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''Mental Floss'' (stylized as ''mental_floss'') is an online magazine and its related American digital, print, and
e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...
media company focused on millennials. It is owned by Minute Media and based in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
,
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. mentalfloss.com, which presents facts, puzzles, and trivia with a humorous tone, draws 20.5 million unique users a month. Its
YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
channel produces three weekly series and has 1.3 million subscribers. In October 2015, ''Mental Floss'' teamed with the
National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television television network, network and flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel owned by the National Geograp ...
for its first televised special, ''Brain Surgery Live with'' mental_floss, the first
brain surgery Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and peri ...
ever broadcast live. Launched in
Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...
in 2001, the company has additional offices in
Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildin ...
. The publication was included in ''Inc.'' magazine's list of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies. Before it became a web-only publication in 2017, the magazine ''mental_floss'' had a circulation of 160,000 and published six issues a year. The magazine had more than 100,000 subscribers in over 17 countries."Ohio couple share in the fun as Mental Floss magazine executives"
Cleveland.com
The November/December 2016 issue was the last issue of the print edition of the magazine. Instead of getting a refund, subscribers were sent copies of ''
The Week ''The Week'' is a weekly news magazine with editions in the United Kingdom and United States. The British publication was founded in 1995 and the American edition in 2001. An Australian edition was published from 2008 to 2012. A children's ed ...
''. The company frequently publishes books and sells humorous T-shirts. It also developed a licensed trivia
board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a comp ...
called ''Split Decision'', similar to ''
Trivial Pursuit ''Trivial Pursuit'' is a board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures gam ...
''. Its online store sells quirky home and office supplies, games and toys. Dennis Publishing bought ''Mental Floss'' in 2011. Mental Floss was acquired by Minute Media from the
Felix Dennis Felix Dennis (27 May 1947 – 22 June 2014) was an English publisher, poet, spoken-word performer and philanthropist. His company, Dennis Publishing, pioneered computer and hobbyist magazine publishing in the United Kingdom. In more recent times ...
estate in September 2018.


Origin

The magazine was co-founded by William E. Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur while they were students at
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
. According to the Mental Floss website, the idea came from conversations in the Duke cafeteria about the need for an entertaining educational magazine. According to Hattikudur, they wanted to "distill some of the best lectures from our favorite college professors. We thought if we could bottle their enthusiasm and deliver it in monthly installments, it'd be great." Later, Pearson met with president of Duke University, who loved the idea, but disliked the name. The first published issue, known as the "Campus Edition", was published in spring 2000, distributing 3,000 issues. The founders spent much of their first year looking for investors and staff members while raising funds to publish the first issue, which was released in May 2001. Over the following summer, 8,000 copies were distributed, and 60% sold out on newsstands. Mental Floss was sold to magazine mogul Felix Dennis in 2011 and again to Minute Media in late 2018.


Notable contributors

* Novelist
John Green John Michael Green (born August 24, 1977) is an American author, YouTube content creator, podcaster, and philanthropist. His books have more than 50 million copies in print worldwide, including '' The Fault in Our Stars'' (2012), which is ...
worked for the magazine early in his career. Having later become an established
YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
personality, he began hosting its YouTube channel in March 2013. In 2014, the Mental Floss channel was listed on
New Media Rockstars ''NewMediaRockstars'' (''NMR'') is an online magazine which was launched in December 2011 and primarily covers YouTube performers, entrepreneurs, and artists with videos and interviews. In 2013, ''NewMediaRockstars'' closed because of lack of fund ...
Top 100 Channels, ranked at #71. In 2015, Green won the Webby Award for mental_floss on YouTube. * Author A. J. Jacobs contributed articles based on what he learned reading the ''
Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...
'', as described in his book '' The Know-It-All''. He currently writes a history column answering reader mail. *
Ken Jennings Kenneth Wayne Jennings III (born May 23, 1974) is an American game show host, author, and former game show contestant. He is the highest-earning American game show contestant, having won money on five different game shows, including $4,522,70 ...
, of ''
Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given gene ...
'' fame, wrote a feature called ''Six Degrees of Ken Jennings'', in which he played the game
six degrees of separation Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of "friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It is also k ...
with two unrelated people or things, like
Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign ...
and Benedict Arnold or
Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
and
Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
. He now contributes a quiz called "Kennections" on mentalfloss.com. * Kara Kovalchik and Sandy Wood served as research editors for the magazine from 2002 to 2015. * Celebrity chef
Alton Brown Alton Crawford Brown Jr. (born July 30, 1962) is an American television personality, food show presenter, chef, author, voice actor, and cinematographer. He is the creator and host of the Food Network television show ''Good Eats'' that ran for ...
wrote a food column and appeared on the cover of the September 2012 issue. * ''
Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...
'' writer Streeter Seidell has written for both mental_floss magazine and the website. * Comedian Amir Blumenfeld writes a column called ''The Curious Comedian''. * Author
Ransom Riggs Ransom Riggs (born February 3, 1979) is an American writer and filmmaker best known for the book ''Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children''. Early life and education Riggs was born in Maryland in 1979 on a 200-year-old farm, and grew up in ...
was a longtime contributor to both the magazine and website. * Linguist
Arika Okrent Arika Okrent is an American linguist, known particularly for her 2009 book ''In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language'', a result of her five ...
is the language editor for mental_floss. In 2015 she received the Linguistic Society of America's Linguistics Journalism Award. * Science journalist Maggie Koerth-Baker was an assistant editor and co-authored the 2009 mental_floss book ''Be Amazing''. *
Hank Green William Henry Green II (born May 5, 1980) is an American vlogger, science communicator, entrepreneur, author, internet producer, and musician. He is known for producing the YouTube channel Vlogbrothers with his older brother, author John Green ...
has written for the magazine and is executive producer of the YouTube Channel. He also authored the mental_floss book ''Scatterbrained''. * Comedian
Elliott Morgan Elliott Christopher Morgan (born February 22, 1987) is an American stand up comedian, actor, writer, host, producer and YouTube personality. Morgan is best known for being a co-host of the YouTube channel '' SourceFed''. Morgan attended the Univ ...
hosts the weekly series "Misconceptions" on mental_floss on YouTube. * Comedian
Max Silvestri Max Silvestri (born 1983) is an American stand-up comedian. Early life, family and education Silvestri graduated from Brown University in 2005, concentrating on art and semiotics. While at Brown, he performed in an improv comedy troupe and w ...
has hosted two series on the mental_floss YouTube Channel. *
Craig Benzine Craig Gene Benzine (born October 5, 1980) is an American video producer, musician, and vlogger better known by his YouTube channel name of WheezyWaiter. On July 15, 2020, his channel hit 1 million subscribers and has over 155 million total vide ...
hosts the weekly series "The Big Question" on mental_floss on YouTube.


