Imgurians are angry at "Business Daddy" Medialab.
Have you used Imgur before? The site was once a popular place to share memes and post about pretty much anything. But if you've visited the site/app in the last few days, you might have noticed something weird. The whole front page is plastered with a John Oliver Meme showing 2 middle fingers saying "F you Business Daddy".
How Did We Get Here?
Imgur once was a platform to share any kind of content. Even explicit content was allowed. Then it was acquired by MediaLab in 2021, raising many concerns, especially since founder Alan Schaaf left in 2022. These concerns were proven to be true: in 2023, the platform was hit with many restrictions on content.
Not only NSFW content but also topics that were more serious were removed from Imgur. Many also reported that political topics or criticism about MediaLab have been taken down. Some reports even state that posts from countries like Ukraine are entirely blocked. This is apparently because MediaLab fired most of the US content moderation team in favor of AI.
Most recently, users have reported widespread server problems over the weekend about malfunctioning links and not receiving notifications. This was the final straw for the community and also what led to them spam-posting the John Oliver meme.
There's some kind of a revolt going on at Imgur today. pic.twitter.com/DkLl8kqQZ2
— Jim Pacing His Cage (@iamisgo11) August 25, 2025
Why John Oliver?
The original middle fingers by John Oliver were directed towards Last Week Tonight's then-parent company AT&T for their many wrong-doings and connections to the far right-wing network OAN. After LWT and AT&T were seperated, John Oliver couldn't resist insulting "business daddy" one last time.
If you're wondering why Imgur doesn't just delete the images, it is probably due to them being spammed so much. They seemingly just can't catch up with all of the community posting the same meme and sharing the same sentiment.
A Sad Development
Imgur was one of many "meme platforms" that arose back in the 2010s. Originally it was just created to host images for Reddit. But what made Imgur better (in my opinion) was the community and the interactions. Other than 9gag for example, Imgur was a well-knit community between staff, moderators, and users.
Before MediaLab took over, you could see the staff in the comment section under posts. You could tag Sarah from PR and she would appear in the comments. The community even held events like a big Secret Santa where many online strangers made random gifts for each other. It was a fun and safe space.
Now that the staff has been removed and content is much more supervised while ads flood the site, it seems like Imgur is only a husk of the fun community it once was. While the community shrinks more and more, this again seems like a parent company ruining a running system.