For three and a half years, from 2008 to 2011, Urlesque was the definitive site covering the internet as its own culture. Then AOL shut it down and erased it from the web.

The rise and fall of Urlesque, the site that wanted to take memes mainstream

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Kira Deshler is a former assistant newsletter editor at the Daily Dot. Kira received a Master&#8217;s in Media Studies from UT Austin and has previously written for sites like Slash Film and Looper. She runs her own Substack newsletter, Paging Dr. Lesbian, and is a member of GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics.

Kira Deshler

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The rise and fall of Urlesque, the site that wanted to take memes mainstream

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