YouTube wasn't always the number one platform that sent the funniest and most shocking videos off into a virtual abyss of viral glory.
We have all these social networks to share videos now, including Instagram, Vine, Facebook, Vimeo, Tumblr and more -- but it wasn't that long ago when we didn't have any of those. There was a time on the Internet when videos still went viral, but without the help of every awesome social site and app we've become addicted to using today.
Let us take a trip back to a simpler time before social media was such a big deal, and when getting your videos seen by a large Internet audience was much more difficult. Take a look at these 10 videos that went viral before YouTube, Facebook and everything every other video sharing site we use now ever existed.
We have all these social networks to share videos now, including Instagram, Vine, Facebook, Vimeo, Tumblr and more -- but it wasn't that long ago when we didn't have any of those. There was a time on the Internet when videos still went viral, but without the help of every awesome social site and app we've become addicted to using today.
Let us take a trip back to a simpler time before social media was such a big deal, and when getting your videos seen by a large Internet audience was much more difficult. Take a look at these 10 videos that went viral before YouTube, Facebook and everything every other video sharing site we use now ever existed.
1. Star Wars Kid (2003)
In the early 2000s, a teenager filmed himself reenacting an imaginary fight scene with a pretend Star Wars light saber. According to Know Your Meme, the video and uploaded it to Kazaa and spread from there, ending up several Internet humor websites and eventually being transformed into parodies and remixes created with different special effects added to it. It's been estimated that the original unedited Star Wars Kid video has now been viewed over a billion times. More »
2. Dancing Baby (1996)
Here's one that really takes you back, all the way to 1996, in fact. The Dancing Baby (also known as the Oogachaka Baby) features a 90s 3D animation of a baby in a diaper dancing along to the intro of a song by a Swedish rock band. This video went viral via forwarded email chain messages, long before social media and the Web 2.0 era. If you want to know the full story behind it, you can check out this TechCrunch article for a brief history of the Dancing Baby meme. More »
3. Don Hertzfeldt's Rejected (2000)
A short comedy film called Rejected began popping up on Internet humor sites in the early 2000s around the time it had been nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 2000 Academy Awards. The cartoon consists of odd, nonsensical and even NSFW content. Quotes like "I am a banana" and "My spoon is too big!" from the film became popular one liners that have been reenacted and parodied by all sorts of fans of the original. More »
4. Numa Numa (2004)
You'll probably never see a more enthusiastic fan of Moldovan pop music than the guy in the Numa Numa video.The creator of the video filmed himself dancing and lip syncing to O-Zone's Dragostea din tei, and then uploaded it to the entertainment site Newgrounds in 2004. It of course went viral, and then video has been viewed millions of times since then -- possibly even reaching over a billion by now with all the copies of it spread across the Internet today. More »
5. The End of the World (2003)
Ever thought about what chaos might ensue when the world finally ends? The End of the World (or The End of Ze World) is a ridiculous flash animated cartoon that went viral after it was uploaded to Internet humor site Albino Blacksheep in 2003. Several parts of the narration in the cartoon became iconic Internet catchphrases, like "I am le tired," and "WTF, mate?" After it made its first debut, uploads of the video quickly spread to other humor sites as well. More »
6. All Your Base Are Belong To Us (Early 2000s)
Another viral video that really takes us way back is the unforgettable and grammatically incorrect clip of a video game character saying "All your base are belong to us," from the 16-bit 1989 game Zero Wing.The robotic sounding, grammatically incorrect catchphrase crept on to the Internet in as early as 1998, according to Know Your Meme, and grew into a viral hit in the early 2000s on sites like Something Awful, Newgrounds and forum discussion boards across the web. More »
7. Badger Badger Badger (2003)
Badger Badger Badger is a flash animated cartoon that fist appeared on weebls-stuff.com, and featured a bunch of badgers, some mushrooms and a snake, all dancing to a ridiculous song. The song just repeats the word "badger" as several badgers pop up, then "mushroom" a couple of times, and lastly "snaaaake, it's a snaaaaake!" The entire animation only lasts a few seconds but went on in an infinite loop, and before long, it became the inspiration for many parodies, spin-offs and remixes. More »
8. The Llama Song (2004)
Who could forget the Llama Song? In 2004, a DeviantArt user uploaded a flash animation video of a crazy song about llamas and a bunch of photos of llamas that appeared every time the word "llama" was sung. After all the llamas, the song starts listing off more unrelated objects, people and ducks. According to Know Your Meme, the video quickly racked up over 50,000 views on DeviantArt before spreading to Newgrounds and Albino Blacksheep, where it attracted hundreds of thousands more views. More »
9. Peanut Butter Jelly Time (2002)
In 2002, a random flash animation of a banana dancing to the song “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” by The Buckwheat Boyz was shared to popular Internet forum Offtopic, which then quickly spread to other sites like Newgrounds, eBaum's World, Albino Blacksheep and more. It's nothing more than a slightly annoying dancing banana the whole way through the video, the but the video went on to spawn all sorts of parodies and remakes in the early to mid-2000s. More »
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