Based in New York City,[2] BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content.

[11] A 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that in the United States, BuzzFeed was viewed as an unreliable source by the majority of respondents, regardless of age or political affiliation.

[13] Prior to establishing BuzzFeed, Peretti was director of research and development and the OpenLab at Eyebeam, Johnson's New York City-based art and technology nonprofit organization, where he experimented with other viral media.

The messages were sent based on algorithms which examined the links that were being quickly disseminated, scouring through the feeds of hundreds of blogs that were aggregating them[citation needed].

[18] In 2011, Peretti hired Politico's Ben Smith, who earlier had achieved much attention as a political blogger, to assemble a news operation in addition to the many aggregated "listicles".

[20][21] As of 2016[update], BuzzFeed had correspondents from 12 countries,[22] and foreign editions in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

[27] On January 23, 2019, BuzzFeed notified all employees via memo that there would be an upcoming 15% reduction in workforce affecting the international, web content, and news divisions of the company.

[29] Three top BuzzFeed News editors in March 2022 announced that they would be resigning and the newsroom would face voluntary layoffs or job cuts.

[32] In January 2012, BuzzFeed announced that it had earned $15.5 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates, Lerer Ventures, Hearst Interactive Media, Softbank, and RRE Capital to expand the site's content.

[37][38] In August 2014, BuzzFeed raised $50 million from the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, more than doubling previous rounds of funding.

[55] BuzzFeed's first acquisition was in 2012 when the company purchased Kingfish Labs, a startup founded by Rob Fishman, initially focused on optimizing Facebook ads.

[65] According to Reuters, British media group The Independent is reportedly discussing a multi-year agreement to acquire control of BuzzFeed and Huffington Post's operations in the UK and Ireland.

[66] In February 2024, BuzzFeed announced the sale of Complex to NTWRK, a livestream shopping platform, even as it would retain some popular franchises.

[77] BuzzFeed produces daily content, in which the work of staff reporters, contributors, syndicated cartoon artists, and its community are featured.

Using an algorithm dubbed "Viral Rank" created by Jonah Peretti and Duncan Watts, the company uses this formula to let editors, users, and advertisers try many different ideas, which maximizes distribution.

The Try Guys are a trio of friends (Eugene Lee Yang, Zach Kornfeld, Keith Habersberger, and formerly Ned Fulmer) who put themselves in different, and at times, compromising situations and record the results.

The studio has launched 30 projects during its existence, 4 of which have since been focused on due to finding success (Weird Helga, The Good Advice Cupcake, The Land of Boggs, and Chikn Nuggit), which as of 2021 had a combined total of over 17 million followers.

[117][118] In January 2024, a lot of the Animation Lab team were laid off (including Loryn Brantz), leading to the cancellations of Weird Helga and The Good Advice Cupcake.

[119][121] On April 8, 2016, two BuzzFeed interns created a live stream on Facebook, during which rubber bands were wrapped one by one around a watermelon until the pressure caused it to explode.

The Daily Dot compared it to something from America's Funniest Home Videos or by the comedian Gallagher, and "just as stupid-funny, but with incredible immediacy and zero production costs".

In June 2012, Gawker's Adrian Chen observed that one of BuzzFeed's most popular writers—Matt Stopera—frequently copied and pasted "chunks of text into lists without attribution.

"[132] In October 2014, a Pew Research Center survey[133] found that in the United States, BuzzFeed was viewed as an unreliable source by the majority of people, regardless of political affiliation.

[141] In January 2017, BuzzFeed again faced widespread criticism from many journalists and media officials, along with then-President elect Donald Trump, for publishing 35 pages of unverified memos in full, known as the Steele dossier.

[143][147] On January 18, 2019, Robert Mueller's office disputed a BuzzFeed report stating that Trump instructed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.

"[167] The Week's correspondent Ryan Cooper and American Enterprise Institute's senior fellow Timothy P. Carney at the Washington Examiner raised questions about whether BuzzFeed undermines its credibility by taking sides on political issues.

[168][169] In June 2015, BuzzFeed and websites like the Huffington Post and Mashable temporarily changed the theme of their social media avatars to rainbow colors to celebrate same-sex marriage being ruled constitutional in the United States.

[170] In June 2016, the left-leaning media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found that in 100 BuzzFeed stories about Barack Obama, 65 were positive, 34 were neutral, and one was critical.

[176] Ben Smith defended the decision to release the document from accusations that it was done out of partisanship, arguing that the dossier is of "obvious central public importance.

"[177] In 2017, BuzzFeed won Webby Awards for Best News App and Best Interview/Talk Show (for Another Round),[178] and president Greg Coleman was named Publishing Executive of the Year by Digiday.

[179] In 2018, staff of BuzzFeed news was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in their international reporting category for their article that "proved that operatives with apparent ties to Vladimir Putin have engaged in a targeted killing campaign against his perceived enemies on British and American soil".