• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

What's the oldest meme you remember?

Status
Not open for further replies.
All your base and Goatse are some of the first I remember, many of the examples here are from the later days in the 2000's. ASCII art was fun. Maybe hamster dance as well?

It makes me feel old when O rlly owl was some people's first meme, and I'm surprised no one here has mentioned "Every time you masturbate.... God kills a kitten. That was as popular as many other memes here.
 
bUNXwFD.jpg
 
It's hard to know what counts as a meme, but I'm going to say trout-slapping.

This is one image that I remember particularly well, partially because I still think it's hilarious:
stolen-megahurtz.jpg
 
The problem with "meme" is that there's a difference between fads/really popular shit and "memes".

Like Pogs... That was a fad.
Dancing baby... Meme? Nah. The Internet didn't know what a meme was back in the late 90s.

Now, the first forced meme - that's a quality topic there.
And for that, my answer is Chocolate Rain.
 
Erekiddo said:
Or better yet, the oldest memorable one you remember. We all remember the dancing baby bullshit.

Mine: Dschinghis Khan - Moskau

http://youtu.be/BQAKRw6mToA
Click to expand...

That was a meme? I came across that song several years ago because some metal band (I can't remember who) did a cover of it.

Anyway, probably the ooga-chaka baby, I think. Hell, it even made it onto that Ally McBeal show or something. If that doesn't count, then I don't know. Maybe Leeroy Jenkins around 2004/2005 when I was playing WoW? I can't remember how long ago some of the older memes are that I'm familiar with.
 
mhayes86 said:
That was a meme? I came across that song several years ago because some metal band (I can't remember who) did a cover of it.

Anyway, probably the ooga-chaka baby, I think. Hell, it even made it onto that Ally McBeal show or something.
Click to expand...

Meme, internet fad/sensation, offline sensation.

Doesn't matter. This thread has reminded me of stuff I had forgotten.
 
Does "Cowabunga!" count? I feel like the TMNT cartoon was full of memes for elementary-school aged kids.

Also "It's so bad" from The Wizard.
 
Erekiddo said:
Meme, internet fad/sensation, offline sensation.

Doesn't matter. This thread has reminded me of stuff I had forgotten.
Click to expand...

Nah, I'm just surprised is all. I was never aware that it was any of those for any stretch of time. I heard the song on an album and thought it was catchy, so I looked it up and came across the original song on YouTube. Never heard about it outside of my circle of friends who I introduced it to.
 
An old one I can remember that I'm not sure is up anymore is this "got pwned" website or something like that which was popular at the time. The gimmick was it played with subdomains, so it was like: yourname.gotpwned.com and then the preceding animations had that name on it.
 
Brokun said:
Yes! This one.
Click to expand...

A younger MrCunningham used to spend so much of his time trying to make popular meme's on YTMND.


Meowster said:
Yeah it was from that but this guy was everywhere on the internet in the late 90s (I think? Was it early 2000s? I was so young then). I remember everyone emailing it on their AOL and Compuserve email accounts.
Click to expand...

The baby dance actually predates Ally McBeal and was making its rounds on the internet a year or so before the show ever aired. But the show actually made the baby dancing gif even more mainstream and popular online.
 
Oh, the joys of memes before it was 'Vaguely funny image with Impact font on two lines' image macros.

I definitely remember All Your Base, Various YTMNDs, End of Ze World, Kamikaze Watermelon, Numa Numa, and Hamster Dance, although they all kinda blur together with regards of what year they became popular. YTMNDs used to be my jam during middle school.
 
The oldest I remember is "You're the man now, dog!"I still say it to this day.

Aeana said:
We used to draw this on all kinds of things (back in the 80s) and I don't think any of us knew what it actually was.
Click to expand...

I thought it was just a fancy S. It isn't?
 
Not sure the exact age of these but the super earliest I remember are: Peanut Butter Jelly Time, End of Ze World, All Your World Are Belong To Us, and You Activated My Trap Card
 
MrCunningham said:
Goatse was the original Rick Roll. Back when online chat groups were still a thing, I would see people stealth re-direct websites to Goatse with messages like "Check out my website and photos of me".
Click to expand...

I'll never forget being sent fake URLs in AIM prefaced by a friend "turn your speakers up this song is amazing" only to have "YOU ARE WATCHING GAY PORN. EVERYONE THERE IS GAY PORN GOING ON IN THIS ROOM." blast through the speakers while a browser with Goatse was stuck on my screen and I couldn't close it except for ALT+CTRL+DELETE. The days of my youth.
 
YATTA!!
 
People got the definition of meme wrong. A meme has to be spread through the culture through replication, taking the initial idea and changing it.

Macarena is just a dance. Everyone is doing the original macarena. They are not using the macarena dance and replicating it with an original style. An example of a dance music that turned into a meme is the Harlem Shake.

All Your Base is the oldest meme for sure.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

What is the first cartoon or tv series you can remember when you were young
2 3
138
3K
Player Respawn replied
  • Poll
What Generation Are You?
2
80
550
Avid Reading Horse replied
Remember Elizabeth Smart? From kidnapping and sexual assault survivor to champion bodybuilder
3
150
Bojji replied
What's the deal with your avatar.
2 3
131
2K
Sand Dan Glokta replied
What's up with the Discord to Trans pipeline?
33
737
Doomtrain replied
Top Bottom