I Can Haz Cheezburger Guy Wants to Buy Reddit
Ben Huh has one of the best names in tech. He also runs the lucrative Cheezburger Network meme factory. Now, he's made a public gambit for Reddit, the popular linkdump currently locked in combat with owner Conde Nast.
Huh was apparently following Reddit's public "fuck you" to Conde Nast yesterday: Users and mods flooded the site with Prop 19 propaganda after Conde Nast refused to accept ad dollars from the pot-legalizing law's supporters.
Huh posted on The Daily What (a Cheezburger property):
Hi TDWers, I'm Ben Huh, and I run the Cheezburger Network (which includes The Daily What, if you were too Prop 19'd to notice). I have made this offer privately to a few people associated with Reddit, and I'll say it publicly now:
I believe that Reddit is one of the best communities I have seen on the Internet. I also believe that Reddit would benefit from more resources and less corporate interference. We can offer all of the above. And we'd love to buy Reddit and all those pesky troublesome users that we love so much.
Condé, we'll be waiting for a call.
Cheers,
Ben Huh.
Huh told Techcrunch he's "totally serious about buying Reddit," and that the site would be a better fit in his eclectic portfolio than with boring old Conde Nast. We agree! Conde Nast, which bought Reddit in 206, never really "got" the site—its largest web property by many measures. It's starved Reddit of financial resources to the point that Reddit has literally started begging users for money. (Also, Conde should have realized anything pot-related is huge on the Internet.)
And for Huh, whose Cheezburger Network includes such highbrow cultural institutions as FAIL blog and Engrish Funny, purchasing Reddit would basically cement his place as the king of Internet junk.