Cracked.com

Cracked was founded as a magazine in 1958.[6] In early 2005, its owner Dick Kulpa sold the magazine to a group of investors who announced plans to revive a print version of Cracked with a new editorial focus and redesign.[7]

In October 2005, Cracked.com launched as a separate website under editor-in-chief Jack O'Brien, a former ABC News producer.[8][9][10][11] Although the magazine folded soon after launch, the Cracked website gained popularity and was purchased by Demand Media in June 2007, setting off Cracked's rapid growth period.[4][12][13]

In 2007, Cracked had a few hundred thousand unique users per month and three to four million page views.[4] The site fit well within Demand Media's network, with Jack O'Brien noting "They understand the web, and they made us nail down a voice".[14] The editorial staff includes original editor-in-chief Jack O'Brien, Jason Pargin (under his pen name, David Wong), who was added as an associate editor later in 2006, and Oren Katzeff, who became Cracked.com's general manager in November 2007 after running business development for Yahoo Media Group.[3][15] Cracked.com published two to four articles daily (2,000 – 3,000 words each), along with video content, short-form content, and contests. The feature articles were the most popular, usually pulling in around one million views in their first week.[16][17]

In 2010, Cracked drew over one billion page views.[18][19][20] By 2012, Jack O'Brien reported over 300 million page views in February and 7.3 million unique monthly users, making it the most visited humor site in the world, ahead of The Onion, CollegeHumor, and Funny or Die.[4][5][14]

Writer Daniel O'Brien was questioned by the FBI and United States Secret Service after writing an article titled "How to Kidnap the President's Daughter".[21][22]

In November 2013, the Cracked web site was hacked and was unwittingly delivering malware to site visitors. The hackers injected JavaScript that caused malicious software to be distributed to page viewers.[23]

In 2013, Cracked.com launched "The Cracked Podcast" on the Earwolf podcast network.

On April 12, 2016, Cracked was purchased by the E. W. Scripps Company for $39 million.[24]

In June 2017, Jack O'Brien stepped down from his position as editor-in-chief and left Cracked to build up the new comedy podcasting division at HowStuffWorks.[25][26] Jack O'Brien chose Alex Schmidt as the new host of "The Cracked Podcast".[27] Schmidt hosted more than 150 episodes, and toured the podcast in the U.S. and to London.[28][29]

In October 2017, Soren Bowie left Cracked to become a writer on American Dad!, while Michael Swaim left Cracked to pursue other interests.

On December 4, 2017, E. W. Scripps laid off 25 staff members from the website, including Daniel O'Brien, Cody Johnston, and the entire video team, in an effort to cut costs.[30][31]

On September 10, 2019, Cracked was acquired by Literally Media, home to KnowYourMeme, Cheezburger, and eBaum's World. [32][33]

Literally Media fired Robert Brockway in February 2020.[34] Afterward, Brockway and fellow longtime Cracked writer Sean "Seanbaby" Reiley then co-founded their own comedy website, 1900HotDog.com.[35] Alex Schmidt was fired by Literally Media in June 2020. Afterward, Schmidt started his own podcast "Secretly Incredibly Fascinating" and won Jeopardy! four times.[36][37][38]

The Cracked site also includes a blog, videos, forums, a writer's workshop, five weekly Image Manipulation contests called Photoplasty, and small, one-shot articles called "Quick Fixes". Cracked formerly included a daily "Craptions" contest where users added captions to odd photographs; this feature had been relegated to the forums. The site included columns by Sean "Seanbaby" Reiley, Daniel O'Brien, Robert Brockway, Cody Johnston, Soren Bowie, Chris Bucholz, host and writer of the web series Hate by Numbers Wayne Gladstone, John Cheese, Christina Hsu, and Michael Swaim, head writer and performer of the sketch comedy group "Those Aren't Muskets!".

