Christian Rudder

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christian Rudder is an American musician, humorist, and entrepreneur.

Christian is primarily known as the creative voice of TheSpark.com, which was the viral content arm of SparkNotes during the site's early rise to popularity. Working with Chris Coyne, Christian wrote humorous tests and articles and devised absurd pseudo-science projects to spread awareness of the Spark brand and drive young people to SparkNotes' study guides. These efforts were enormously successful, and during Christian's tenure at TheSpark it was one of the most popular humor sites on the web. Christian joined TheSpark and SparkNotes in October of 1999. He became TheSpark's Creative Director in March 2001.

Soon after the sites' sale to Barnes & Noble, Christian and the SparkNotes founders - Chris Coyne, Sam Yagan, and Max Krohn - left and began work on OkCupid, a dating website that has its roots in the popular tests featured on TheSpark. OkCupid launched in 2003 and is now one of the web's largest dating sites.

Christian also plays in indie band Bishop Allen. He and Justin Rice are the band's two permanent members, and they write all the bands songs. On stage, Christian plays guitar and ukelele; in the studio, on Bishop Allen's recordings, he plays most of the instruments save drums and piano.

Christian also starred in Andrew Bujalski's 2002 film, Funny Ha Ha and with Bishop Allen will appear in Peter Sollett's upcoming film, Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist.