Just for a bit of context I was “surfing the internet” in 1994 via Gopher, an early alternative to the web as we know it now and I used it primarily to find and download apps stored on computers connected to the internet.
In 1995 I was using the Mosaic browser and later Netscape to surf the World Wide Web mostly via webrings that were individual webpages that had links to other wepages of similar content linked to them.
I don’t recall and am not aware of anything that would resemble a meme from that time? This is a year or so before Dancing Baby which is usually considered the first viral video and even then that was originally shared via email forwards.
Memes back then were under construction gifs.
Geocities circa 94-96. The first place anyone could have a little webpage.
We didn’t even have CSS then! We had to build our pages in a cave with a box of HTML tags for scraps. You could do some sick shit with some fancy nested TABLE tags tho.
As an Aussie being introduced to internet via a dial up connection using SLIP to AARNET at the start of the 90s. And yep gopher, waiting 15 mins to see a pic of Elle McPherson, and wondering how I survived for so long in the archaic world of BBS’s.
Dancing baby is the early internet meme.
Rick roll is hardly early internet.
Source, im old
Yeah, but goatse isn’t very wholesome. Let the kid believe :P
Goatse is the definition of some hole, tub girl on the other hand…
Actually it was found that Rick roll was originally inspired by an old Internet video dated back to the late 70s. They did a research on that if you’re interested.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
You spoiled the surprise
Ope, link preview coming in clutch.
Knew what “a research” was linking to, but I clicked it anyway.
I got an ad before the video, ffs. My day is ruined.
Lol dude what the fuck? That is not early Internet. That’s a good decade and a half past early Internet.
That was not early internet.
2007 wasn’t early internet lol.
Early internet’s most famous meme was probably either hamster dance or dancing baby. All Your Base wasn’t long after.
For sure dancing baby. Was shared as an attachment on emails even before YouTube was a thing
Ron Livingston playing piano as a cat.
He was imitating this video which went viral before his.
Wasn’t frog in a blender before that?
I miss the days of looping flash videos. The Badger Song, The Llama Song, Magical Trevor, etc. Those defined my childhood.
Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers mushroom mushroom
That toaster cat shitting rainbows
Edit or the beep beep frog with the schlong
Edit edit: guess that last one was a whole video…not a meme
Edit edit edit: how do we feel about peanut butter jelly time?
And edit edit edit edit…omg stupid rainbow cat just looked old enough for me to mis remember…its not old at all
Re: peanut butter jelly time - my 8 year old picked it up somewhere along the way and is one of his favorite songs now.
Between All Your Base Are Belong To Us and Peanut Butter Jelly Time, you guys are giving me a trip down memory lane! Or down CanIHazCheezburger and Shoop Da Whoops (although those are more recent, I believe)
Nuhuh.
True early internet meme was pics from Madonna’s coffee table book. Iykyk.
Like many other commenters, I wouldn’t consider rickrolling to be “early internet.” First of all it’s a mutation of the duckroll meme, and dates as late as 2007. Trogdor predates rickrolling by 5 years.
But, I do have to say, I appreciate the rickroll as the internet’s official prank. Tricking someone into watching a slightly cheesy but inoffensive music video to an actually pretty good song about being a faithful lover is pretty okay.
Consummate V’s!!!
Youtube isn’t the early internet friend.
Going off the comments, did we all just get trolled hard?
My spoon is too big
