Early Internet History That'll Hit You Right In the Feels

Hello nostalgia, we meet again.

Published 9 years ago in Feels

Hello nostalgia, we meet again.

1
Numa Numa This video, made by Gary Brolsma and uploaded to Newgrounds in 2004, is one of the first "memes" I can personally remember becoming viral. It was a huge deal seeing "The Internet" on the Today show. I'm sure my parents were proud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmtzQCSh6xk

2
BADGER BADGER BADGER A flash animation created by Jonti Picking in 2003, it's an animated music video with dancing badgers and growing mushrooms. This might be better if you're on mushrooms, but I'll let you decide. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIyixC9NsLI

3
Afro Ninja Another pre-youtube video uploaded in 2005. A stunt man Allen Hicks recorded this as an audition tape. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEZ2lpM0Yw

4
Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny Another swf file, this time animated by Shawn Vulliez to an audio track by Neil Cicierega. The song has tons of references to pop culture at the time, including a Chuck Norris that kicks everyone's ass and a Mister Rogers who is the last man standing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WgT9gy4zQA

5
It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time! Everyone's favorite dancing banana was made famous here as he dances to The Buckwheat Boyz song "Peanut Butter Jelly Time". The video made a hit in the early 2000s and was another early meme to make it to the big times, being animated into Family Guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8MDNFaGfT4

6
This video shows Ghyslain, a Canadian teen at the time, filming himself using a golf ball retriever in a way that looks like a lightsaber. This was filmed on 8mm, making it a super classic. Unfortunately, after some of his schoolmates found it and uploaded it to Kazaa in 2003, a legal battle ensued over the harassment and emotional suffering his schoolmates caused. This was one of the first high profile cases involving privacy in the digital age. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPj6viIBmU

7
LEEEEEROYYYY JEEENKINNNSSSSS In May 2005, when Upper Blackrock Spire was all the rage in the still-popular World of Warcraft, a guy named Leeroy Jenkins was tired of waiting for his raid to figure out the odds of success (32.33%... repeating of course), he ran into the egg room and started the event, dooming the party - GODDAMNIT LEEROY! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hooKVstzbz0

8
Evolution of Dance This video, showing a motivational speaker dancing to 32 different songs recorded between 1956 and 2004, was one of the first highly watched videos on YouTube. Many people visiting the site in 2007 will remember seeing this atop the "Most Viewed" and "Most Favorited" lists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg

9
crab.swf When I think of the weird classic internet of the early 2000s, this is one of the first things that comes to mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkrLTsg8YTI

10
Techno Viking This video, shot in July 2000 at Fuckparade (a techno music festival), was uploaded to YouTube in 2006 and became a hit once it was uploaded to a Central American porn site in 2007. Thanks to eBaumsworld, Digg, and YTMND, it is now on our list of classics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMh8V04s7Ts

11
Bananaphone! The video, uploaded to Newgrounds by Dave Teatro and LazyWill features a lot of clip-art and stock images animated to the song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5C6X9vOEkU

12
The End of the World A classic swf file uploaded to Albino Blacksheep in October 2003 by user Fluid. As this and the previous gif show, this is what we had to put up with before YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCpjgl2baLs

13
Charlie The Unicorn Charrrrrrlieeeee! A video about two whimiscal unicorns annoying the reasonable one and trying to get him to go to Candy Mountain. I won't ruin it for you in case you haven't seen it, but it's another classic from the Newgrounds era. Uploaded in November 2005 by Steele, and followed up by a sequel after it become popular. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsGYh8AacgY

14
All Your Base Are Belong To Us If you spent any time at all on the Internet in the early 2000s, you have heard the phrase "All Your Base Are Belong To Us". This video comes from the opening video to a 16-bit game called Zero Wing and started spreading across forums as soon as it hit the net. Why was it so popular? The whole thing is one bad translation with pretty high production quality (for the time). It also made its way into a lot of remixes and other forms of media. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fvTxv46ano

15
The Dancing Baby, or "Baby Cha-Cha" to some, was a 3D rendered baby that danced to the intro of "Hooked on a Feeling". It's virality is thanks to a developer who made a video-to-gif converter, similar to a very early version of what Imgur uses now, and used the video to make a gif. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5x5OXfe9KY