One of the most popular meme and humor blog, I Can Has Cheezburger? (ICHC) under the Cheezburger Network has raised eyebrows on its success under CEO Ben Huh. According to Cheezburger.com, the site has received numerous web awards such as the Technorati Top 10 Blogs and the 8th most powerful blog by The Guardian. The site has also been said to be “edging towards 30 million page views a month” (CNet.com, 2008) as well as receiving "an average 2 millions page views and 8,000 submissions each day" (Wired Blog Network, 2008).
ICHC CEO Ben Huh (middle)Source: Wired Blog Network
A LOLCatSource: ICanHasCheezburger.com
The site uses “LOLSpeak”, a term used for deliberate misspellings and wrong grammar such as “iz” for “is”, “nom” for “eat” and “oh hai” for “oh, hi” (SpeakLOLSpeak.com). “LOLSpeak” is used to caption images of cats (and a minority of other animals for this specific blog) to add ridiculous humour to it, and then compiled in a series of photographs.
The question concerned in this topic is how and why is it so popular? What is it that makes readers hooked onto it that they come back for more the next day?
The question concerned in this topic is how and why is it so popular? What is it that makes readers hooked onto it that they come back for more the next day?
Another LOLCatSource: ICanHasCheezburger.com
On a basic understanding, Shriver (p. 415, 1997) said, "words and pictures that complement one another employ different visual and verbal content, and both modes are designed to work together in order to help the reader understand the same main idea (the same referent)." The images would not mean anything without the captions, hence generating humour which touches the human interest.
Ben Huh was smart enough to focus on what seemed most important to him - the community. According to an interview with CNet.com, Huh said that building up community features would keep people coming back. He also smartly converted casual-based visitors to fans, hence growing the community (CNet.com, 2008).
Huh also played around with language by buying misspelled versions of the web site name. He also stayed with a safe layout that went straight to the point, giving readers exactly what they want instantly - their daily dose of laughter. The goal for readers "to be happy for 5 minutes every day", is easily achieved with a simple layout and few fresh new entries everyday. Because there are a lot of images and widgets, framing was induced correctly with different colors and margins to "simultaneously both disconnect the elements of a layout from each other" (Kress & van Leeuwen 1998, p. 188).
Ben Huh was smart enough to focus on what seemed most important to him - the community. According to an interview with CNet.com, Huh said that building up community features would keep people coming back. He also smartly converted casual-based visitors to fans, hence growing the community (CNet.com, 2008).
Huh also played around with language by buying misspelled versions of the web site name. He also stayed with a safe layout that went straight to the point, giving readers exactly what they want instantly - their daily dose of laughter. The goal for readers "to be happy for 5 minutes every day", is easily achieved with a simple layout and few fresh new entries everyday. Because there are a lot of images and widgets, framing was induced correctly with different colors and margins to "simultaneously both disconnect the elements of a layout from each other" (Kress & van Leeuwen 1998, p. 188).
References
Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T., 1998, Chapter 7: Front pages : (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout, Approaches to media discourse, Blackwell, Oxford.
Shriver K.A., 1997, The interplay of words and pictures, Dynamics in document design : creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.
Advertise on ICHC, ICanHasCheezburger.com, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://icanhascheezburger.com/advertise-on-ichc/>
McCarthy C., Ben Huh can has successful business model?, CNet.com, viewed 11 November 2008,
Terdiman D., The history of I Can Has Cheezburger, CNet.com, viewed 11 November 2008,
Wortham J., ROFLCon: It's Not Easy Being Memes, Wired Blog Network, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/04/its-hard-out-he.html>
The Definitive Lolcats Glossary, SpeakLOLSpeak.com, viewed 11 November 2008,
<http://speaklolspeak.com/?t=anon/>
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