10 Immense Internet Phenomena That People Ended Up Hating

The internet meme is no longer a new phenomena. For those of you not in the know, an internet meme is when a hyperlink or file is spread from person to persons - using the “new” means of dissemination that the internet offers. A meme has as many faces as your average politician - it can be a website in its own right, a joke, an image, a video, a weird and wonderful news story - or even an unexpected link.

A hugely popular commercial website is not referred to as a meme as these are spread though organized channels of distribution. However, it has been known to happen! The one thing they all have in common is that the distribution of a meme is voluntary. The typical meme is disorganized, anarchic and organically spread. As such an average meme can have a life span of hours, days or months. Some even longer. Here we take a trip down memory lane and visit a few of the memes that took the world by storm but which many ended up hating with a vengeance.

1. The Dancing Baby

   
   
   The stuff of nightmares, indeed! Stand up and take the blame, the development team of the Character Studio software, from Autodesk. This nightmare vision of babyhood was originally simply meant to test files and data but when it was released as a product sample in 1996 it went around the then burgeoning internet in about two seconds flat. Not that it stopped there - such was the phenomenon that it soon began making appearances on TV shows and music videos. The not-lamented Ally McBeal had one, and the band Blue Swede featured on in a promo video (their reward, the abyss of anonymity!). We had all the variations on the theme as well - the drunk baby, the rasta baby, the samurai baby. Get it away from me now!
   
   

2. The Bill Gates Beta Email

   
   
   The name of Pearlas Sandborn must go down in net history as one of the most reviled! The above is one of the originals messages from 1997, where people were promised huge amounts of cash because AOL and Microsoft were running a beta test for email. All people had to do was to send the message on to everyone in their address book and they would be rewarded beyond the dreams of avarice. Of course, no financial reward transpired for any of the hundreds of thousands - perhaps millions - who forwarded the email. This is still considered a lively jape amongst pubescent males, who simply change the names of the companies and cause bandwidth stretching to this day. Grrr.

3. Bert Is Evil

   
   
   Let's start with a real golden oldie. Bert is Evil was founded by Dino Ignacio is 1996 and it featured the popular children's TV character Bert (from Sesame Street) in a variety of manipulated images which connected him with some of the worst and most terrible episodes in human history. This was presented as “proof” that Bert was in fact much more than the harmless puppet he pretended to be. The site became so popular that Ignacio could no longer afford to run it.
   
   So, what the clever chap did was to offer anyone who wanted to mirror (ie copy) his idea the hosting opportunity they wanted. This lead to lots of mirror sites which only added to the mime effect. In a moment of life imitating art, an Islamic protestor in Bangladesh copied the image of Bert with Osama Bin Laden, and used it in a protest collage. This image spread around Western news media with alacrity, much to Ignacio's chagrin. However, this being very much a one joke joke, the idea can wear thin rapidly. Very rapidly.

4. Line Rider: The Game

   
   
   There is joy to be had in simplicity and this is almost its epitome - unless you are the employer who discovers that this is what your employees have been doing all day. This game spreads like wildfire and it only needs one person in an organization to email the link to a few others, then they forward it and the result? Zero productivity!
   
   
   The idea, like is said, is simplicity itself. You draw a line, squiggly, straight or otherwise that represents a hillside covered in snow. Then you press play and a flash animated boy on a sled tries to navigate the hillside you have drawn. It's as simple as that but proved to be an enormous internet phenomenon.
   
   The game was designed by “fsk” - the alter ego of Slovak student Bosjan Cadez. It made its first appearance on the DeviantArt website in 2006 it quickly gained popularity (and notoriety among the office managers of this world!). It was quickly followed up by Linerider 2: Unbound. In 2007 it was made available for portable devices where a Bluetooth connection enables users to share their Line Rider “adventures” with others! A Wii game version is expected out this September.

