I talk a lot about how SBTB feels like a piece of vintage internet sometimes. I mean, we’re a book blog, albeit a large one with a podcast and a bunch of social media accounts, and every now and again I’m reminded that we’re one of the classic pieces of the internet. (Also: STILL HERE!)
YouTube was founded the 14th of February 2005, a few weeks after this here website, in fact. Yup, both YouTube and SBTB are turning 21 this year. Hoo, boy.
I tried to think of the oldest video I remember seeing on the internet – and I first went online at my now-husband’s college in the mid-90s because mine didn’t have the internet at all. I scared the crap out of myself reading the section of Yahoo that housed all the ghost stories. This was back when, to quote someone whose name I cannot recall (sorry) “you could have any colors you wanted on your web page as long as it was black on grey.”
The most memorable vintage YouTube videos for me seem to be songs, or performances of songs.
For example:
“Chocolate Rain” by Tay Zonday, posted in 2008, aka 18 years ago.
Gary Brolsma’s “Numa Numa” dance, to O-ZONE’s “Dragoste din Tei” which is on my snowboarding playlist. If you see a slow-moving snowboarder singing, “Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma nu ma iei, nu ma nu ma iei, nu ma nu ma nu ma iei,” it’s probably me.
This was originally published on a site called Newgrounds in 2004, and then on YouTube in 2006.
And probably the song I most remember because Candy sent it to me and I started playing it at work. I still sing this to people – who are familiar with the video itself, not just randomly.
This is from 19 years ago, originally uploaded on Valentine’s Day 2007. HA! I also learned from Wiki that Samwell performed it in April 2008 on the BBC show Lily Allen and Friends.
And there’s a making-of behind the scenes video, too. You’ll never believe which sections have the highest views.
Wait – no, I think this is the oldest. It’s from 2003. TWO THOUSAND AND THREE.
And I still say, “But I am le tired” all the time. (Jesus’ Trucknuts I didn’t expect that video to hit me so hard in the current anxieties – proceed with caution with this silly video.)
Happy Friday, y’all!
What’s the oldest video you remember seeing online?
I remember a friend showing me a video of an exploding whale sometime in the late 90’s. (“The blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds.”)
My partner says that there was a dancing baby video viral enough to be mentioned on Ally McBeal.
That must have been before YouTube, so who knows what ancient magic was invoked to access it.
The oldest online video I ever recall seeing is a cartoon my dad showed me from JoeCartoon. It was called “Joefish”, and was about a hamster or something being lowered into an aquarium. You could push buttons on the side to choose which video sequence would come next.
If we’re talking videos with no interaction at all, it’s gotta be one of the violent cartoons on Stickdeath. Stick figures being all up to some really crazy stuff.
It would be “The Pachalbel Rant”, Smosh’s “Pokemon Theme Song” or the video of Delfin hasta el fin en las Torres Gemelas.
In the 70s, Cher and her then-husband Sonny had a very popular variety show. I vividly remember how they would take songs that Cher sang and create a cartoon video. If my link works, this is her song “Dark Lady.” There are a couple of others, including “Bad bad Leroy Brown” and “Copacabana.” #goodtimes
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_TpBnJFTkA"
Apologies — it uses a slur for Romany people. ):
I am rarely an early adopter. I can remember earnestly proselytizing to a lot of people who did not care about all the great old obscure opera recordings and performances one could find on YouTube.
My brother was like that’s great for you and yet you’re entirely missing the point, and showed me a bunch of videos, the only one I can recall being Bubb Rubb and Lil Sis.
@C yes, the very creepy dancing baby springs to mind, sometime in ’96 or ’97 I think, right around the same time as Hamster Dance.
All these comments are shaking loose some very old memories. HAMSTER DANCE?!!? I remember that from when I was in grad school, so around 1997-1999.
It used to make me so mad when people would argue with me about the song. It’s a sped up version of a song used in Disney’s Robin Hood.
