SpinnWebe was the personal website of Greg Galcik, also known as "spinn." It gathered the most fame as the home of the Dysfunctional Family Circus, which ran in the late 1990s. Additionally, the site was the showcase for a number of Galcik's other projects, which generally had

interactive Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but mo ...

humor Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...

as the unifying theme; in this respect, it anticipated the development of later sites such as

Fark Fark is a community website created by Drew Curtis that allows members to comment on a daily batch of news articles and other items from various websites. The site receives many story submissions per day and approximately 100 of them are public ...

and

Something Awful ''Something Awful'' (SA) is an American comedy website hosting content including blog entries, forums, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and humorous media reviews. It was created by Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka in 1999 as a largely per ...

. The name SpinnWebe comes from an infamously bad

machine translation Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT (not to be confused with computer-aided translation, machine-aided human translation or interactive translation), is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates t ...

of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

word for "

spider web A spider web, spiderweb, spider's web, or cobweb (from the archaic word '' coppe'', meaning "spider") is a structure created by a spider out of proteinaceous spider silk extruded from its spinnerets, generally meant to catch its prey. Spid ...

Origin

In March 1993, Galcik started an FTP site on a machine called "spider," named after the song ''

Spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

'' by

They Might Be Giants They Might Be Giants (often abbreviated as TMBG) is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a duo, often accompanied by a d ...

. This site began as a way to serve files for various personal projects, including audio samples from TMBG songs. As the site continued to grow and as Web technology began to emerge, he began to phase out the FTP site in June 1994 and created "The Spider WWW Site." Galcik later shortened the name to "SpiderWeb", but after receiving a letter from a company called Spiderweb Communications warning they carried a trademark on the name "Spiderweb", he changed the name of the site to "SpinnWebe" in April 1995. Galcik also derived his Internet alias, "spinn", from this word.

Dysfunctional Family Circus

In 1995, Galcik started the SpinnWebe version of Dysfunctional Family Circus (DFC), an interactive

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...

of the comic strip ''

The Family Circus ''The Family Circus'' (originally ''The Family Circle'', also ''Family-Go-Round'') is a syndicated comic strip created by cartoonist Bil Keane and, since Bil's death in 2011, is currently written, inked, and rendered (colored) by his son, Jef ...

'' where visitors were invited to submit alternative captions for the widely syndicated

Bil Keane William Aloysius "Bil" Keane (October 5, 1922 – November 8, 2011) was an American cartoonist most notable for his work on the newspaper comic ''The Family Circus''. It began in 1960 and continues in syndication, drawn by his son Jeff Kea ...

comic strip. Galcik and a group of editors hand-picked the best captions for publication on the site. This curated approach is unusual, especially for a website with as much traffic as the DFC: the pool of submissions often exceeded a thousand captions per comic, and were generally edited down to around sixty. Fans of the DFC claim that this editing process helped maintain a higher standard of humor that other ''Family Circus'' parodies could not reach.

has stated that he was initially unbothered by the parody, but he began to become uncomfortable with it due to the prevalence of

blue humor Ribaldry or blue comedy is humorous entertainment that ranges from bordering on Wiktionary:indelicacy, indelicacy to inappropriateness, indecency. Blue comedy is also referred to as "bawdiness" or being "bawdy". Sex is presented in ribald materi ...

in the published captions, and because readers were complaining to him. In September 1999, King Features Syndicate, the distributor of ''Family Circus'', sent a cease-and-desist letter to Galcik. While the case could certainly have been contested on the basis of

fair use Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...

, Galcik elected to honor the request out of courtesy toward Keane.Glave, James, ''Wired'
"Family Circus Parody Folds Tent"
/ref>

Other highlights

SpinnWebe was home to many different features, some of which had their own domain names. Projects included:
A-1 AAA AmeriCaptions
and its earlier incarnatio
It's a Dysfunctional Life
a feature similar to the DFC where visitors write captions for candid photos
Trapezoidal Inclination
or Brainshots, a

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

that has run, on and off, since December 2000
amusing.org
which presents a different visitor-submitted sentence or phrase six times a week, often of a

surreal Surreal may refer to: *Anything related to or characteristic of Surrealism, a movement in philosophy and art * "Surreal" (song), a 2000 song by Ayumi Hamasaki * ''Surreal'' (album), an album by Man Raze *Surreal humour, a common aspect of humor ...

or absurd nature, and also allows users to submit illustrations of past entries
abevigoda.com
a site that shows

Abe Vigoda Abraham Charles Vigoda (February 24, 1921 – January 26, 2016) was an American actor known for his portrayals of Salvatore Tessio in ''The Godfather'' (1972) and Phil Fish in both ''Barney Miller'' (1975–1977, 1982) and ''Fish'' (1977–1978 ...

's current "status" (alive or dead)
''Scribs''
a

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books. Webcomics can be co ...

that also has a "reader mail" section, in which readers submit questions for the two central characters to answer Other notable projects included the Nipple Server (in which users rated pictures of Galcik's left nipple based on a

rubric A rubric is a word or section of text that is traditionally written or printed in red ink for emphasis. The word derives from the la, rubrica, meaning red ochre or red chalk, and originates in Medieval illuminated manuscripts from the 13th cent ...

panache Panache () is a word of French origin that carries the connotation of flamboyant manner and reckless courage, derived from the helmet-plume worn by cavalrymen in the Early Modern period. The literal translation is a plume, such as is worn on a h ...

, color, perkiness, and overall impression), and 1-900-ZWEBLÖ (an advice column in which web-submitted questions were answered by members of a fictitious secret

cabal A cabal is a group of people who are united in some close design, usually to promote their private views or interests in an ideology, a state, or another community, often by intrigue and usually unbeknownst to those who are outside their group. Th ...

or shadow government).

References

{{Reflist

External links

SpinnWebeArchived link
American comedy websites

Origin

Dysfunctional Family Circus

Other highlights

References

Further reading

Dysfunctional Family Circus controversy

External links