How could we have existed before the internet brought this
delectable cornucopia of tasty esoterica? What did we fill our
brains up with? Actual useful information? Bah, how blase.
What is a web fad you might ask? A web fad is something that requires the
internet to propagate, seems to create its own momentum, grips
everyone in the need to share in the common experience, get's
derided by geeks as "so 1997" (or "so 2001", or "so 2002") and
finally potentially reaches the ultimate level of penetration by
appearing on [Wired News] as
a light hearted feature (which indicates its death).
The ultimate web fad, and reigning champion is "All Your Base
Are Belong To Us." Here was a web fad that came out of left
field, grew far out of proportion to its initial humorous
beginnings, got derided by the geek-set and then continued to
grow, spawned derivative works, became an acronym of itself, and
finally petered out. [History of All Your
Base]
Of course it was written up at Wired News, signalling the end
of its relevance. The [Wired
News Article] does give a good summation of what the heck
caused All Your Base to take off. Summarized most succinctly in
this quote by Joshua Schachter:
"I think there are a number of factors that combine to
make All Your Base a fairly virulent meme. First, the incongruity
of "engrish" in a reasonably nicely produced game is funny, much
like professionally printed signs that happen to contain typos.
Second ... it works well as a catch phrase and slogan and fits
easily into many different contexts. And, as any 12-year-old or
online gamer knows, anything that was funny once is funnier when
you repeat it 100 times,"
Essentially because.
Other Fads
Internet Fads have been talked about in a different article
over here [kuro5hin -
Top Ten Internet Fads] but I think the article is talking
about the wrong stuff when it uses the term web fad. The items
that are brought up in that article are part ancient history
(before the majority of people had heard of the internet), part
early predictions of technology and part personal pet peeve of
the author.
The only "Internet Fad" in the kuro5hin article that I would
include in my list of web fads is [Flash Mobs]. The others are not
web fads by the definition I list above. They can be called
failed technological advances or prematurely-dismissed-as-failed
technological advances but a fad they are not.
A true fad must seem to have a life of its own.
First of all our honorable mentions, the fads that didn't quite make the top ten cut.
Honorable Mention:
The Top 10 Internet Fads
10. Strong Bad (3.3 stars)
There were many worthy additions for the tenth slot in the top ten web fads. I could very easily have chosen the exploding whale or Red vs. Blue. But seeing as its my article I chose Strong Bad.
Who is [Strong Bad], well if you were a fine lady you wouldn't need to ask that as he is a friend to AALLLL the fine ladys. He is yin to Homestar Runner's yang. The Darth to his Luke. The pain in Homestar's butt.
And whom, may you ask, is Homestar Runner? Why the star of the website [Homestar Runner]. Or more precisely the pain in Strong Bad's butt.
The whole site is excellent, with a LOT of flash videos of the characters in various escapades, but the best section is Strong Bad's email. Here he ridicules everyone equally: the person who emailed him, any and all other characters on the site (except the cheat, his sidekick). Enjoy.
Fad check list:
- Requires Internet for existence - check
- Out of control growth - moderate check
- Derivative works - as a web personality, Strong Bad has few peers.
- Acronym - check - sb
- Wired News article - you bet
- Decline into obscurity - not yet
Drawbacks:
None, Strong Bad is the coolest!
Links:
[HomestarRunner.com]
[Wired News article]
9. badger song (3.3 stars)
This is very nearly as pointless as the hamsterdance. In fact it is a neck and neck race. These two entries in the web fad top ten are an actual subset themselves of the web in general. The pointless animation. There are a multitude of examples of pointless animations on the web. It seems to be one of the many things that the web does exceedingly well, provide a means for the distribution of pointless animations.
The badger song is just about as pointless as it comes.
Fad check list:
- Requires Internet for existence - check
- Out of control growth - check
- Derivative works - somewhat
- Acronym - nope
- Wired News article - nope
- Decline into obscurity - completely
Drawbacks:
Supreme pointlessness.
Links:
[badgerbadgerbadger.com]
8. Hamster dance (3.4 stars)
Hamster dance, where the H-E-double-hockey-sticks did this come
from?! I mean look at this [dancing hamsters].
There isn't much more to this thing.
Hamsters...dancing...simple.
Fad check list:
- Requires Internet for existence - check
- Out of control growth - moderate check
- Derivative works - somewhat
- Acronym - nope
- Wired News article - nope
- Decline into obscurity - completely
Drawbacks:
Supreme pointlessness.
