CollegeHumor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| URL | http://www.collegehumor.com |
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| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | Entertainment website |
| Registration | Optional |
| Owner | IAC/InterActiveCorp |
| Created by | Josh Abramson, Ricky Van Veen |
| Launched | 1999 |
CollegeHumor is a comedy website based in New York City. The site features a collection of original and user-submitted videos, as well as pictures, articles, and links. As the name implies, CollegeHumor is directed towards and features content that would appeal to the university and college-aged demographic.
CollegeHumor is operated by Connected Ventures, a New York company that also owns Defunker, BustedTees, and Vimeo.[1]
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[edit] History
The site was created in 1999 by Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen. Abramson and Van Veen were high school friends from Baltimore, Maryland. Site traffic averages over 4 million monthly unique visitors, according to Quantcast direct measurement.[2]
According to Fox News, "[We wanted to start] an advertisement-based business," Abramson said, "because at the time the advertising market was pretty hot and we’d seen other people develop Web sites that were popular making a lot of money."[3]
CollegeHumor, along with its parent company, Connected Ventures, was acquired by Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp in August 2006.[citation needed]
In 2007, CollegeHumor was nominated for a Webby Award in the Humor category.[4] In 2009, their video, Awkward Rap, got nominated for the Webby Award for Best Comedy: Individual Short or Episode.
[edit] Features
[edit] Videos
CollegeHumor hosts a large collection of videos. These movies include home movies capturing a funny moment, comedy sketches, bizarre sports highlights, and other moments typical of Internet videos.
CollegeHumor also produces original videos under the CH Originals (formerly known as CHTV) banner.
[edit] Pictures
CollegeHumor's Pictures section features user-submitted photographs. Like the site's videos, CollegeHumor's pictures are of a humorous or bizarre nature. CollegeHumor also occasionally holds photo-based contests for its users.
[edit] Articles
CollegeHumor posts original writing from its staff and users, including humorous essays, comics, interviews and weekly columns on sports, video games, college life, and dating. Contributing writers to the site include notable comedians Christian Finnegan, David Wain, Paul Scheer, and Judah Friedlander.
[edit] CH Originals
CH Originals is CollegeHumor's original comedy video section. The site releases roughly ten new videos per week. CH Originals videos include sketch comedy, film and television parodies, animation, and music videos. In addition to stand-alone viral comedy shorts or "one-offs," CH Originals produces a number of series: Hardly Working, Jake and Amir, and Bleep Bloop.[5]
CH Originals produces The Michael Showalter Showalter, a Charlie Rose-style comedic interview series hosted by Michael Showalter. Past guests on the show include Paul Rudd, Andy Samberg, David Cross, and Michael Cera.
In 2008, the CH Originals series "Street Fighter: The Later Years" was nominated by YouTube's Video Awards [6] in the category of "Series."
CH Originals' "Prank War" series, which documents the escalating practical jokes between two members of the CollegeHumor staff (Streeter Seidell and Amir Blumenfeld), gained national notoriety after one of the two employees staged a public marriage proposal to the other's girlfriend on his behalf. The incident was known as “The Yankee Prankee.” That video was later shown on VH1's 40 greatest pranks part 2. [7]
[edit] The CollegeHumor Show
On December 17th, 2008, CollegeHumor.com announced The CollegeHumor Show, a scripted comedy premiering on MTV on February 8, 2009.[8] The half-hour comedy is written by and stars nine actual CollegeHumor.com editorial staff members (Ricky Van Veen, Jake Hurwitz, Amir Blumenfeld, Dan Gurewitch, Patrick Cassels, Sarah Schneider, Streeter Seidell, Sam Reich and Jeff Rubin), who play fictionalized versions of themselves.
[edit] Books
- The Writers of CollegeHumor.com (2006-04-06). The CollegeHumor Guide to College: Selling Kidneys for Beer Money, Sleeping with Your Professors, Majoring in Communications, and Other Really Good Ideas. Dutton Adult. ISBN 0525949399.
- The Writers of CollegeHumor.com (2007-03-27). Faking It: How to Seem Like a Better Person Without Actually Improving Yourself. Dutton Adult. ISBN 0525949917.
[edit] Movie
In July 2005, CollegeHumor established a deal with Paramount Pictures to develop a feature-length comedy. The script is in development by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, writers for NBC's American version of the BBC series The Office.[9]
[edit] References
- ^ "About Connected Ventures". Connected Ventures LLC. http://www.connectedventures.com/about.php. Retrieved on 2008-11-16.
- ^ "Quantcast Audience Profile". Quantcast. http://www.quantcast.com/collegehumor.com.
- ^ Carothers, Carrie (2006-06-15). "Business at Collegehumor.com Is No Joke". Fox News. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,199656,00.html. Retrieved on 2009-02-27.
- ^ "11th Annual Webby Awards Nominees: 2007". The Webby Awards. http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current.php?season=11. Retrieved on 2008-11-16.
- ^ "College Humor's Original CHTV section". collegehumor.com. http://www.collegehumor.com/chtv. Retrieved on 2008-11-16.
- ^ "YouTube 2007 Video Awards". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/ytawards07. Retrieved on 2008-11-16.
- ^ "The Twenty (Intentionally) Funniest Web Videos of 2007". New York Magazine. 2007-11-11. http://nymag.com/movies/features/videos/40663. Retrieved on 2008-11-16.
- ^ Promo Video Containing date
- ^ "Just One of The Guys". Gelf Magazine. 2009-03-23. http://www.gelfmagazine.com/archives/just_one_of_the_guys.php. Retrieved on 2009-04-26.
