holy crap. Man it will nevet get beter than this. Mind blown.
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: ShyGuy on September 03, 2011, 06:13:06 PM
That Baby is probably the same age as you now. Maybe it IS you.
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: zachs1997 on September 03, 2011, 06:44:31 PM
Maby. Btw off topic I just pimped your website on my facebook
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: BranDonk Kong on September 03, 2011, 09:24:40 PM
I remember back in the original day of the Hamster Dance (and the internet in it's prime, really - remember the hamster in the microwave?), I was just guessing other "____dance.com" sites, and guessed jesusdance.com - it's gone now, but it was pretty hilarious when it was active...15 years ago.
Edit - here's a mirror (or maybe the original page) - http://www.angelfire.com/id/hern/ (http://www.angelfire.com/id/hern/)
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: zachs1997 on September 03, 2011, 10:16:58 PM
Now that's funny
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: ShyGuy on September 03, 2011, 10:45:46 PM
By the way, thanks for the facebook mention!
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: zachs1997 on September 04, 2011, 12:21:40 AM
No problem
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: nickmitch on September 04, 2011, 04:54:29 PM
I remember back in the original day of the Hamster Dance (and the internet in it's prime, really).
Definitely its prime.
The sense of discovery and individualism is gone, and you'll never see it in such force ever again. This is largely thanks to corporate consolidation. For better and for worse, there are no longer any free hosts and tool sets like GeoCities and Tripod. Everything is portal driven now, almost to the point of being as primitive as AOL was back in the day. Fewer and fewer people have personal websites. Hell, most companies seem to be forgoing websites nowadays. Instead of dumbed-down channels like "AOL keywords" you have "Friend us on Facebook". If it's not on or linked to through Facebook, Wikipedia, or YouTube most people will never have a chance of seeing it. The internet was, for a brief period of time, a place of complete freedom and expression. It seems that once it became truly ubiquitous, it began to quickly devolve into just another media channel... It's meant for consumption, not participation and creativity.
...and that's without even getting into the sinister side of things that become more and more prevalent every day. People giving up anonymity and privacy for access to things like social networks, making it even easier for marketing teams and governments to track and log masses of information? Indeed, the internet is a wonderful failure for the individual. It has certainly become a boon for those that would shape ideas and public perception though.
:(
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: ShyGuy on September 05, 2011, 08:51:21 PM
It has really changed a lot, Back in the late 90s early 2000s, different protocols were around like nntp newsgroups and IRC (done through real IRC programs) Even messenger programs were a seperate animal. They all got gobbled up by the WWW monster. Now the browsers war like the Operating systems used too, and soon the website landscape will look like the current software section of Best Buy.
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: King of Twitch on September 05, 2011, 08:57:35 PM
Haven't blogging sites made website building much easier? Plus now we have music and video at our fingertips and giant storage limits for images.
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: UncleBob on September 05, 2011, 09:06:55 PM
When it comes to everyone having their own Geocities site... guh. Give me FaceBook over that mess any day.
Some people just don't have the talent (both artistic/design and programming) to develop a decent looking webpage. The GeoCities era is what spawned The Hamster Dance. I don't want to go back to that.
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: ShyGuy on September 05, 2011, 09:08:50 PM
Getting on the city water and sewer is easier than digging a well and installing a septic tank, but you lose something too.
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: Morari on September 05, 2011, 09:30:39 PM
Some people just don't have the talent (both artistic/design and programming) to develop a decent looking webpage. The GeoCities era is what spawned The Hamster Dance.
I agree, but at least it was their vision and work that made it possible. It wasn't just a repository of personal data to be exploited by advertising companies (like Facebook and Google). Besides, there were plenty of great looking and very informative pages to come out of even GeoCities, and those would always lead you to other quality sites via web rings. I think it's harder to find even quality personal websites today. It seems that no one really wants to control their online presence. They're all happy to be exposed via sterile, corporately controlled outlets.
If you searched for something with WebFerret back in the early-to-mid nineties, chances were you'd find hundreds of personal websites with varying opinions and levels of information. Nowadays though? One search engine is more or less the other, and the only results you ever really get are Wikipedia, YouTube, and the established media outlets... all spouting the exact same thing. That's not bad in and of itself, but it's definitely not what I would have liked as an outright replacement. Ideally it would all co-exist together, like it did for a short transitional period of time.
Maybe it's just because I'm a full-time artist. I embraced the internet in its relative infancy because of the great potential it had as a tool for communication and expression. That potential and ability is still there (perhaps even more so as technical limits have decreased), and yet the human element continues to ruin it through a seemingly apathetic attitude toward it all. Most people treat the internet like they would television or the radio, where they are simply consumers. That's not why I fell in love with it as a tool, and it makes me sad to think back to what it once was and how things could be today.
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: TJ Spyke on September 05, 2011, 09:43:37 PM
The Internet is so much better now, most sites back in 1998 and earlier were pretty crappy and the percentage of good ones was low. It's better than ever now, ESPECIALLY if you are an artist.
Sites like Wikipedia and YouTube get most of the results because they are popular and usually very good. There is nothing stopping others sites, but people tend to flock to what they think is best. I do like people having more options though.
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: BranDonk Kong on September 05, 2011, 11:06:53 PM
I used to have a geocities site.
Title: Re: Check out this hot new meme
Post by: Morari on September 05, 2011, 11:41:45 PM
Sites like Wikipedia and YouTube get most of the results because they are popular and usually very good.
Citation needed. :P
Seriously though. YouTube is 90% garbage and Wikipedia has strayed so far from its original intent that its really only good for a quick references or brief synopsis. With the introduction of HTML5, YouTube has little to no real purpose. Even without that, I'd rather see a real website with the creator's video content than their shoddy little YouTube channel. It looks more professional, it's far easier to get your message out there, and you don't have to answer to anyone. Control is everything, and people seem so quick to give it up. It's very perplexing that people don't want to own their online presence, instead opting to have some faceless entity profit off of it.
I'm willing to bet that you primarily consider the internet to be better today because you aren't old enough or weren't technically inclined enough to fully utilize it during the early-to-mid nineties. While today's internet certainly offers a lot of convenience, it almost completely sacrifices choice and options in the process. It's not because personal sites have been outlawed, but because people have been conditioned to just not care. The potential for a great internet experience is still there, but the powers that be (whether corporate or government) are trying very hard to make sure it becomes just another passive channel for entertainment.
