• Television

    MTV Buys College Humor Show

    MTV has bought the pilot for a TV show from the gentlemen behind CollegeHumor.com. The deal is for six episodes, scheduled to air this fall, we hear. No word yet on exactly what the content will be, how much MTV paid, or what role supermogul and College Humor owner Barry Diller may have played in making the deal happen. But needless to say, it will add a much-needed dose of humorous frat-boy hijinks to MTV's current schedule of sober public affairs programming. [UPDATE: We hear the show will consist of comedy shorts, wrapped in a storyline, set in the CH office]. (Pictured: CH co-founder Ricky Van Veen)

    2:52 PM on Mon Jul 21 2008
    By Hamilton Nolan
    2,679 views, 24 comments

    Latest by Supercharo: @Bellyboop: Thank you! my thought exactly. more »

  • things we actually like

    Halo 3 Homicide Detective

    College Humor spoofs one of those video games that make more money than any blockbuster movie and thus define a generation. The clip below is only funny if you've played online shooters, but according to sales stats that's 90% of you, so we're set. More »

    2:16 PM on Thu May 29 2008
    By Nick Douglas
    2,318 views, 6 comments

    Latest by Koreanish: @Nick Douglas: You guys should play College Humor at this instead. Or some sort of Beer Pong/Halo Hybrid game... more »

  • debunk

    Did College Humor Just Shake Off Adult Supervision?

    Say farewell to Mo Koyfman, the IAC executive dropped in to monitor the crazy kids when Barry Diller's internet conglomerate acquired College Humor. He's resigned from his position as chief operating officer of the dorky web site. There's nothing particularly amusing about the news, except for the assumption that Koyfman represented adult supervision. Founders Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen were always substantially more straight-laced than their reputation for rampant loft parties would indicate; while 30-year-old wannabe modelizer Koyfman, however engaging, is as much a grown-up as Barry Diller is an internet guru.

    1:34 PM on Thu Mar 27 2008
    By Nick Denton
    1,527 views, 10 comments

    Latest by WileyPeyote: There's something about "their reputation for rampant loft parties" that's bugging me. The use of rampant just doesn't sound right, more »

  • it would be a shame if something were to happen to...

    Plotting a Gawker Murder

    College Humor co-founder Ricky Van Veen today blogged about how Gawker writers are "hurling dozens of harsh items a day at vulnerable people," and said it's only a matter of time until one of them is murdered by a "victim." In case he didn't get his, uh, point across, Van Veen went ahead and described exactly how someone might, hypothetically, kill a Gawker blogger. First, be a thinned-skinned introvert who bottles up his emotions for years, so one can go apeshit about a blog post (crime of passion=manslaughter=reduced sentence!). Identify the author of the post by reading his byline (clever!). Then hunt him down, since you "know where the writer works (a low-security, first-floor storefront). These bloggers aren't guarded national TV pundits with chauffers and security — they're young people making relatively little money and taking public transportation." He also writes, "statistically it’s just a matter of time before one of your targets snaps. It’s simply a numbers game." Creepy and servicey all at once! But if Van Veen thinks "harsh" and "negative" blog posts about microcelebrities are really so dangerous, perhaps some housecleaning is in order closer to home. After the jump, a nasty attack on Star editor and Time Out New York columnist Julia Allison, created in the offices of College Humor sister site Vimeo and published to the world by Vimeo Community Director Blake Whitman. More »

    5:42 PM on Sun Mar 9 2008
    By Ryan Tate
    4,327 views, 47 comments

    Latest by Maggie: Phew—got out just in time. more »

  • oped

    Career Advice For Barry Diller

    What should Barry Diller do? The IAC boss is being hung, slowly, by his largest shareholder. And for good reason: although online commerce and advertising is growing, the internet conglomerate has shrunk in value from $22bn to just over $7bn over five years. Barry Diller's reputation as a canny businessman, built up over decades in the movie and TV business, is tarnished. IAC has proven completely unable to build new businesses; and the New York group has had little success with the assets it bought. Let us count the fuckups. More »

    5:43 PM on Tue Jan 29 2008
    By Nick Denton
    2,604 views, 40 comments

    Latest by TheBigDoggy: Outstanding post, Nick. Congrats. more »

  • barry diller

    Darth Vader's Pupil

    It's so hard to know which corporate villain to root for. John Malone, the 'Darth Vader' of the cable industry, has built up a dominant stake in Barry Diller's IAC and is putting on the squeeze with a lawsuit. But the internet conglomerate's killer queen has learned well from his evil master: Diller is turning Malone's shares against him, siphoning off outsized personal pay while he buys playthings like the College Humor kids, and generally runs Malone's investment into the ground. (Confused? Here's Duff McDonald's explanation.)

    11:45 AM on Fri Jan 25 2008
    By Nick Denton
    414 views, 3 comments

    Latest by HeyThatsMyBike: I love when bad guys fight bad guys! Alien vs. Predator XII: Douchey Queen vs. Darth more »

  • college humor

    The Band Splits

    This would be the perfect tale of the gentrifying effect of Manhattan. Four kids with a shockingly puerile web site come to the big city, rent a kick-ass loft together in Tribeca and throw wild parties. After four years in New York, founder Josh Abramson (pictured center, in white), goes bourgeois. He's hired Park Avenue decorator David Howell to create a minimalist look — "but not stark," as he told the New York Observer — for his new $1.975m apartment at the Greenwich. But there's a problem with the narrative. More »

    1:56 PM on Wed Jan 9 2008
    By Nick Denton
    10,302 views, 66 comments

    Latest by andyfox1979: if they're only making 450k a year including their t shirt business they aren't monetizing their traffic very well. A more »

  • new media propaganda

    Barry Diller HQ Full Of Fist-Pumping Young Brand Enthusiasts!


    They said Barry Diller was out of his mind! And yet, according to this in-house promotional video that we've obtained, his company, IAC, has a giant Frank Gehry-designed headquarters full of young people working their internet brands like Match.com, Ask.com. It's a young company! Everyone there is in the loop! It's happening! They are an endlessly multi-product company! He has a smaller but smarter army! Also we love the part about 1:30 from the end when the guy doing payroll starts screaming at the College Humor staff too. But don't get too comfortable, staffers: "This company will change on a dime and will be able to change its strategy" at the drop of a hat, says some executive guy. Yes, that's when they take you and your once-hot young brand out back and grind you into meat. More »

    2:25 PM on Wed Oct 17 2007
    By Choire
    11,331 views, 69 comments

    Latest by Nutgraf: When you search for "barry diller gay" you get way fewer matches on Ask.com than on Google. Jus' sayin'... more »