Which is a VERY important movie. Obviously.
update: the Internet Archive has a capture of it, without sound.
The End of the Word brings back so many memories. From about the same time, there was Peanut Butter Jelly Time. Don’t watch if you don’t want to be singing it all day. (hope I got the link right)
Probably my earliest internet videos where Homestar Runner, and that earworm Narwhals (Narwhals, they are narwhals!) But I think probably my earliest Youtube memory which played A LOT in our dorm rooms back then was the 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame performance of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, featuring Tom Petty, Prince, Dhani Harrison, and others. Prince absolutely murders that stage. I was only really just getting in to the Beatles at that time, and barely knew songs by Petty and Prince, but we watched that performance over and over. (and RIP George Harrison, Tom Petty, AND Prince oh no now I’m sad)
I don’t know if it was the first video I saw, but it’s the first I remember-Viking Kittens by rathergood. It’s Flash animation to “Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin made in 2002. The creator put it on YouTube a few years ago. There were a few cat animations to music by them, but this was the first and the best that I saw. I’ve never posted a link here before, so I hope this works:
https://youtu.be/C1SXCo-xSvk?si=97FPW8NLUbxpVflQ
Hamster Dance is the oldest I remember. There was also a viking/valkyrie/valhalla song with minimal animation.
I came here to say Hamster Dance!! I was in college in the late 90s and my dorm was one of the very few that had dedicated Ethernet (and not dial up), and my roommate and I would play that video when we needed a boost late at night.
I also remember finding a fan page dedicated to the Anne of Green Gables miniseries at about that time. This is the amazing series starring Megan Follows and Colleen Dewhurst that I had adored for years on PBS. I was gobsmacked that someone could love a thing as much as I did and take their free time to write about it and share it just because. It was such a lovely feeling of community, connection and joy that you could only get in those early internet years.
Was going to mention Peanut Butter Jelly Time as one of the earliest Flash animations I saw but Robin has it covered. Also Homestar Runner. I never watched it, but my sister told me about Tim Burton’s The World of Stainboy. Radiskull & Devil Doll on shockwave dot com.
Badger, Badger, etc.
Nobody on Um, Actually except BDG who presumably wrote the question remembered Schfifty-Five which takes me back to freshman year of college.
This is one of the oldest.
Alien Gloria Gaynor It’s from 1999 according to IMDB https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13038336/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk-v0uQTpmg
Things got really dark in the late 2000’s but that’s another story.
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M
I don’t think it’s the first one I watched, but the oldest that was memorable was Charlie the Unicorn, which the Internet tells me came out in 2005, when I would’ve been 10. My family only got a computer in 2003, I think.
Probably the actual first stuff was just lyric videos (I was really freaked out by one Evanescence music video!), although I do remember a very pleasant school vacation that I spent watching Disney princess movies in 12 parts.
The first one I remember watching online was Christopher Walken dancing in Weapon of Choice – it was shared around the residential writing workshop I was at in 2001!
I remember the Numa Numa song was Romanian, because I was on a team at work with a guy from Romania at the time, and I can’t tell you how many times we watched that video. I left that job at the end of 2003, so the Numa Numa song must have been online somewhere before then.
My first thought was Kelly (“Let’s Get Some Shoes”), plus Charlie the Unicorn, Llamas with Hats, SaladFingers, and other very 00’s flash animations; “but I am le tired” and “Caaaaarl!” and “a maaaagical leopleuridon!” were standards in our household… Making Fiends and Muffinale and a whole website of similar animations, 30 Second Bunny Parodies, which actually got me to watch some of their real movies…
The oldest I know was probably a website that made e-cards which had short parody songs, again with very 00’s humor, that my sister, cousins, and I would send to each other ad nauseam. I can’t remember the name of it but it would’ve been circa 2003-2005, same as the rest, and the only one I remember with any degree of accuracy was a parody of the Rawhide theme song with an animated cat bucking like a rodeo bronco (“Rollin’ rollin’ rollin, keep them kitties rollin’, me-OW!”). I can only imagine how delighted our parents were to hear that blasting from the speakers 20 times in a row, lol
My cousin (basically another sister to us) was an early adapter thanks to winning a sweepstakes for a real MacBook at the time when laptops were still only for Serious BusinessmenTM, so our introduction to the internet went very quickly from “Dad needs to send an email, get off the phone” to coding your own sparkle-gif My Chemical Romance fanfiction forum…ahhh, truly a different era.
