Where Did Buzzfeed Even Come From?
One girls scary path to find the heart of Buzzfeed.
Since I can remember, Buzzfeed has always been this magical place that you stumble upon through Facebook or Pintrest. Somehow at the end of your search you have spent around two hours laughing, crying and learning. I end up on Buzzfeed because “10 Things You Never Noticed During The Harry Potter Books” caught my eye and I leave Buzzfeed finishing the quiz “What Kind Of Mother You Will Be Based On Your Favorite Type Of Burrito”. For the record, I am a mother who should never have children.
Buzzfeed has not always been a magical site with over 101 million unique visits each month, just in the US. It used to be a rather questionable site with various degrees of reliable information. It once was e a place where you could search through various groups of articles based on what was “buzzing” in the media and online.
In order to see the good ol’ days of Buzzfeed, you must navigate through the pages of the Internet Archive. There we find out the Buzzfeed was just starting to take off in November 2006. The articles at that time seem to have the same pizzas as the current site publishes, however they are a little more questionable when fact checking may come into play.
Buzzfeed circa 2006 appears to be picking up news and compiling it into certain demographics so people can access articles about things they care about.
Here is a snap shot of what we may have read in 2006, taken from the Internet Archive (IA):
“Home Tattooing”
“Racist Jokes”
“Right-Wing Fake News (Pre-Existent Buzz)”
“Gay Penguins”
These just do not seem to have the flare and class that Buzzfeed today may hold. But at one point Buzzfeed tried to get the people want they wanted with out all the spark and glamour of current day articles.
2010 Buzzfeed got a makeover. They have even established a website logo. We can see them growing and creating their own identity on the Internet. They have officially learned how to insert clip art to give us readers some much needed eye candy on the page.
They seem to have stepped away from their more outlandish articles and stepped into the current day theme of “articles we can’t wait to read but never realized before this moment they were missing from our lives”.
A few snap shots from 2010 Buzzfeed from the IA:
“25 Creative Uses of Cosmetics”
“Beer Poured From The Bottom”
“Girls of eBay”
“2010: Year In Deer”
It is clear that Buzzfeed is no longer compiling groups of articles based on a common “buzz” in the media and they are now creating their own content. Buzzfeed has writers who now create unique stories to build the websites identity and bring the readers what they want.
Buzzfeed 2012 brings us to the time of interactive websites with tabs, logos, links and more. We now can recognize our old friend Buzzfeed. It may have had some cosmetic work done since 2012 but we can still see its glory in 2012. It has stepped out as the “hottest, most social content on the web”.
Today we see trending news from around the world, fun quizzes and quirky articles. Buzzfeed started from the bottom and now they are the queen bee of the internet. There may have been some awkward stage years that they choose to leave behind, but the core of the site is still the same today. A one stop shop to read about the trending news around the world and be entertained for hours.
