From 2004 to 2011, Encyclopedia Dramatica was one of the few resources out there for people who wanted to learn about the strange culture of the Internet. The open wiki was always anarchic, and frequently racist, homophobic and otherwise offensive -- indeed, last year, the Australian Human Rights Commission threatened it with legal action over an article that "encourage[d] racial hatred against Aborigines." In more recent years, Know Your Meme, which was recently purchased by Cheezburger Networks at a low seven-figure valuation, picked up the slack in educating readers about Internet arcana, as did meme-savvier blogs. But Dramatica, for better or worse, remained the one outlet that covered many topics that more mainstream outlets feared to touch, and frequently exposed the dark underbelly of Internet happenings on which other sites tried to paint a cheerier facade. Last night, visitors to Dramatica's home page found themselves automatically redirected to a new site called OhInternet which appeared to have more in common with the new, slicker generation of Internet culture trackers than with the unvarnished, offensive Dramatica of old. Some fans of Dramatica wondered if this was an elaborate troll or an April Fool's joke; visiting Dramatica's old IP address, 208.99.87.133, gave a message that was interpreted by some to mean that Dramatica was only temporarily offline. But the redirect is permanent, Encyclopedia Dramatica founder and current OhInternet primary contributor Sherrod DeGrippo told me by email, and OhInternet is here to stay.

Andrew Baron, operator of Rocketboom, confirmed on his blog that the popular internet culture encyclopedia Know Your Meme has been purchased by Ben Huh's Cheezburger Network for a "a super seven figure deal." The announcement on Baron's blog comes shortly after the news was broken by Tubefilter earlier this afternoon. The Cheezburger network, which includes such web staples as Fail Blog, Memebase, and The Daily What, recently raised over $30 million with plans for a large-scale expansion of the network's staff and the sites they operate. The acquisition of KYM is Huh's first public move since. In an interview with TechCrunch regarding his future plans after raising the $30 million, Huh said, “We’ve only reached the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we can do.” Though specifics about the future of KYM are scant, Baron offered some details in his announcement. He says that the full staff of KYM, which consists of two full-time and two part-time writers, is moving over to work for Cheezburger Network post-acquisition. At least for now, KYM's mission will not change: Baron writes that he is "pleased to report that future plans for Know Your Meme will actually focus on maintaining and strengthening the journalistic integrity."