BuzzFeed hires Clickhole’s Daniel Kibblesmith

Clickhole associate editor Daniel Kibblesmith will join BuzzFeed as a staff writer for its Buzz vertical, the publication told staffers Monday.

“Daniel first came to our attention with his powerful and important Clickhole piece, ‘Which Hungry Hungry Hippo Are You?,’ which is not just a profound philosophical question, but a major quiz opportunity that we ourselves had somehow overlooked,” BuzzFeed editorial director Jack Shepherd told Poynter in an email. “As you can imagine, we are extremely excited to have him on the team.”

BuzzFeed was among the sites Clickhole was founded to lampoon. (Clickhole has already had some influence on BuzzFeed’s editorial decisions, a recursion that you’d probably need a couple of semiotics professors to unpack properly.)

“I’m extremely excited to join the BuzzFeed team,” Kibblesmith told Poynter. “I’ve never felt closer to my ultimate goal of living directly inside of the internet.”