What Is Laughing Squid?

Laughing Squid Printed Circuit Board
photo by Scott Beale

Laughing Squid is an art, culture, and technology blog and a Managed WordPress hosting company. Laughing Squid was founded by Scott Beale in 1995 in San Francisco and is now based in New York City.

For more info see our FAQ and Wikipedia.

Laughing Squid is made up of two complementary entities, our blog, and our hosting services.

Laughing Squid Blog

We’ve been running our blog since 2003, where we post about a variety of interesting things, including art, culture, and technology. The Laughing Squid blog is run by founder Scott Beale, who is Publisher and Editor-In-Chief. Scott is joined by his wife, Contributing Editor Lori Dorn.

Laughing Squid Hosting

Since 1998 we have been providing web hosting services to individuals, artists, and bloggers, with a current focus on Managed WordPress hosting. Hosting is our primary source of revenue, aka the “business” side of Laughing Squid. If Laughing Squid were a mullet, hosting would be the short part in the front. The revenue generated from our hosting operations helps power the Laughing Squid blog.

The History of Laughing Squid

Scott Beale founded Laughing Squid on November 16th, 1995 in San Francisco as a film and video production company, producing documentaries on the San Francisco Bay surrealist painter Alonso Smith in 1996 and The Cacophony Society’s Portland Santacon ’96 event in 1997.

In 1996 Laughing Squid launched The Squid List, a San Francisco Bay Area events email list and calendar, that was decommissioned in 2013.

Initially, Laughing Squid offered publicity and web design services, but then switched our focus to web hosting in 1998 as our primary business.

Laughing Squid became an LLC in 2000, with partners John Law and David Klass joining Scott Beale.

In 2003 Laughing Squid launched its blog, relaunching on WordPress in 2005.

Laughing Squid moved its HQ from San Francisco to New York City in 2010.

Here’s the history of the Laughing Squid name and the Laughing Squid Logo.

Here’s press and media coverage that Laughing Squid has had over the years.

Laughing Squid also organized many events during the 1990s and 2000s, including The Tentacle Sessions, a series we produced from February 21, 1999 until December 15, 2002 in San Francisco.

Here’s a gallery of the Laughing Squid Postcards created by some of our favorite artists over the years.

When Laughing Squid started out in San Francisco in 1995, we joined a vibrant and creative local community, which includes events and organizations such as Burning Man, ArtCar Fest, Defenestration, Survival Research Labs, The Cacophony Society, Power Tool Drag Races, Black Rock Arts Foundation, RoboGames, Santarchy (Santacon), Webzine, BarCamp, Maker Faire, dorkbot San Francisco, How to Destroy the Universe and Hi Fructose Magazine.

Laughing Squid continues to maintain close ties with many of these organizations.

Scott Beale
Scott Beale

Scott Beale is the founder of Laughing Squid and is based in New York City. When not running the blog, Scott can be found posting on Threads and sharing photos on Instagram.