The site functions as a "virtual writer's room", where more than 2,500 amateurs pitch articles to which other users provide feedback.[39] According to former general manager Oren Katzeff, "Nothing gets on the homepage without heavy editing";[3] [writers] "pitch the site's on-staff editorial team, who give out assignments and feedback to writers after an idea is greenlit".[3] O'Brien and five other editors pick and refine the best material.[14] More than 90% of the stories on the top spot of Cracked's homepage come from the virtual writer's room.[14] Cracked is known for its popular listicles, which include titles like "The 6 Most Insane People To Ever Run For President" and "7 Basic Things You Won't Believe You're All Doing Wrong".[40]

About 30% of Cracked's content is video.[41][42] As of October 2014, Cracked had 22 web series exclusive to their site.[43] In 2009, Cracked debuted the web series Agents of Cracked, which generated 20 million views over three seasons.[21] In July 2010, Cracked debuted After Hours, a video-debate version of Cracked's lists which features four Cracked staffers discussing topics such as "Why Batman Is Secretly Terrible for Gotham" and "Why 'Star Wars' Is Secretly Terrifying for Women".[5]

In 2011, Cracked partnered with Rotten Tomatoes and Movieclips to launch Cheat Sheets, a comedic, user-generated guide to popular movies.[18][53] For example, Ratatouille's description reads "Remy the rat is obsessed with good food, and he has learned to cook by watching television in the same way that Jackie Chan fans have all become Kung-Fu masters. Remy stumbles upon an unsuspecting janitor working in a Parisian restaurant and figures out how to tap into his central nervous system, controlling his every movement".[54]

Cracked.com released its first book, You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News, in 2010.[55] Published by the Penguin Group's Plume division, the book features 20 articles that had previously appeared on the website, and 18 that are new to the book.[9] The book is formatted as a comedy trivia book, and includes chapters like 'The Four Most Badass Presidents of All Time' and 'The Awful Truth Behind Five Items on Your Grocery List'.[56]

It reached #9 on The New York Times secondary "Paperback Advice & Misc." best sellers list, and sold more than 40,000 copies.[21][57] As part of the marketing campaign, Cracked encouraged fans to post pictures of themselves alongside the book with 50-word captions.[40][15]

Crown Publishing Group acquired the rights to Cracked writer Daniel O'Brien's How to Fight Presidents, for more than $60,000.[21] The book will be a comedic look at the secret to fighting and defeating every U.S. President in history.[21]

Cracked.com released its second book, The De-Textbook: The Stuff You Didn't Know About the Stuff You Thought You Knew, on October 29, 2013.[58]

Cracked has also expanded into live shows. At the 2011 SXSW festival, Cracked hosted Cracked Live, which featured live performances from Michael Swaim, Soren Bowie, Daniel O'Brien, Katie Willert, and Cody Johnston.[59][60] In November 2011, Cracked hosted three panels at Comikaze Expo, a multi-media, popular culture convention.[61] They hosted "The Making of 'After Hours': How a Conversation Becomes an Episode", "Comedy Troupes Are the New Rock Stars", and a performance of the sketch comedy showcase "Cracked LIVE: The 6 Most Bafflingly Hilarious Things Happening in Front of You (Right Now)!".[61]

The magazine Wired has called Cracked "addictive", "hauntingly funny" and "terrifyingly well-informed".[62] Mother Jones called Cracked.com "one of the hottest humor sites on the web" and said its content includes "some of the most uproarious and sage commentary on the interwebs", describing it as "striking the right balance of pop culture, bawdy humor, and intellect".[63] In one month, Cracked users spent over 255 million minutes on the site, which is 5 times more than Comedy Central's site and 9 times more than Funny or Die.[5]

In 2010, the web series Agents of Cracked, featuring Daniel O'Brien and Michael Swaim, won the Audience Choice Award at the second annual Streamy Awards.[2] In 2012, Cracked received a People's Choice Webby Award for Best Humor Website.[1]

In 2013 Cracked was accused of disseminating factually incorrect information by Vice.com, specifically in their "5 Depressing Realities Behind Popular Reality TV Shows" article.[64]

Due to ownership and staffing changes that occurred mainly beginning in 2016 when the website was purchased by the E. W. Scripps Company,[24] and again in 2019 when it was purchased by Literally Media,[32] public reception of the quality of content and articles offered by Cracked.com has dwindled. One noteworthy example of criticism came from Ashley Mangtani, as he wrote in his October 24 2021 piece on Medium, titled "The Downfall Of Cracked.com & The Cancellation Of The Once Famous Cracked Podcast." Mangtani concluded that: "The bottom line is simple, Cracked were bought by a company that wanted nothing more than to break into the digital media market. But they knew nothing about the nuances of managing a creative media stream and vainly tried to cut costs wherever they could. This resulted in all of the best people at Cracked being fired until the company self-destructed into oblivion and stopped creating great content."[65]

As of January 2023, their YouTube channel has 1.0 billion views and 2.76 million subscribers.[66]

Source:[67]

• List of satirical news websites

• Official website