Hmmm I am sure I tried watching some videos in the late ‘90s. Probably mostly awful concert footage on RealPlayer (ouch). But! I think the oldest one I remember definitively was likely Troops (or one of the other Star Wars parodies). It came out in 1997 apparently but I may not have seen it until 2000.
I have no idea how long ago it was, but the oldest thing I can remember at the moment is Weird Al’s video of “I Lost on Jeopardy.”
“all your base are belong to us”
Caroline and Rookie, dancing to music from Grease, 19 years ago per Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqbVbPvlDoM
The earlist videos I remember are from 2003-2005, but I must have seen some earlier because I was in grad school by that point and we definitely wasted time with memes and videos.
I think the earliest one I remember is the Badger Badger Badger Mushrooms! video, which was apparently released in 2003. I also remember my undergrad students when I was a TA filing into my classroom muttering Charlie, Charlieeeeee at me because they knew it gave me the heebie-jeebies. Which was from the Charlie the Unicorn video that Nicole mentioned above, circa 2005.
The earliest video I remember from the late 90’s (after we finally bought an internet capable computer) was sent by my Trek fan BIL. The song playing was Star Trekkin Across the Universe.
I haven’t thought about that in decades, so I just looked it up. There are actually videos on YouTube, but not the one we had. Anyway, it was pretty funny for those of us that watched the original series growing up (mostly the reruns)
It’s going to be so much fun to watch some of these over the weekend.
Here is an old favorite of mine, a commercial for … something I would not have guessed without the heading. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHx-_BzJ8vo
I think the first YouTube videos I saw were through a study panel I was on for children’s toys. That was a great panel, because I got a lot of free toys for my kids back then.
I remember watching this video? gif? in the kitchen of a house I lived in from 1998-2000. I loved that house! The internet was a wild and wonderful place back then. The first website I ever saw was developed by my friends dad. It was called pets on the net and was just pictures of his pets. This was in the mid 90’s and I was so amazed that this was just out there and could be found by anyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpRMsOYRQgI
OMG Sarah you are absolutely right about the Hamster Dance song! I can’t believe I never connected the two!
Yes I remember the Dancing Baby (which also showed up on Murphy Brown as I recall), Hamster Dance and Peanut Butter Jelly Time, and my kids were into Homestar Runner. I keep thinking I saw one earlier than those on Cute Overload, but maybe I’m imagining it?
I still say “so” like the end of the earth video all the dang time. Often to my kiddo who extremely doesn’t understand (and isn’t old enough for a full intro yet)
I miss orisinal games so bad. What a great little bit of Internet craft those were.
I don’t remember what would have been my first YouTube video but I remember being mesmerized by this in university.
https://youtu.be/K2cYWfq–Nw?si=nYL5kYehfsHlcUKQ
It probably was my first introduction to Daft Punk 😆
@Rebecca Orisinal! So good. And the website and games are still up!
For a fun look at a lot of the videos mentioned — you should watch Weezer’s Pork and Beans (first uploaded 16 years ago). They used clips of all of those early YouTube videos (like Chocolate Rain, Hamster guy and Kelly) and even had some of the actual people in the video too. Very cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQHPYelqr0E
The earliest video I can remember is from 18 years ago and I think it was part of a contest where filmmakers had to create a new preview for an existing film using real footage, but edited so it feels like a different genre. The video quality is SUPER awful, but I can watch the one of The Shining as a rom com a million times. Excellent video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6QgNuZcxTw