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Submitted via IRC for Bytram
What, exactly, is the Hampsterdance? If you were online around the turn of the millennium, you probably think you know the answer to this question. I did, anyway. And the first, seemingly obvious definition is that it's a website. It's the kind of website you probably haven't seen in a decade, at least — lost to the pixels of time along with stuff like Zombo.com and the emo rants you used to publish on LiveJournal. But it's a website, just the same. One page with one purpose: deliver 392 animated GIFs of dancing rodents and the most infuriating .wav file ever uploaded — a sound that, way back when, threatened to blast out of your speakers every time you checked your email.
It's weird to think about now — weirder than a website devoted to hundreds of cartoon rodents. But 20 years ago, the Hampsterdance was revolutionary, an example of "going viral" before anyone was even using the phrase. Want to make someone LOL? Send them the Hampsterdance. Want to prank your boss? Teacher? Roommate? Get everyone to load the page at the same time. It infiltrated the culture, both online and off, even popping up in a TV ad for Earthlink. And it made its conquest before iPhones, before social media — spreading through email and old-timey word of mouth.
When you consider all that, it's fair to call it the world's first online meme — or one of the first, depending on your source.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @10:54PM (6 children)
Contrary to the belief to those born after the Reagan Administration that all history began around 1990, particularly when it comes to computers, but there really was very active online activity in the 1980s and *gasp* even earlier. Today's online intercourse is a pale shadow of the glory days of usenet where if you didn't lurk, you had to survive with great argumentative skills, great wit, or you had to be an excellent troller. It is where the idea of flamewars and needing your asbestos underpants came from, among many other, shall we say, memes arose.
Perhaps all those early memes got eaten by the arpavax?
Or, maybe a meme that is a bit more close to home for some here,
1. Make idiotic claims supported by no evidence
2. Post it on a click-baity site
3. ????
4. Profit!
(Score: 4, Funny) by ikanreed on Wednesday January 02 2019, @10:57PM (5 children)
Fuck you, decrepit BBS lUSER! The web is the real internet and your generation's garbage dialing in and editing a text file was nothing compared to my generation's awesome marquee and blink tags.
(Score: 3, Funny) by MostCynical on Wednesday January 02 2019, @11:09PM
Don't forget the ant crawl border
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @11:32PM (3 children)
BBS user?? Son, go get me a glass of water and I'll tell you about the Internet before Al Gore opened it up to all you dialup trash.
We were out blowing each other up on DECWAR [utexas.edu] and other things on the VAX.
You want another meme??? Meet Bob. Maybe I'll tell you about his SubGenius church sometime.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Thexalon on Wednesday January 02 2019, @11:47PM
Alternately, you can just read all about the Church of the Subgenius [subgenius.com] at their official site. The guy more-or-less in charge of it, Ivan Stang, is a friend-of-friends of mine, and I've shaken hands with him a few times, he's a fun guy to have around.
The real question, though, is whatever happened to Kibo.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 03 2019, @01:40AM (1 child)
Did you already have flat-earthers back then ?
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Friday January 04 2019, @01:30AM
This make me sad. I miss one of the old flat earth society pages. (From the era of the "Springfield Effect".)
There was a site that had a great picture of the astronaut on the moon standing next to the US flag. It was the real photo, but photo-shopped to look like it was on a small stage on a wooden riser with a backdrop raising up from the back if the riser. The terrain on the riser and the picture on backdrop looked exactly like the real moon photo except the shadow of the astronaut and flag "bent" to go up the backdrop wall. I wish I could find that again. It was hilarious.