this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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[–] hglman@lemmy.ml 133 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Rick roll is hardly early internet.

Source, im old

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one 50 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Yeah, but goatse isn't very wholesome. Let the kid believe :P

[–] Donjuanme@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

You're the man now dog?

Dancing baby?

Hell there were viral things before Google existed.

[–] Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 year ago

Goatse is the definition of some hole, tub girl on the other hand...

[–] TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

No, but it is hole-some.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Star wars kid, daft punk hands, daft punk girls, ninja kid there are tons of earlier internet memes.

[–] brygphilomena@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I forgot about daft punk hands. Wow.

Badger badger badger was always fun. So was End of ze world.

And even those are pretty late memes.

[–] Zerlyna@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I second this comment. I am old too. 🤣

[–] Pandantic@midwest.social 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think all your base is pretty wholesome :3

I mean, TAKE OFF EVERY ZIG!! 🥰

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I put on my robe and wizard hat.

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[–] lowleveldata@programming.dev 7 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Actually it was found that Rick roll was originally inspired by an old Internet video dated back to the late 70s. They did a research on that if you're interested.

[–] PithyPolynym@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

Knew what "a research" was linking to, but I clicked it anyway.

[–] blindjezebel@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

I got an ad before the video, ffs. My day is ruined.

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[–] foggy@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Why, when I saw my first decapitation video I was merely a boy!

[–] Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee 91 points 1 year ago (11 children)

2007 wasn’t early internet lol.

Early internet’s most famous meme was probably either hamster dance or dancing baby. All Your Base wasn’t long after.

[–] bhmnscmm@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean there were even fax machine "memes". Checkout Faxlore if you weren't around at the time.

[–] Regna@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Thank you, I had forgotten some of the memes and jokes from that era.

[–] FarFarAway@startrek.website 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

That toaster cat shitting rainbows!

Edit or the beep beep frog with the schlong

Edit edit: guess that last one was a whole video...not a meme

[–] folkrav@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nyan Cat

That's quite recent still tho

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[–] UndefinedIsNotAFunction@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Re: peanut butter jelly time - my 8 year old picked it up somewhere along the way and is one of his favorite songs now.

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[–] dandroid@dandroid.app 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I miss the days of looping flash videos. The Badger Song, The Llama Song, Magical Trevor, etc. Those defined my childhood.

[–] TimoBRL@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers mushroom mushroom

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[–] keefshape@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago

Nuhuh.

True early internet meme was pics from Madonna's coffee table book. Iykyk.

For sure dancing baby. Was shared as an attachment on emails even before YouTube was a thing

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 47 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Like many other commenters, I wouldn't consider rickrolling to be "early internet." First of all it's a mutation of the duckroll meme, and dates as late as 2007. Trogdor predates rickrolling by 5 years.

But, I do have to say, I appreciate the rickroll as the internet's official prank. Tricking someone into watching a slightly cheesy but inoffensive music video to an actually pretty good song about being a faithful lover is pretty okay.

[–] coaxil@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

Consummate V's!!!!!

[–] Drgon@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's better than when a link could bring you to meatspin, lemon party, or Goatse

[–] key@lemmy.keychat.org 3 points 1 year ago

Don't forget tubgirl!

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[–] mister_monster@monero.town 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Youtube isn't the early internet friend.

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

I still remember the first time someone told me about YouTube. I thought they were saying U2, the bad, and was really confused.

Fuck I'm old.

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[–] Mishmash2000@lemmy.nz 25 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Just for a bit of context I was "surfing the internet" in 1994 via Gopher, an early alternative to the web as we know it now and I used it primarily to find and download apps stored on computers connected to the internet.

In 1995 I was using the Mosaic browser and later Netscape to surf the World Wide Web mostly via webrings that were individual webpages that had links to other wepages of similar content linked to them.

I don't recall and am not aware of anything that would resemble a meme from that time? This is a year or so before Dancing Baby which is usually considered the first viral video and even then that was originally shared via email forwards.

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Memes back then were under construction gifs.

[–] GreenMario@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Geocities circa 94-96. The first place anyone could have a little webpage.

We didn't even have CSS then! We had to build our pages in a cave with a box of HTML tags for scraps. You could do some sick shit with some fancy nested TABLE tags tho.

[–] AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I remember when they depreciated tables for use in styling, and everybody was freaking out because how could you make a pretty website without them?

We didn't know back then how spoiled we would be with CSS.

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[–] vashti 4 points 1 year ago

Usenet was absolutely swarming with memes. They were text-based rather than image-based but they were definitely memes.

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[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is the moment to mention that Rick Astley still makes music and just released a new song, it's called Never gonna stop. I'm not kidding, also, it's a banger.

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one 6 points 1 year ago

Rick Astley is an amazing vocalist, for real. I've heard some of his more recent stuff, and it's very good.

With that being said, I'm still not clicking that link

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 5 points 1 year ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=FON2SycdqaM&

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

[–] Pacers31Colts18@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dancing baby is the early internet meme.

[–] Today@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I hate that baby!

[–] ChlorineAddict@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

My spoon is too big

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 year ago

Lol dude what the fuck? That is not early Internet. That's a good decade and a half past early Internet.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

That was not early internet.

[–] Donebrach@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Hah. "early internet." Just like how Video Games' first foray into existence was in 2003 with Knights of the Old Republic. Before then, nothing existed.

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