That Fark has gained the attention of "serious" news sites is one of the Web's great ironies since Curtis' original intention was to entertain a few buddies. Like many Web loafers, Curtis liked to forward funny articles to his friends. Unlike other habitual forwarders, he realized this might get annoying after awhile. So, he decided to collect the links on to a Web page that his friends could check out when they pleased. His first link was to a silly photo of a squirrel's nuts — not the kind stored away for winter. From those humble loins sprung a Web phenom.

Curtis, a genial Kentucky southerner just turning 30, remains modest.

"It's like taking credit for tomato plants accidentally growing in the bushes in your front yard. They were just there and grew on their own. All I did was not screw it up."

A farked-up universe

Surely Curtis made a few smart decisions along the way, one being to cultivate his community of users.

Like other weblogs, Fark has discussion threads. But Plastic or Metafilter it ain't — Fark comments tend to be two or three lines long, and they lack the smarter-than-thou tang of its upscale cousins.

But the Fark community's twisted humor and creativity shine in what are known as Photoshop contests.

Following the style of a regular Fark thread, an article is posted (in this case a photo) for discussion, and the site's denizens comment on it by altering the picture with a graphics editor like Photoshop. Users can then vote on the image they like best — usually based on humor quality, originality and technical difficulty.

Some of the postings are no better than a teenage zine pastiche, relying heavily on the old gag of putting a funny person's face on another person's body. Also substandard are the numerous Fark cliché characters that at least one person will find a way to insert into any photo. These include: a leaping kitten, the obnoxious teenager from the Dell commercial who says "Dude, you're gettin' a Dell!" Admiral Ackbar from Return of the Jedi and the squirrel mentioned earlier that began the whole site.

But then there are works of comedic genius that tweak pop-culture references with an ironic advertising polish. Take for example the thread on a controversial Starbucks poster. The poster of two iced drinks bore some resemblance to the attack on the World Trade Center with a caption reading "Collapse into Cool." One user played on the Midwest mailbox bombings by creating a US map showing seven new Starbucks locations in a circular pattern. Some Farkers superimposed the drink cups onto other famous tragedies from Jonestown to the Challenger. One added Princess Diana with the caption: "We would still have her if her chauffeur only had Starbucks."

The dark humor of the Starbucks thread apparently offended some people, prompting one user to react: "Quit biatchin about stuff being too 'inappropriate' — isn't that what this thread (and site) is all about?"

But is the site an open forum for anybody's sick humor?

Says Curtis, "I tend to treat it the same as I would a party at my house, which means if you turn into a raving asshole, I'll show you the door."

Looking over his logs the other day, Curtis realized he and his small team have booted about a thousand "raving assholes" over the years. Offenses ranged from linking to photos that redefine bad taste or submitting fake news articles.

"The general rule, however, is that we don't eject people for what they say, but how they say it. And unfortunately, the system we've got isn't the most accurate. It's the best we can do in our spare time between work, food, and sleep."

Far from remaining aloof, Curtis mixes it up with site fans at regional Fark parties. When asked to rate the parties on a scale ranging from Star Trek conventions to Girls Gone Wild orgies, he chose an unlikely metaphor.

"More like jury duty, in that you have a pretty wide-ranging cross-section of individuals. However, unlike jury duty pretty much everyone is intelligent and you have a hell of a lot more fun."

Intelligent, fun, yes, yes, but this is Fark after all, a site that features regular links to soft-core porn with a cute little "" icon.

"One really strange thing about the people who show up is the women: they're all pretty hot," says Curtis. "I have no idea why this is, you wouldn't think there would be that many attractive women participating on an Internet discussion board full of mostly men. But whatever, I don't lose too much sleep over it, that's for sure."

The hobbyist stays true

Curtis appears to be one of the few online mavens not losing sleep over money either.

Fark could be a major cash cow for Curtis, who recently resigned from and sold the Internet service provider he founded in part to develop Fark further.

"I've turned down offers to run popups on Fark repeatedly," he explains. "One popup would pay $2 per thousand impressions, and we almost got 15 million last month. $2 x 15,000 = $30,000 in one month from one popup ad. If we were really going commercial we'd have them."

Instead, Curtis seems content for now to cover Fark's server costs with traditional ads and a subscription service called TotalFark.

"I'm taking the long view on this. I don't think pop ups are going to be a viable form of advertising .. (and) I want to be around for years and years and years, and the last thing I want to do is kill this thing right at the beginning."

"I figure if we do the right thing by our readers it will pay off in the long run by itself."

You can file that idea under "out there" as well.

E-mail Benjamin Arnoldy at benjamin@csmonitor.com.

— graphic by D.P. Barsam (barsam@hotpop.com)