I think the first one I remember is the dancing baby.  While the Internet has been around since since the 1970’s, I’ve only been on it since about 1997 or so, and it took me longer to actually make friends and get exposed to Internet memes.  A great way to tell just how long you’ve been in cyberspace is to check out this interactive timeline of Internet memes I found over at Gear Diary.  So how long have you been using the World Wide Web?

It’s funny, as the timeline of memes gets closer and closer to the present day, the memes become less and less specific to the Internet.  Sure, the dancing baby had a guest spot on Ally McBeal, but I remember it as a screensaver on my cousin’s desktop long before it ever appeared on TV.  But Susan Boyle isn’t really an Internet-only phenom; after all, she was on a TV show in the UK before she made it big in the US, so does she really fall into the same category as Ninja Cat?

I think that once something crosses over to television, it stops being an Internet meme, except in the case where it’s a show about Internet memes or mocking Internet memes.  I love Weezer’s Pork and Beans video, but I’m not sure it counts in the same way that the Hamster Dance did.

Image:  Random Funny Pictures

Tags: internet culture, internet memes, timeline of internet memes, internet phenomenon, unusual charts, pop culture

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