Mental Floss (stylized asmental_floss) is an American online magazine and digital, print, ande-commerce media company focused onmillennials. It is owned byMinute Media, an international digital media publisher based inLondon,England, with an associated research and development center inTel Aviv,Israel. It is based inNew York City,United States. mentalfloss.com, which presents facts, puzzles, and trivia with a humorous tone, draws 20.5 million unique users a month. ItsYouTube channel produces three weekly series and has 1.3 million subscribers. In October 2015,Mental Floss teamed with theNational Geographic Channel for its first televised special,Brain Surgery Live with mental_floss, the firstbrain surgery ever broadcast live.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Launched inBirmingham, Alabama in 2001,[7][8] the company has additional offices inMidtown Manhattan. The publication was included inInc. magazine's list of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies.[9] Before it became a web-only publication in 2017, the magazineMental Floss had a circulation of 160,000 and published six issues a year. The magazine had more than 100,000 subscribers in over 17 countries.[10] The November/December 2016 issue was the last issue of the print edition of the magazine.[11] Instead of getting a refund, subscribers were sent copies ofThe Week.[12]
The company frequently publishes books and sells humorous T-shirts. It also developed a licensed triviaboard game calledSplit Decision, similar toTrivial Pursuit. Its online store sells quirky home and office supplies, games and toys.
The magazine was co-founded by William E. Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur while they were students atDuke University. According to the Mental Floss website, the idea came from conversations in the Duke cafeteria about the need for an entertaining educational magazine.[14] According to Hattikudur, they wanted to "distill some of the best lectures from our favorite college professors. We thought if we could bottle their enthusiasm and deliver it in monthly installments, it'd be great."[10]
Later, Pearson met with president of Duke University, who loved the idea, but disliked the name. The first published issue, known as the "Campus Edition", was published in spring 2000, distributing 3,000 issues.
The founders spent much of their first year looking for investors and staff members while raising funds to publish the first issue, which was released in May 2001. Over the following summer, 8,000 copies were distributed, and 60% sold out on newsstands.[15] Pearson and Hattikidur were named two of thirty promising 2007entrepreneurs in business magazineInc.[16]
Mental Floss was sold to magazine mogul Felix Dennis in 2011[17] and again to Minute Media in late 2018.[18]
Beginning in June 2017, Pearson and Hattikudur have been producing the podcast Part Time Genius,[19] a variety style knowledge show, created in partner withHowStuffWorks. In addition to the magazine, aboard game, a weeklyCNN Headline News segment and a daily updated website, the two have collaborated on seven Mental Floss books.
Mangesh Hattikudur is an American businessman who co-founded Mental Floss, with Pearson when both were students atDuke University.[20] Hattikudur graduated from Duke in 2001 with aBachelor of Arts degree. TheHuffington Post in 2010 wrote that Hattikudur and Pearson have created aknowledge empire complete with board games, T-shirts, and a website calledmentalfloss.com which has monthly visitors tallying into the millions.[21] They have collaborated on books such asThe Mental Floss History of the United States along with writer Erik Sass.[20]
William E. Pearson (born 1979) co-founder of Mental Floss with Hattikudur. Pearson graduated from Duke in 2001, with aBachelor of Arts degree in history.[22][verification needed] Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur met as freshmen at Duke University and in their senior year parlayed their cafeteria conversations into the first issue of Mental Floss magazine.[23]
NovelistJohn Green worked for the magazine early in his career. Having later become an establishedYouTube personality, he began hosting its YouTube channel in March 2013. In 2014, the Mental Floss channel was listed onNew Media Rockstars Top 100 Channels, ranked at #71. In 2015, Green won the Webby Award for Mental Floss on YouTube.[24][25]
AuthorA. J. Jacobs contributed articles based on what he learned reading theEncyclopædia Britannica, as described in his bookThe Know-It-All. He currently writes a history column answering reader mail.
ComedianAmir Blumenfeld writes a column calledThe Curious Comedian.
AuthorRansom Riggs was a longtime contributor to both the magazine and website.
LinguistArika Okrent is the language editor for Mental Floss. In 2015, she received the Linguistic Society of America's Linguistics Journalism Award.[27]
Science journalistMaggie Koerth-Baker was an assistant editor and co-authored the 2009 Mental Floss bookBe Amazing.
Hank Green has written for the magazine and is executive producer of the YouTube Channel. He also authored the Mental Floss bookScatterbrained.
ComedianElliott Morgan hosts the weekly series "Misconceptions" on the Mental Floss channel on YouTube.
Comedian Max Silvestri has hosted two series on the YouTube channel.[28]
Craig Benzine hosts the weekly series "The Big Question" on the YouTube channel.[29]
Every year,Mental Floss published a "Ten Issue". It usually featured lists of ten things focusing on subjects like: "Ten Most Forgettable Presidents" or "Ten Famous Monkeys in Science".[31]
Initially, "Mental Floss" tried to feature self-proclaimed mascotAlbert Einstein on the cover of each issue. The magazine even did a 'swimsuit issue', which featured a topless Einstein.[32]
^ab"Mangesh Hattikudur".Huffington Post. January 7, 2011. RetrievedJanuary 6, 2010.Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur met as freshmen at Duke University... collaborated on over 10 books together, ...
^ANNE MANCUSO."Spare Times".The New York Times. RetrievedJanuary 6, 2010.Mental Floss Magazine's Holiday Trivia Contest ... "The Mental Floss History of the United States: The (Almost) Complete and (Entirely) Entertaining Story of America," by Erik Sass, Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur...
