Ooga-chaka ooga ooga ...

January 25, 2018 7:39 PM

First, let’s make this clear: I did not create The Dancing Baby - but I did meme it.
posted by RobotHero (21 comments total)

I'm not sure he is as he claims: He spelled "Hampster Dance" without the "p".
posted by sourwookie at 8:03 PM on January 25, 2018 [12 favorites]

To my surprise, I started getting daily emails from people who really wanted that creepy thing I’d found.

Haha, I'm continually amazed by both how many creepy things there are out there to discover and how much people love those creepy things.
posted by limeonaire at 8:03 PM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

A pox upon you for getting Hooked on a Feeling stuck in my head.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:13 PM on January 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm glad people are recording the early randomness of the internet. I try to talk to my students about DOS prompts and the world before the img tag so they can understand how quickly the internet has grown and colonised our lives.
posted by Thella at 8:14 PM on January 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

. (previously)
posted by Nanukthedog at 8:42 PM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oh god. I watched Ally McBeal on TV at the time (back when we were either slaves to the tyranny of network time slots or forced to program videotape recorders). That baby - and what it signified in the show - was, shall I say, fraught with uneasiness in every conceivable possible way.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:57 PM on January 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

I’d never seen Ally McBeal and was unaware that babycha2.avi had inexplicably broken out into the real world.

There ya go Neal Stephenson, you have the first sentence of your next novel, get to work.
posted by mannequito at 11:47 PM on January 25, 2018 [32 favorites]

I remembering watching Ally McBeal with my mom, as it was our show to watch during dinner whatever day of the week it was, and when that baby came on I laughed pretty hard and told my mom I knew where that came from. She hadn't really gotten into the internet yet, so at the next commercial break I showed her the site. I think her comment at the time was something like "people are weird."
posted by numaner at 12:17 AM on January 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

Numaner: your mom is not wrong.

Do her a favor. Don’t show her 4chan or any of the rest of those things, just affirm her in telling her she was not wrong.
posted by drfu at 12:23 AM on January 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

It even got used in Millennium.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:27 AM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I thought AllyMcBeal had caused the meme! Super interesting.
posted by Omnomnom at 5:53 AM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is a good post and interesting but I'm going to need a button next to "Favorite" that reads "I would favorite this but it reminds me that I am one of the old people on the internet"
posted by Monochrome at 6:27 AM on January 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

I think it's funny he doesn't have any real idea why this particular thing was popular. It was creepy and well animated (for the time), that's all he's got. Also strange how the creator of the animation is sort of anonymous. Just some tech demo from an Autodesk product.

For me the first "real" meme is All Your Base, also from 1998. Mostly because it stayed in the Internet, didn't cross over to TV. But it was absolutely pervasive on Internet. And therefore a measure of how Internet culture was pervasive in the world. I remember being blown away on a trip in Fall 1998 in Paris, overhearing some other tourists talking about it while walking along the Seine with baguettes under their arms or something equally cliche. Forget Paris, did you see this crazy Internet thing that made no sense?
posted by Nelson at 7:07 AM on January 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Great story, and I think I actually remember The Unofficial Dancing Baby Homepage from the late '90s. I definitely remember All Your Base and Hampsterdance and I KISS YOU !!!!!. And I barely knew what the internet was; it all fell under the category "the world is getting stranger."
posted by languagehat at 7:40 AM on January 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

but it reminds me that I am one of the old people on the internet

If you've been on the internet for more than 10 years, don't think of yourself as "an old", think of yourself as "a seasoned elder".
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:05 AM on January 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

For me the first "real" meme is All Your Base,

The "ate my balls" series stems from 1996 and was its own category on Yahoo, back when that dumpster fire was a but a kindly mostly gray directory of the internet. Source: I am ancient.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:34 AM on January 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

up-up-up-up!! "seasoned elder"!
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:08 PM on January 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

God, this was a nostalgic read. Thanks for sharing.
posted by potrzebie at 12:28 PM on January 26, 2018

I definitely remember All Your Base and Hampsterdance and I KISS YOU !!!!!

Are we doing this here? Because also Bert is Evil and Jared, Butcher of Song.
posted by Mchelly at 1:25 PM on January 26, 2018

I had no idea this was a mystery. I recognized it as the baby from Autodesk Character Studio since it first hit public consciousness. I guess the Blue Swede is what made it special?
posted by Megafly at 3:56 PM on January 26, 2018

I definitely remember All Your Base and Hampsterdance and I KISS YOU !!!!!

Are we doing this here? Because also Bert is Evil and Jared, Butcher of Song.

FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
posted by radwolf76 at 5:07 PM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]