6. ROFLcopter – c.2000 – 2001
photo source: Wikpedia
The ROFLcopter became really popular after it was featured on something awful forums. It was initially used to poke fun at new users who overused acronyms such as “l33t” (elite) and gained attention on forums such as Fark. The ROFLcopter meme is one of the earliest and most notable examples of ASCII art.
A Flash game was created as a result of the emergence of various ASCII art animations, influenced by popular internet slang. The meme’s popularity reached its peak with the inclusion of a GIF featuring an ASCII helicopter with “ROFL” and “LOL” abbreviations as its blades. This iconic GIF was officially registered on a website named roflcopter.Com in 2004.
5. It’s a Trap! – early 2000s
photo source: Know Your Meme
The meme was not popularized until sometime in the early 2000s, despite the movie being released in 1983. The meme features a quote and an image of Admiral Ackbar, a character from the film Star Wars Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi. Trap! It’s one of the earliest reaction memes that people often warn about due to its potential bait-and-switch nature.
The original macro image was produced by an administrator from Something Awful and the meme was initially used as a response to images of individuals who appear to be sexually ambiguous. It gave rise to another popular meme, “It’s a Tarp!”, Where the misspelling is deliberate. Since gaining popularity, the phrase has become ingrained in popular culture and has even influenced the title of a Family Guy parody of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, titled “It’s a Trap!”.
4. Hampster Dance – 1999
photo source: Wikipedia
Hampton Hamster was the name of the website that generated the most web traffic in House Hamster’s honor. Her best friend and sister were in a competition with her, so she created the webpage LaCarte to see which one of them could generate the most traffic. The site, created by Deidre, a Canadian art student in 1998, featured rows of animated GIFs of small dancing rodents and hamsters. Dance Hampster, intentionally misspelled, is one of the earliest single-purpose websites.
In the summer of 1999, LaCarte’s website did not become popular until March. The site had over 17 million views, thanks to the release of “The Hampsterdance Song” by Boomtang Boys, which was based on a sample of “Whistle Stop.” The popularity of the site led to the release of the song. The Canadian animation studio Nelvana had planned an animated series based on the hamsters, and the song has been featured in a few films.
3. All Your Base Are Belong to Us – 1998
photo source: Wikipedia
The original Japanese script of the 1989 arcade game Wing Zero features a mistranslation in the phrase “Us to belong are base your all of over taken have CATS Forces, Federation of cooperation the With.” The accurate translation of the original Japanese script is “With the cooperation of the Federation, the CATS Forces have taken over your base.” This mistranslation became popular on the internet and grew in popularity over time, becoming a popular catchphrase.
In 2000, Jefferey Ray Roberts, a computer programmer and part-time DJ, shared a techno dance track called “Invasion of the Gabber Robots”. This track creatively combined elements of the Zero Wing video game music with a voice-over phrase stating, “All your base are belong to us”. The meme gained significant popularity on the Something Awful message forums, particularly in the Kansas City community.
The phrase “popular culture” has been featured in numerous forms including webcomics and websites, video games, TV shows, songs, radio shows, movies, clothing, comics, books, and articles, both in the past and present.
2. Dancing Baby – 1996
photo source: Wikipedia
The source file of the 3D character animation software product, “Studio,” was released as a sample. The short viral video features a dancing baby rendered in 3D as an introduction to the song “Hooked on a Feeling” by the Swedish rock group Blue Swede. The video gained popularity through email chains in 1996 and is one of the oldest viral sensations on the internet, known as Cha-Cha Baby or Baby Dancing.
The animated GIF, which demonstrated the peak of the baby dancing process and was created by web developer John Woodell, eventually spread around the internet. It was so popular because it featured the titular character’s biological clock as a metaphor in the show “Ally McBeal”.
1. Godwin’s Law – 1990
Photo credit: Buzzfeed.
This means that as the conversation grows online, the probability of someone mentioning Nazis or Hitler increases. “As the discussion involving Hitler approaches, the likelihood of comparing someone to him grows,” says Mike Godwin, who coined the adage on the Usenet discussion board in 1990. It is still relevant today, making it one of the oldest and most enduring internet memes, known as Godwin’s Law.
Today, when someone brings up Hitler or Nazis in a discussion and is declared as having “lost,” it is common for people to invoke Godwin’s Law to signal the conclusion of the conversation.