Magazine sections

Each issue of ''Mental Floss'' magazine was divided into the following sections: * Scatterbrained: 10 pages of trivia, facts and anecdotes about an everyday topic or item. * Be Amazing!: 10 pages of short articles and interviews, often by guest contributors. * Left_Brain/Right_Brain: articles about "
left brain The lateralization of brain function is the tendency for some neural functions or cognitive processes to be specialized to one side of the brain or the other. The median longitudinal fissure separates the human brain into two distinct cerebra ...
" topics, like science and logic, and "
right brain The lateralization of brain function is the tendency for some neural functions or cognitive processes to be specialized to one side of the brain or the other. The median longitudinal fissure separates the human brain into two distinct cerebra ...
" topics, like art and literature. * Features: Some examples were an exposé of
Shel Silverstein Sheldon Allan Silverstein (; September 25, 1930 – May 10, 1999) was an American writer, poet, cartoonist, singer / songwriter, musician, and playwright. Born and raised in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, Silverstein briefly attended universit ...
's darker side and a collection of the 25 Most Important Questions in the Universe. * Go Mental: articles about religion, art, history and world culture. * The Quiz: a brief quiz at the back of the magazine.


Recurring themes

Every year, ''Mental Floss'' published a "Ten Issue". It usually featured lists of ten things focusing on subjects like: "Ten Most Forgettable Presidents" or "Ten Famous Monkeys in Science". Initially, "Mental Floss" tried to feature self-proclaimed mascot
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
on the cover of each issue. The magazine even did a 'swimsuit issue', which featured a topless Einstein.


Recurring blog categories

* Morning Cup of Links: Interesting links to news stories, videos and memes from across the Internet * 5 Questions Quiz: Daily quizzes with subject clues hidden inside trivia questions * The Amazing Fact Generator: A page that generates random facts and trivia * Big Questions: Articles that answer questions about history, origins, or science


Books

* ''Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization's Best Bits'' * ''Genius Instruction Manual'' * ''Scatterbrained'' * ''What's the Difference?'' * ''Cocktail Party Cheat Sheets'' * ''Condensed Knowledge'' * ''Forbidden Knowledge'' * ''Instant Knowledge'' * ''In the Beginning'' * ''Be Amazing'' * ''mental_floss Trivia'' * ''mental_floss: The Book: Only The Greatest Lists in the History of Listory'' * ''The Mental Floss History of the United States: The (Almost) Complete and (Entirely) Entertaining Story of America


Media coverage and awards

''Mental Floss'' has been covered by magazines and newspapers such as ''
Reader's Digest ''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wif ...
'', ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'',
CNN.com CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
, '' Atlanta Journal-Constitution'', ''
Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'', ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
'', ''
Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ''Galvesto ...
'', ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' and the ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
''. Other media coverage includes: * Listed as one of the ''Chicago Tribune'''s 50 favorite magazines in June 2007 * Listed as one of ''PC World'' 's 100 favorite blogs in June 2007 * Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur among ''Inc.'' magazine's 30 "coolest young entrepreneurs * Listed as the seventh most engaged company on Twitter by Digiday * Recognized by ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' for having one of the top 140 Twitter feeds in 2013. * Won a
Webby Award The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories includ ...
for "Best Cultural Blog" in May 2013. * Finalist for "General Excellence" at the National Magazine Awards in 2013. * Voted one of the "100 Best Websites for Women" by ''
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
'' in 2013. * Mental Floss won the 2020 Webby People's Voice Award for Weird in the category Web.


References


External links

* {{Official website, http://www.mentalfloss.com/ 2001 establishments in Alabama Online magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 2001 Magazines disestablished in 2016 Magazines published in Alabama Mass media in Birmingham, Alabama Online magazines with defunct print editions Webby Award winners Defunct magazines published in the United States