Here's your dumb media theory of the day. Fark is the center of the "weird news" universe. The editors churn through over 2,500 submissions a day to find the strangest news stories, and then label them with tags like "unlikely," "fail," "amusing," and "Florida." Yes, Florida is the only state with its own dedicated Fark tag due to the unusually high number of stupid people doing stupid things. Or at least the unusually high number of stupid journalists covering stupid people doing stupid things.
A link on Fark isn't necessarily an honor. Sometimes a well written, truly bizarre story gets rewarded, but often it's just pointing out poorly written headlines, sensationally written copy, or the fact that someone actually took the time to cover something so trivial. Though, a link can generate tens of thousands of page view, which looks good to advertisers.
Drew Curtis, the founder of Fark, wrote a book It's Not News, It's FARK: How Mass Media Tries to Pass off Crap as News critical of all the short comings of the media. Short comings that ironically get them linked on sites like Fark, generate page views, more advertising dollars, and thus encourages more dumbshit Fark-able stories.
Here are some of the stories that have made the front page of Fark in the past few days from local sources.
Miami Herald: Beware of 'phantom loads'
Palm Beach Post: 40 Person Beer Bong
Sun-Sentinel: You think palmetto bugs are big? New 'hissing' cockroach may head to South Florida
Palm Beach Post: Woman returns Yorkie puppy to owner, gets no reward
Sun-Sentinel: Baby, It's Cold Outside (commentary: "Newspaper website creates gallery of Floridiots wearing sweaters and hoodies because it's 70 degrees out")
This is just the stuff that actually made the site, and doesn't even count all the stupid articles that are just begging to be Farked like The Herald's breathless coverage of a bird and a Hanna Montana balloon.
Kind of just makes you wonder if the local media is a little to aware of the Fark-bomb incentive when covering the "news."
