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The Anatomy of an Internet Phenomenon
Every once in awhile, a seemingly random website, concept, or idea spreads through the internet like the Sasser worm through Windows machines. One minute you're blissfully unaware that legions of badgers can peacefully coexist with mushrooms but not snakes, then almost overnight you can't walk 10 feet without hearing someone humming that driving rhythm or go to an anime convention without seeing someone dressed as a badger.
The latest fad, as shown on sites like this one, this one, and especially this sonic masterpiece, is to create a website with a tiled-picture background and layered 3-d text, then loop a short sound clip in the background over and over. It's like a virus, popping up everywhere, and it often incorporates past internet fads as well, like this one, an unholy alliance of All Your Base Are Belong to Us and a sound clip of Kirk screaming "Khaaaaaaan" from Star Trek II. The people who make these pages have somehow latched on to the latter clip, as it is by far the most frequently used.
Where do these people come from? As michael queried last night, how does one come up with the next internet phenomenon? Randomness seems to be a common theme (such as the badgers), as well nerd-bonding type things like video games (all your base), star trek/wars (khaaaaaaaaaan or the famous Star Wars Kid), and of course Monty Python. And repetitiveness is a must, providing easy sound bites or quotes for people to add to their webpages or .sig files.
I think we in the -273 community need to get proactive here and create our own internet phenomenon. If anyone has any random, nerdy, and repetitive ideas, post them here so we can all take credit for sucking up bandwidth and promoting the decline of society.
Comments
OK, Michael will be embarrassed by me doing this, but:
I was thinking about the analogy section on the SATs the other night, as they're getting rid of it sometime soon. For some reason, the analogy that kept creeping into my head was:
Ho: hobo :: tramp: tramp
Yes, I know. This only makes sense in my own head. And it will never actually become a phenomenon. But it does promote the decline of society, right?
Posted by: Rachel at May 6, 2004 2:12 PM
I see what you're getting at, Rachel, but shouldn't it be
ho:tramp :: hobo:tramp
?
Ho and hobo really have no relation to each other, and the classic pitfall of SAT analogy questions is attempting to find a relationship between the first word and the third, instead of the first word and the second.
I'm just saying...
Posted by: light at May 6, 2004 3:44 PM
I know! I never said the way the analogy was worded made sense; that's just how it played out in my head! I can't control these insane thoughts!
Posted by: Rachel at May 6, 2004 4:13 PM
The internet may not be ready yet, but sometime there will be a craze involving llamas. I just know it.
Posted by: Charlie at May 7, 2004 1:26 AM
The odd thing is that unlike the Weebls badger/Kenya cartoons that became popular instantaneously, "you're the man now dog dot com" existed for well over two years before it reached critical mass.
Posted by: ben at May 8, 2004 12:57 AM
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