About
iFunny is an internet humor site and mobile application featuring user-submitted media in the form of images, videos and animated GIFs. Bearing many similarities to the sites Imgur, FunnyJunk and 9gag, iFunny is known for circulating and popularizing a variety of internet memes.
History
On April 26th, 2011, iFunny was launched as an iOS mobile application on the Apple App Store[1] for sharing and discovering humorous photos, videos and GIFs. In March, the @iFunny[6] Twitter feed was created, garnering more than 38,000 followers in five years. On April 11th, 2013, the site iFunny.co[4] was launched.[2] On September 22nd, 2014, the official iFunny Facebook[5] page was created, gathering upwards of 176,000 likes over the next three years. In October that year, an iFunny Android application was released on the Google Play Store.[3]
Features
The “Featured” section on iFunny contains up to 60 posts curated by the sites “Feature Team,” which are updated in 20-post cycles three times per day. The posts are typically selected from popular images in uploaded in the “Collective” section of the app, containing a feed of user-submitted images that can be voted up or down by viewers. Users can subscribe to specific iFunny feeds and browse posts by tags. Several major updates have been introduced to iFunny since its addition to the app store, including the ability to search and post GIFs with an in-app browser, an interface redesign to keep in line with iOS 7, a block button, improved security, the addition of #tags and the ability to post content from Vine.
Highlights
Civilized Discussion
Civilized Discussion is an exploitable comic series in which a social gathering representing “a civilized discussion” is disrupted by a group of naked people who proceed to relieve their bowels on the ground. In the series, the two groups are often depicted as rival factions from a variety of nations, fandoms and subcultures. The comics are believed to have originated on iFunny in September 2015.
Stop It Son, You Are Doing Me A Frighten
“Stop It Son You Are Doing Me A Frighten” refers to a series of images of dogs being shocked by other dogs repeating “bork”, and replying in a concerned manner. The earliest known example was submitted to iFunny in November 2015.
Fandoms
Many fandom communities maintain a presence on the app, including Bronies, Furries and Otakus.
Controversies
Kik Posts
Midway through 2012, the Collective section of iFunny was flooded with requests for viewers to add the poster on the instant messenger application Kik. In February, iFunny added an option to report “Kik Posts” for removal, significantly decreasing the volume of Kik requests on the site.
Removal and Return to the App Store
In August 2013, iFunny was unexpectedly removed from the Apple App Store. On September 9th, the tech news site PhonesReview.com[9] posted an article speculating that the app was removed due to a shortage of server space, failure to comply with Apple or the presence of illegal content uploaded to the app. On September 20th, iFunny returned to the App Store.
Traffic
In 2014, the traffic analytics company ComScore[10] released a report listing iFunny as the 10th most popular mobile app used by people ages 18-24. As of July 2016, iFunny.co has a global rank of 12,360 and a United States rank of 3,500 on Alexa.[8]
iPolitics
Around the summer of 2013 several political groups rose in the app. Political groups branched off as their members learned more about politics and eventually the community consisted of almost entirely of libertarians,various anarchist factions,national socialists, and leftists. People within these groups wrote essays at first but then descended into making memes. Many other users on the app saw these posts and often commented “This is iFunny not iPolitics” as a result the community dubbed itself “iPolitics”. The community constantly changes and is currently in the process of making a spinoff app called “IPolitical” which is expected to be finished sometime in the fall of 2016.
On February 4th 2017 iFunny user New_California_Republic went to the “He Will Not Divide Us” live stream holding a sign with the Bernard meme on it. Afterwards members of the iPolitics community attempted to trick the media into believing Bernard was a hate symbol. They were met with mild success as a Buzzfeed article did briefly mention Bernard as an “Alt-right meme”.
Brazil added as a separate server
On November 13th, 2016, iFunny expanded to Brazil, adding a new and separate Collective and Featured section. It wasn’t until the start of 2017 when American users started to invade Brazilian Collective. They spammed them with insults, boasting their patriotism, and even photos of a burning Brazil flag.
More details yet to come.