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Ben Huh, CEO of I Can Has Cheezburger, on Bravo's new show 'LOLWork' (Bravo)

Ben Huh of I Can Has Cheezburger on LOLWork, Reality Television and Keeping a Straight Face

Ben Huh struck us as goofily affable when we met him at Bravo’s Top Chef Kitchen restaurant three weeks ago. Sitting at a table with a Post reporter and a friend from Mashable, the CEO of the I Can Has Cheezburger network (which includes, among other properties, Know Your Meme, FailBlog and The Daily What) had a self-aware cockiness in his voice when he claimed he invented the phrase “internet culture.” And though he was about to be rocketed into the world of Bravolebrities–the term Bravo applies to its various reality stars–he spent more time helping the table parse weird terminology than trying to sell himself.

We don’t remember how the conversation got started, but at one point someone asked if you could call Furries (those people who dress in plush animal outfits at conventions, frequently with sex in mind) “anthropomorphic.”

“No,” Mr. Huh responded firmly. “That’s when inanimate or inhuman objects take on human qualities.” This, the star of Bravo’s first attempt at a reality-sitcom told us, was “the opposite … humans that want to be animals.”

So what do we call them?

Animorphs?” the guy from Mashable suggested, referring to the teen book series popular in the late ’90s.

“Animorphism,” agreed Mr. Huh. Read More

Bravo

Top Chef Kitchen (Bravo)

Top Chef Kitchen Opens as Pop-Up Eatery

Bravo has always prided itself on its ability to foster a community for its fans. Unlike traditional television, a one-way medium, Bravo openly encourages viewers to become engaged, and it’s most obvious in its mascotting of Andy Cohen (an executive who turned talent after his blog about the shows he was producing became popular and he was asked to host the first Housewives reunion) as the anti-Seacrest.

But there are other ways Bravo interacts with its fans: it has online forums and live chats with the stars of its shows, and unlike other reality programming–in which characters appear on the screen and nowhere else–Bravo essentially forces its reality stars to mingle with actual people. And it was with this concept that the Top Chef Kitchen was born. Read More

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"Shahs of Sunset Strip"

Bravo’s Shahs of Sunset Keeps Stars Ambiguously Ethnic

In an effort to cash in on the success of the Real Housewives franchise, Bravo’s latest project (produced by Ryan Seacrest) is the Middle East-meets-Beverley Hills Shahs of Sunset. Look at those ballers party!

So as not to lose any points from the network’s huge Middle America fanbase, the previews for the show keep things pretty vague as to where exactly their stars are from. Read More