On The Job: Lord of the LOL

Sometimes the simplest jokes are the funniest. That's the philosophy behind the Cheezburger Network, a group of 50-odd viral sites including ICanHasCheezburger.com, a blog that pairs cat photos with the felines' bizarrely hilarious "thoughts," as well as FAILblog.com, a gallery of visual conundrums such as bees swarming a can of Raid.

Ben Huh, the company's 32-year-old CEO, has a clever strategy for attracting more than 16 million unique visitors a month: Hand humorists the keys and let them do the driving.

How did you start the Cheezburger Network?

The Web site I Can Has Cheezburger linked to a post I'd written on my pet blog in 2007, and the traffic almost crashed my site. I thought, "Holy cow, what are they doing right?" I bought the site a few months later, and I was just praying I wouldn't screw anything up. Then I started to expand to other comedy sites. There isn't an instruction manual for running this kind of publishing company, so I learned as I went.

What's your company mission?

To make people happy for five minutes a day. Fans would send us emails saying, "Sometimes this site is the only thing that gets me through the day," so we were like, "Why not adopt that?"

I read a lot of studies about workplace productivity, and there are very clear indicators that people need a few minutes of mental break, and we're happy to provide that. We know we're not curing cancer or solving humanity's problems, but we're serving a niche. We're more like a painkiller for humanity's problems.

Are your sites driving our sense of humor or reflecting it?

We base our business on reflecting it. The sites are driven by submissions from users—we get about 18,000 a day. Our employees' job is to recognize patterns in the submissions and create new sites for them. I don't hire tastemakers. I hire people who are willing to let an online community's taste take over.

Would you launch a blog you didn't find funny if you knew there was an audience for it?

Some of my editors have launched Web sites that I don't understand. They're like, "Crazy women's shoes—people will flock to this!" Meanwhile, I don't get why anyone cares about a stiletto made out of spaghetti. But if they know the community, I let them run with it.

Who visits your Web sites?

We have users of all ages, but the biggest demo is 18-to-35. We attract the second generation of Internet users, who feel empowered to create their own media. Instead of sitting back and watching TV, you can make fun of TV and publish it. I Can Has Cheezburger doesn't seem highbrow or even all that smart, but the fact that people are taking action toward a culture they consume affects the culture itself.

Your sites all seem tailored to short attention spans.

If you're asking users to create content for free, you set the bar very low. We give them a simple, structured guideline—if I have to write it out, I've failed. Users visit a site and think, "I get it! I've got stuff like that. I'll send it to you!" The joke has to be instant. People have only three minutes to look while their boss is in the bathroom.