn't really changed much, other than the fact that the people running the site grew up, and the site grew up with them and shed that frat-boy mentality.

    They also had to get rid of adult content due to Google becoming the morality police of the internet when it comes to sites that they will allow ads to be run against. They are in turn pressured by various right wing lobby groups in t

    • Funny is subjective. I've personally disliked Fark since it was a lukewarm humor site. It didn't grow up, it just became an echo chamber for the hangers-on that still read it. It should've died ages ago, lacking the general appeal to survive or be relevant on the open Internet.

    • I figured if I read the comments on this post, I'd find all the incels and rednecks whining about Fark.

      And you were right. I read a few of their threads and they all eventually led to crying about "woke". If the "problem" with Fark is that they now don't tolerate n-slurs, then perhaps I will give it another chance.

    • I'd say Slashdot is in a much more degraded state than Fark.

      Fark at least lets you create an account. Slashdot requires you to email them and explain why you should get an account if you want to join.

      https://slashdot.org/my/newuse... [slashdot.org]

      New user registration is now approved by Slashdot administrators. Please contact feedback@slashdot.org and let us know why you are interested in registering, and what you can add to the discussion.

  • Going begging on Bluesky tells us all we need to know about your bias.

    Goodbye.

  • Oh wait. Slashdot? Solutions? ROFLMAO.

    I still like the idea of solution-oriented journalism. Seriously, but it will never happen. There's an old book called Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman.

  • A year or two ago, fark came out as the number 4 news aggregator in the Web, which I found mind-boggling, but... I need to pay.

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