Cheezburger used to run a viral publishing empire - now it's been sold to an Israeli media company
Victor Boyko/Getty Images for SPIMF
It's been a strange journey for Cheezburger. It started as a single blog after cofounder Eric Nakagawa posted a photo of a cat with the caption "I can has cheezburger?"
From that initial blog, the Cheezburger Network, as it came to be known, grew to include other sites like FAIL Blog, The Daily What, Know Your Meme, and Memebase, among others.
At its peak in 2011, the Cheezburger Network brought in over 375 million page views every month. The site's staff also had their own reality TV show, "LOLwork," which focused on life at the company.
News of Cheezburger's acquisition broke in February, but the buyer hasn't been named until now. Literally Media was founded in Tel Aviv in 2015 and includes sites like eBaum's World, another early internet culture site that saw a drop in traffic. The Seattle Times reports that Cheezburger now has a staff of 16 people, down from its peak of 90.
Former Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh had this to say after the news of the buyer's identity broke:
The cat is out of the bag. I with the new owners the best of luck. I should have consolidated more sites years ago. https://t.co/1pp0zQSrfu
- Ben Huh (@benhuh) April 21, 2016
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