this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
488 points (87.7% liked)

Memes

45907 readers
1487 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I mean, back when this was a meme the whole internet was like a single echo chamber, especially in the early days of YouTube and even more so prior.

[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 year ago (3 children)

No. No it wasn't. I've been here since YouTube started and have never seen this. People thinking they're experience is everyone's experience is wild.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

Had a colleague that told me about some memes with a gay porn star. He couldn't grasp that I neither know the guy nor the memes. Allegedly they were all over the internet for years. I've never seen any of them since.

This guy is a libertarian right wing incel, so I'm pretty sure our internet experiences are completely different.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I mean, there is a shared experience for people who were online when things started. I remember Newgrounds, eBaum’s World, Nyan Cat, Epic Rap Battles of History, StumbleUpon.com.

I imagine you also experienced some or most of that short list to some extent.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Eh, maybe. While I am familiar with those things, I don't think I'd ever assume everyone my age and on the Internet would as well. Different strokes for different folks. Moreover, this didn't even take into account age at all. So not only did it appear to strike out with many of the same age, it'll likely strike out with most users who simply weren't on the Internet for that relatively small period of time.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Eh, my mom was on the internet at that time and would know absolutely zero of those things because she didn't visit humor sites. I knew them because that is the stuff I looked for.

Kind of like how most people watched MASH when it was the most popular show ever, but not everyone did.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Deeply offended at the lack of Homestar Runner in your list.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Epic rap battles and stumbleupon were my lemmy back then. Spent so much time stumbling and found some very weird stuff.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

StumbleUpon was the Golden Age of the Internet, and like all Golden Ages ultimately destroyed by hubris.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

All I did on the Internet at that time was flash games and homework, later also "homework"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

We think of things like numa numa being everywhere, but can you believe there were people who didn't see it at the time? Wild.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

hmmm... I'm pretty sure I've been around since before YouTube started and don't have any idea, so I still think is the case.

I think people tend to not understand how big internet is, even back then. This makes it difficult to know which memes really made it all the way to become THAT popular (and even those are not know by everyone, some people just don't follow memes)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That would be me. The only thing I did back then was play video games. There was no web browsing unless it was for a game. I didn't even know what a meme was until about ten years ago when I started using Reddit and branched out from gaming related themes.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Yes let's project our experience onto others

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I've been using Internet since late 90s and I have no idea what that is

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Ahh, yes. The golden era of usenet flaming.