Fark.com is a news aggregator of the first order. The fifty-some-odd stories/links posted daily are labeled by subject so that the bored at work can browse the absurdity of the world to their heart’s content. From “asinine” to “strange” to “dumbass,” Fark delivers the news to accommodate or offend all senses of humor (as the site proclaims: “It’s not news, it’s Fark”).

For the sixth installment of The Origins of Our Communication, Drew Curtis, Fark founder and administrator, takes us back to a time when internet porn was a bit too risky to be the next “billion dollar Internet idea.”

I was a freshman in college, just back from Christmas break (early 1992). My college had a January term where not a whole lot went on, which was kind of like having a break while still at school. Over Christmas I’d been back home and been shown a few local BBS sites, which I thought were cool. My roommate had a computer (I couldn’t afford one) with a modem in it, so I figured I could probably locate one or two in the area and dial into those.

I went down to the computer helpdesk and asked about BBS numbers. Instead they gave me a login and password for a dialup account to access the Internet. That wasn’t exactly what I had asked for. I was told the name of a student who could help me out with it. His advice: get your friends to start using email, and here’s an address for a MUD to kill some time on.

I remember distinctly being on the MUD about a month later and being bored with all that had to offer. So I asked a couple guys at random on there what else you could do with this Internet thingee. They talked it over and both reached the conclusion that pretty much email and MUDs were the extent of the thing.

It was another year before I saw my first web page. So in a sense they were right.

Interestingly, at the time, porn was considered to be a non-starter on the net. Conventional wisdom was that the minute someone posted a porn stash on the net it would be flooded with too much traffic and shut down instantly. They were almost right.

Fast forward to the summer of 1999. Fark’s been around for four months by this point. I’m at a bar with a friend of mine; the discussion topic was trying to think of a billion dollar Internet idea. My friend suggested that for something to really work it would have to be something that people would be willing to pay for, which in return could be delivered directly over the Internet. We racked our brains and couldn’t figure anything out. By the end of the conversation, I suggested that maybe Fark might fit the description. “Nah, probably not,” said my friend. I agreed with him. I’d felt stupid for suggesting it anyhow — Fark was too new.

The moral of this story is that people rarely see potential in advance. Those who take advantage of it generally stumble across it by accident. That was certainly what happened in my case.

Visit Fark.com.

Buy the book: It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News by Drew Curtis.