this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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Antique Memes Roadshow

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Giving you the backstory and appraisals of vintage memes!

Submissions should be vintage memes or commentary about vintage memes. Commenters are advised to appraise the internet value and provenance meme antiquities.

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[–] Deceptichum 46 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

I've now been sent on a strange and depressing journey back to 1996 and I don't want to be here anymore.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

'Going Viral' wasn't a term yet and 'Meme' didn't yet mean what it does today, but as someone who was a nerdy teen in the geocities era, this is the first thing I remember that started on the internet and reached a truly mass audience.

Can anyone think of any earlier example of an internet meme going viral?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago

Hampsterdance is from -98, dancing baby is -96.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Back when meme transmission was "hey, did you get that e-mail? I'll forward it to you the next time I log on"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Back when your grandma would print out an email chain letter and bring it to your house.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

When I got this back in the day the subject line was something like:

Fw: Fw: Re: Fw: Fw: ad infinitum

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This was from a time when people would send actual video files to random people over email and they would open it with no concern about viruses.

[–] deranger 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

This feels a bit anachronistic. Email attachment size limitations were strict in the 90s, bandwidth was limited, and video codecs sucked. I don’t have strong memories of people forwarding realplayer videos. I don’t consider gifs and flash to be video, maybe that’s it?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Imminent Death of the Net emails used to be a thing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Badger Badger was 2003, and it was the first thing I saw escape the confines of internet nerd-dom and go viral in office spaces. Dancing Baby was mid-90's, so several years earlier, but I never saw it referenced out of the community of the terminally online. Heck, the web was still in it's infancy in the mid-90's.

[–] mark3748 10 points 6 months ago

It was on Ally McBeal and then in other mainstream media for years. It was the origin of the term “viral video”.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Dancing baby made the news and I think it was even in a movie or two.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The trumpeting skull was later?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Created in '99, went viral in 2011.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago (3 children)

what is this from like the 1900s?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago
[–] jballs 7 points 6 months ago

My kid was playing the game Mafia the other day and mentioned the final scene took place in 1851. I was like "are you sure it was 1851 and not 1951?" He was like, "yeah, I think you're right."

So yeah, kids legitimately and unironically confuse the 1800s with 1900s now. So we got that going for us.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Interesting fact, this baby was everywhere because it came with 3D Studio Max. It was included as a demo model alongside a cartoony ogre and a velociraptor.

The animation was also included to demo their Character Studio animation and motion capture capabilities.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So Ally McBeal just used a pre made animation and acted like they made it?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

I read 2 articles on its creation and different animators were mentioned in each story. The only consensus I saw between the articles was that John Chadwick combined the baby model, animation and music together. The baby model was purchased to be used in 3DSMax, so they could have made it for Ally Mcbeal then sold the model

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Hey, I forgot all about 3D Studio Max! I used a pirated copy of that to create a 3D logo for my friend's business.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Serious Ally McBeal vibes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

You are the only person in the comments so far to mention where this baby "originally came from" is in where it got the widest audience at the time. I didn't even watch Ally McBeal but I knew at as "the dancing baby from Ally McBeal" forever.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What ever happened to that lady?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Being married to Harrison Ford and doing all the cool shit that comes along with that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Oh dang! I didn't know that. I don't really follow celebrity news or anything, but that seems like something I should have known.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The playstation can produce mind-boggling effects

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (2 children)

IDK if anyone remembers this, or if it's my brain making things up, but I swear the first place I saw this was a late night TV ad for "animated ringtones" you could buy for your phone and one of them was this dancing baby

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Yes pretty sure I remember that too

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

I was terrified of this baby as a kid! Fucking creepy ass baby with that creepy ass intro to hooked on a feeling.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

I suddenly feel the urge to rent a video tape

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Definitely prehistoric. I remember this from the early days of the www.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

That ones so old I saw it first on a CD ROM

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Isn't this from like 10 years ago, when the internet memes started? (I'm not going to listen to anyone telling me is longer, so don't bother :-P)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Older than that. It was trending in 1997.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago

SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH!

OW, MY BACK!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

I remember a screensaver that was several of those that could dance to certain midis you could put in a folder and came with a Mortal Kombat tune by default.

Another thing that little baby reminds me is one video, same model, where he's drunkenly walking forward while pissing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

the resulting animation was first discarded for being too "disturbing."

Ah, what an innocent time.

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