the website's founder is sedat kapanoğlu. he founded the website for communicating with his friends in 1999 as he was inspired by "the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy". ekşi sözlük has been successful, many other websites that use this concept has emerged, like i̇tü sözlük in turkish. turkish sociologist zeynep tufekci says it is like "wikipedia, a social network and reddit rolled into one."