What Even Is an Early Internet Meme?
When most of us think about memes, we picture TikToks, Instagram reels, or image macros speeding through our feeds. But long before algorithms and infinite scroll, the 1990s internet had its own version of viral culture. Slow dial-up connections, clunky desktop computers, and hand-made web pages were the environment where some of the first recognizable internet memes took shape.
This site takes a closer look at two of the most iconic proto-memes: Dancing Baby, a 3D animated baby doing a cha-cha, and “All Your Base Are Belong to Us”, a broken English line from the game Zero Wing that exploded into a remix phenomenon. By tracing how these pieces of media spread, mutated, and were talked about, we can see how early internet communities created a blueprint for the meme culture we live in now.
How This Site Is Organized
Use the navigation bar above to explore:
- Dancing Baby: Origins, spread, and why it was called the “first internet meme.”
- All Your Base: From mistranslated cutscene to massive web in-joke.
- Life Before Social Media: How memes circulated through email chains, forums, and fan sites.
- Then vs. Now: Comparing 1990s meme circulation with TikTok-style algorithmic virality.
- Sources: A list of articles, books, and archives I used in my research.
The pages are written in the spirit of a 1990s fan site: a little flashy, a little weird, but grounded in research and reflection on how these early digital jokes shaped the way we communicate online.