Drew Curtis Biography Quotes 4 Report mistakes

Overview
Drew Curtis is an American entrepreneur best known as the founder of Fark.com, a pioneering, humor-inflected news aggregation and community website launched at the end of the 1990s. Born in 1973, he built a sustainable, independent media business around curation, community participation, and a distinctive editorial voice. His career has spanned technology, media, authorship, and public affairs, including a high-profile independent run for governor of Kentucky. Along the way he became a recognizable advocate for practical media literacy and for standing up to abusive patent litigation.

Early Life and Background
Curtis came of age as the public internet was moving from novelty to mainstream infrastructure. While broad details of his early personal life remain largely private, his professional base has long been in Kentucky, and that regional grounding influenced both the tone and the temper of his work: skeptical of hype, anchored in community, and pragmatic about how to build a durable business without relying on fashionable trends or outside capital.

Founding Fark.com
In 1999, Curtis founded Fark.com, a site that curated links to oddities, breaking stories, and undercovered items from around the web. Instead of aiming to be a wire service or a traditional news outlet, Fark leaned into voice and curation. Users submitted thousands of links daily; a small staff, guided by Curtis, selected items to feature, adding headlines and tags that emphasized wit and context. The ethos rewarded readers who appreciated a mix of news, satire, and a healthy skepticism toward sensationalism.

Fark's business model was straightforward: advertising supported the free site, and a paid tier called TotalFark offered subscribers enhanced access. By keeping overhead lean and listening to the site's core community, Curtis made Fark a rare example of a bootstrapped, profitable, independent media property that survived successive waves of internet booms and busts. The most important people in this phase of his life included the core team that handled daily curation and moderation, as well as the submitters, commenters, and long-time TotalFark subscribers who functioned as both audience and collaborators.

Author and Media Critic
Curtis distilled his observations about modern media in the book "It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News", published in 2007. Drawing on years of sorting through headlines and source material, he argued that structural incentives push outlets toward sensationalism and superficiality. The book became a touchstone for readers who felt the news cycle rewarded noise over substance. Following its release, he discussed these themes in interviews and on stages where he emphasized practical media literacy: question incentives, examine sources, and pay attention to framing and omission as much as to facts.

Defending Against Patent Trolls
Curtis became an outspoken critic of abusive patent litigation after Fark was targeted by a non-practicing entity asserting broad claims. Instead of settling, he chose to fight. He publicly described the strategies trolls use, low-dollar settlement demands spread across many defendants, and explained why refusing to pay can be effective when the claims lack merit. His TED talk on the subject resonated with entrepreneurs who felt vulnerable to similar tactics. The effort was a team endeavor that included attorneys experienced in software and internet cases, colleagues who kept Fark operating under pressure, and his family, notably his wife Heather, who supported the decision to resist and helped manage the stresses of a protracted legal episode.

Independent Run for Governor
In 2015, Curtis entered the Kentucky gubernatorial race as an independent candidate. His campaign emphasized practical problem solving, fiscal transparency, and policies aimed at supporting small businesses and technological development. He chose his wife, Heather Curtis, as his running mate for lieutenant governor, a decision that underscored their partnership and complementary skills. On the trail he shared debate stages with major-party nominees, including Matt Bevin and Jack Conway, bringing an outsider's perspective to discussions that often centered on budget priorities, healthcare, and economic competitiveness. While the ticket finished behind the Republican and Democratic nominees, the campaign broadened his public profile beyond technology and media and gave independent voters a visible option focused on governance rather than partisanship.

Leadership Style and Community
Across ventures, Curtis's approach has been consistent: prioritize clarity, keep teams small, and treat audiences as participants rather than targets. He cultivated a transparent relationship with Fark's community, discussing site economics and editorial choices openly. That posture relied on a network of people around him, moderators, developers, business partners, and long-time community members, who contributed to a culture that prized both humor and civility. He also engaged with other founders and technologists at conferences and meetups, sharing lessons on building sustainable businesses without chasing scale for its own sake.

Personal Life
Curtis has been closely associated with Kentucky throughout his career, reflecting the idea that a digital enterprise can thrive outside traditional media hubs. He and his wife, Heather, have collaborated in public and professional contexts, most visibly during the gubernatorial campaign. Friends and colleagues describe a leadership style that blends pragmatism with playfulness, a trait that helped Fark maintain its tone over decades without losing the trust of its core audience.

Legacy and Influence
Drew Curtis's legacy rests on three intertwined achievements. First, he demonstrated that voice-driven curation could stand as a legitimate form of media, shaping how millions encountered news online. Second, he modeled sustainability in digital publishing, proving that an independent site could endure by aligning product decisions with user loyalty rather than short-term traffic spikes. Third, he showed that entrepreneurs can contest unfair legal tactics and, by doing so publicly, help others navigate similar threats.

His biography is ultimately a study in leverage: using wit to cut through noise, community to amplify judgment, and transparency to build trust. Whether in the pages of his book, on a debate stage next to figures like Matt Bevin and Jack Conway, or behind the scenes with the editors and subscribers who keep a site vibrant, Curtis positioned himself at the intersection of media, technology, and civic life. In an era defined by turbulence in both journalism and politics, his work offered a durable example of independence, commercial, editorial, and intellectual.

Our collection contains 4 quotes who is written by Drew, under the main topics: Sports - Sarcastic - Internet - Travel.

• 2007 It's Not News, It's FARK: How Mass Media Tries to Pass off Crap as News (Book)