5. The LOLcats

   
   
   This really is one that you either love or hate. No, hate is too kind a word: despise, loathe, abhor, abominate, execrate. The list can go on and on. Put simply, a Lolcat is a combination of text and image. The picture is usually one of a cat in any one of a million funny or humorous situations. The text is a caption, meant to make the graphic even funnier. To make matters worse, the text is usually in “lolspeak” (sometimes known as “kitteh” for Pete's sake). For lolspeak read baby talk. This aside, these remain almost unstoppable internet phenomena.
   
   Who to blame, though? It is thought that they came about in 2005 on the imageboard 4chan (the owner of which remains anonymous today - no doubt to preserve his own safety). The lolcat phenomenon took off with I Can Has Cheeseburger in 2007 and the rest is history. The world has suffered since.

6. Canon Rock by Jerry Chang

   Sometimes a star is born when no one who is “supposed” to birth them is looking. Such was the case with Jerry Chang - mostly known by his internet name “funtwo”. His arrangement of Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel launched him to fame when it was posted online. 46 million hits can't be wrong - or so goes the argument. Being the seventeenth most watched YouTube video ever, as you can image in has inspired - or should that be spawned? - a host of copycat artist all trying to emulate Jerry's fame. Shame, boys and girls, someone got there before you!
   
   This drove people crazy not so much for the originator but for the copycats who have very little talent but insisted that everyone shared that fact. Kind of “The World's Not Got Talent”, as it were.
   
   

7. The “Straightforward” Self Promotion: Aleksey Vayner

   In 2006 a thrusting young Yale Undergraduate decided to disseminate his CV to employers. One of the organizations he applied to was UBS AG and employee or employees unknown were so astonished by Vayner's hubris that they sent his application around to friends at other investment banks. Within days the video was on YouTube and a host of blogs across the net. This spread to traditional media, both as a human interest story and as a meme. Take a look at the original, below and remember one thing. Blowing your own trumpet when it is only a penny whistle you should be playing will be discovered and with the internet, nothing and no-one is safe!
   
   People soon began to remember the bane Aleksey Vayner as much for the amount of irritating reminders of his existence as for his existence itself. Put this one on the back burner!
   
   
   
   Impossible Is Nothing!
   
   The funniest videos clips are here

8. Rickrolling

   
   
   Rickrolling has its origins in a far older internet phenomenon, called duck rolling. This involved placing a blind link in an online discussion. The unaware user, keen to follow a strand on their subject of choice would click the link and end up visiting a page that had nothing to do with the subject at all. In fact, the link would generally lead to a page the contents of which would be literally a rolling duck. This became known quickly among internet wags as duckrolling.
   
   So, things evolve. Instead of seeing a rolling duck, those who are now “rickrolled” find themselves on YouTube. Rick's 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You up” has now received more than twelve million hits. Not quite the revival he was looking for, I would guess.
   
   It started on the day that “Grand Theft Auto 4” had its web premier. The traffic to the host website was so heavy that most people trying could not watch the trailer. An anonymous prankster took it upon himself to link everyone elsewhere. Under the guise of redirecting people to a leak of the trailer on YouTube, Mr (for it surely has to be a male!) Anonymous instead linked the Grand Theft Auto gamers to Mr Astley and his chirpy 20 year old hit. Why he chose Rick Astley will remain a mystery forever, or until the culprit is brought to justice and forced to sit in a darkened room listening to Barry Manillow for several months.

9. The Corporate Meme: A Glass and a Half Full Productions

   
   
   Internet advertising, possibly at its best and a great example of an internet meme going viral with little or no help from its corporate base. However, after a while this hairy ape drove people crazy! Cadbury's surprised and delighted netizens in the UK with their “Studio” advert which will never let you think of Phil Collins in the same way again. An advert that became viral almost immediately on its release, the website offers you eight remixes from some of your favorite bands. Also featured is the newer ad featuring a variety of airport vehicles having fun to a Queen soundtrack. There is very little to do with the product in the content but you will not forget who the ads are for quickly, so it does it job quite cleverly.

10. Please Put Your Own Suggestion Below

    
    
    This list is not exhaustive and it only reflects the particular likes, dislikes and hates of the author. There are omissions aplenty. So, to make this a more complete list, please enter your own choice of irritating internet phenomena that drove you crazy! Thanks!