These Internet fads and phenomenons all have something in common: They grew in popularity very fast, and are now a part of Internet fad and pop culture. At the most, use this Web phenomenon list to reflect on how technology changes our culture and ethical values. At the least, sit back and enjoy.
In 1988, an enterprising but law-breaking Dave Rhodes sent out what is arguably the very first spam ever made. The “MAKE MONEY FAST” letter landed him in jail for almost ten years. This electronic mass mailing was made possible by USENET, the father of the Internet.
The “Ooga-chaka dancing baby” video
In 1996, Ron Lussier created the “Dancing Baby” video. It spread like wildfire through email. A diaper-clad dancin’ freak, the “Ooga-chaka Baby” hit mainstream popularity by making guest appearances onAlly McBeal, award shows, and TV commercials (including some for Blockbuster Video). This was made possible by the emergence and widespread use of email.
“All your base are belong to us”
In 2000, an old Nintendo video game called Zero Wing came back to life. People noticed the embarrassingly poor translation of the game’s dialog, with zingers like, “You have no chance to survive make your time,” and “Somebody set up us the bomb,” and of course “All your base are belong to us.” Sightings of this last phrase appear in hundreds of doctored photos posted to hundreds of fan Web sites. “All your base are belong to us” was made possible by the proliferation of faster computers and cheap photo editing software (and someone abusing their Japanese-to-English dictionary).
YTMND – “You’re the man now, dog!”
In 2001, Max Goldberg created a repeating sound loop and background image, both taken for promotional material from the film “Finding Forrester”. The “You’re The Man Now, Dog!” clip becomes extremely popular. Over time, the site inspired others to do the same. The ytmnd.com website is a repository for any user to create an account, create a looping video and/or audio track, and have it be displayed and rated by anyone on the Internet. The more popular YTMNDs often spin off other related creations. In this way, YTMND has become a kind of viral-spreading meta-phenomenon, commenting on pop culture (both geek and non-geek), the Internet, and itself. The creations are often mind-numbingly catchy, fascinating, bizarre, fun, frightening (do NOT look at this one when you’re alone in the dark!), and, perhaps only to me, inexplicably funny.
In 2003, a high school student, alone with a video camera and obviously a fan of Star Wars, recorded himself in a light saber duel against an unseen opponent. He made the mistake of not erasing the tape: His “friends” found the video and uploaded it to the Internet in April 2003. People took and reworked the video, adding high-quality light saber special effects and music. Some reworked the video and inserted it into other movie clips, putting the “Star Wars Kid” into scenes from The Matrix, Braveheart, and others. While some videos support the SWK and are very well done, not all videos are complementary. Within five months, the video was downloaded more than 15 million times, and the Kid’s parents sued his friends for invasion of privacy.
In 2004, Gregg and Evan Spiridellis created the “This Land” animation about then-President George Bush and his democratic electoral opponent John Kerry. With blisteringly funny political commentary (and a catchy soundtrack), the video flew through the Internet, and Gregg and Evan became very, very popular. The JibJab website contains the “This Land” video as well as many other creations.
“The Evolution of Dance” by Jud Laipply
In 2006, an “inspirational comedian” named Jud Laipply was struck with the idea of how much dancing had changed over the years. To physically illustrate this, he developed a dance routine called “The Evolution of Dance“. While you enjoy the dance itself (anyone moderately versed in American pop culture should love this), don’t forget to ponder the deep, relevant moral of the dance: “Life is change”
There’s never a bad place to just start dancing. Matt proved it. Staring in 2005, the man went to many places around the world, and just started gettin’ down. From Siberia to Connecticut, incorporating incredible locations, there’s something really oddly addictive to the videos. You feel better after watching them. Yes, Matt’s just an average, ordinary guy. Matt says so himself. But the dancing videos themselves do something good, something beyond the ordinary.
The instances listed above are obviously not the only Big Internet Phenomenon and Fads, nor are they necessarily the most important. Many more articles could be written about the significance of Napster, eBay, e-mail scams, viruses, AOL and others.
An interesting side effect of all these technologies mixing together makes what I think is a pretty strange tasting dessert: What do you think will happen when our culture is given a way to view, transmit, share and edit any data in such a way that it costs the user almost nothing, and if done right can be impossible to trace?
(An interesting response to this question can be found in the book “The Light of Other Days“, by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. While the “asteroid hurtling toward Earth” is a science fiction concept cheesier than Velveeta, the rest of the book makes up for that. It follows the path of humankind as it goes through a world change similar in concept to my point. It demonstrates the concept of a loss of privacy brought about by new technology. And while I don’t think we’ll be seeing the book’s excellent finale in real life anytime soon, it’s a great read.)
So how does this affect us? Is this really a problem? Or to put it bluntly, why should we worry about this now? The answer is we may not need to worry, but we do need to care. Within the last fifteen years, technology has grown not just to the point where we’ve become dependant on it, but it’s actually changing the way we live. Media publishing giants are losing money fast, due to what they claim is illegal music and video sharing. Local specialty stores are losing customers because it’s easier, cheaper (and tax free) to purchase things off the Internet. Computer viruses are dangerous and effective enough that they’ve taken down government and commercial networks within minutes, demonstrated by the “Blaster” and “SoBig” viruses. These effects force providers to rev up security, leading to new corporate standards, even more complex systems, and yes, user monitoring. It’s a well known catch-22 that increasing safety requires a loss in personal freedoms. It’s the same with computers. If we’re slowly evolving into a society where every e-mail and shared file can be traced, and every virus creator caught, what will the side effects be on the rest of our lives?
And who says history doesn’t repeat itself: For good or evil, I’ve just downloaded a video called “All your star wars kid are belong to us”. Hopefully the Dancing Baby will make an appearance.