| At its simplest, a meme is "an idea that, like a gene, can replicate and evolve". In the looking glass world of the Internet, this can translate into "a universal, mutating, deeply contagious outbreak of silliness that overtakes all of intelligent life as we know it". |
| Classicists insist that the most tenacious Internet memes have an essential element of silliness to them "" and that no one will ever be able to explain why one meme trumps over another. Here's a look at some of the oldest and weirdest memes on the Net. |
| The lolcat meme: No one knows exactly when the first picture of a cat was posted on the net by a loving pet owner who thought it would be funny to include "baby talk" captions, but some say that the venerable trend of catposting was around ever since the net became image-friendly. |
| The typical "lolcat" shot will depict a kitten in cute/embarrassing poses with puke-worthy categories like "Is it could its be hugs time?" In 2006, an out-of-work computer engineer started Icanhascheezburger.com as an archive for catposters, and lolcats found a new lease of life. |
| http://icanhascheezburger.com : The ultimate, nauseatingly irresistible lolcats site. |
| http://lolgays.com: mimics the lolcats phenomenon with far riper pictures "" not kid-friendly, but often very funny. |
| The dancing meme: The original dancing object meme was probably started off by Deidre LaCarte in 1998, when she created "Hampsterdance" in homage to her pet hamster, Hampton. The original page with its cheesy gifs is still reverently maintained at Geocities (remember Geocities, anyone?), and spawned knockoffs such as the Satanic Hamster Dance. |
| Michael Girard created another tenacious Internet star when he tossed off a dancing baby animation to showcase one of his software products. The craze spread to the TV show Ally McBeal, and for a while, you heard its deeply annoying signature tune "" Ugachukka Oogachukka "" all over. |
| It mutated into oddball song-and-dance crazes, sometimes with humans in the starring role. As when an obscure stand-up comedian called Juddson Laipply put together the "Evolution of Dance" video, accounted the most-watched YouTube video ever. |
| http://web.archive.org/web/19991123001948 and http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/4157/hampdance.html: The original Hamster Dance |
| http://www.greymatter.org/satanichamsterdance/: And the Satanic version |
| Ally McBeal and the Dancing Baby: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZuGh3BuFwE |
| Ronald Dupont's Dancing Baby file: http://www.ronald-dupont.com/funfolder.htm |
| Evolution of Dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg |
| The AYB meme: One page of geek history is reverently devoted to "All Your Base Are Belong To Us", in homage to the virulently bad Japanese-English translation that accompanied the video game Zero Wing. |
| The actual phrase went: "How are you gentlemen. All your base are belong to us. You are on the way to destruction." AYB spread like wildfire; gamers still remember it fondly, and the original, horrible video has been preserved. |
| All Your Base Are Belong To Us: http://allyourbase. planettribes.gamespy.com/ |
| The Spaghedeity meme: The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was founded in 2005 by Bobby Henderson as a protest against the growing demand that "intelligent design" be taught alongside the theory of evolution. |
| Henderson exhorted the Kansas State Board of education to also honour the belief shared by him and "other Pastaferians", that the world was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. |
| By 2007, though, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster had acquired delighted adherents, and its Deity, accompanied by sacred meatballs, had popped up in unexpected corners of the Net. |
| This could be the world's first meme to become a full-fledged cult. It could also be the first religion to exhort its followers to use their noodles. |
| Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster: www.venganza.org |
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