Links:
[hamsterdance.com]
7. Geocaching (3.6 stars)
Geocaching, treasure hunting for the connected set. So here's the
concept. You put a treasure out somewhere in the world, pull out
your handy dandy gps enabled device, mark the treasures location
and then post that location on the web for other people to go
find it. Pretty neat idea.
There are many different derivatives of course. Some include
puzzles that you must solve. Some have a give and take scenario.
Some have a movable treasure: you find it and then you have to
move it, store the new coordinates and re-publish the
location.
Brilliant confluence of technologies and experience.
Fad check list:
- Requires Internet for existence - check
- Out of control growth - moderate check
- Derivative works - check
- Acronym - nope
- Wired News article - check
- Decline into obscurity - not yet
Drawbacks:
None.
Links:
[Wired News article]
[geocaching.com]
6. Nigerian Prince Money scam (3.8 stars)
Those poor Nigerian Princes forced from power, don't we feel
their pain. The millions of dollars tied up in their bank
accounts that they need our help with, our valuable middle
american, joe blow, contacted out of the blue, help.
What a bunch of maroons. Both these "Nigerian Princes" and the
possible hapless Americans who fall for this scam. How moronic
can you get to believe that someone (ANYONE) from another country
could use your help in retrieving significant moneys from a bank
in their country. What kind of buffoon do you have to be to
believe that. Crazy.
This scam has spawned [counter scams]
where the american "mark" turns the tables on the conman and gets
him to perform embarrassing acts and send photos all in an effort
to get the carrot of money from the mark. There have even been
some successful reverse monetary transactions where the mark was
able to get money from the conman (how the conman would ever show
his face at the local union hall after that is anyones
guess).
Fad check list:
- Requires Internet for existence - check - I guess it could be
accomplished without the internet, but it would be much
harder.
- Out of control growth - moderate check
- Derivative works - check - there are reverse scams played
upon the "Nigerian Princes"
- Acronym - check - maybe not an acronym but it has an
official US law enforcement designation: 419 scam.
- Wired News article - check
- Decline into obscurity - not yet
Drawbacks:
None that I can think of, except for the people who have lost
a lot of money.
Links:
[Wired
News article]
[419 scam
information]
[snopes
entry]
[detailed
information]
[reverse
scams]
5. Blogs (4 stars)
Blogs may not have an acronym but they have become their
abbreviation. Nobody calls them by their original name anymore,
in fact it sounds innocuous to call them "Web Logs", you might
get a curious look as to what you are talking about if you even
use that term today. Blog is what it is.
Blogs have been around for awhile and show no sign of going
away. People may view them as quaint or pontifical or
mastibatorial or pointless, but the reason blogs have not
declined is there is always a new generation of 16 year old girls
and angst driven college students coming up through the ranks
that need an outlet to express themselves.
Fad check list:
- Requires Internet for existence - completely checked
- Out of control growth - moderate check, a level steady growth
now
- Derivative works - if not derivatives then at least a
multitude of types
- Acronym - check - I'm going with check because of the
adoption of the shorthand name as the actual name.
- Wired News article - many
- Decline into obscurity - nope
Drawbacks:
It has not declined though people have been decrying its
death for a while now.
Links:
[Wired
News article]
[blogspot]
[live journal]
4. googlewack (4.2 stars)
So here is an interesting concept that is in itself a derivative
work and what a concept it is. Finding a ONE RESULT RETURN SET
from a google search consisting of ONLY TWO WORDS. It is also
very web'ish that the very discovery of a googlewack often leads
to its ruin. People link to it and in a short period of time the
googlewack returns more than one result. Therefore a very
transitory success.
The question of course arises - do googlewacks exist anymore?
Because once found they disappear.
Fad check list:
- Requires Internet for existence - completely checked
- Out of control growth - moderate check
- Derivative works - it is in itself a derivative work
- Acronym - nope
- Wired News article - nope
- Decline into obscurity - check
Drawbacks:
It's lack of a Wired News article is surprising, if someone
knows of one please let me know.
Links:
[googlewhack.com]
3. Flash Mobs (4.6 stars)
Who's idea was this? Mobilized by e-mail, a mob suddenly
materializes in a public place, acts out according to some loose
instructions, and then melts away as quickly as it formed.
Weird.
This phenomenon appears to be in a large part dead. It is
curious how quickly it burned out. Maybe the change in societal
climate due to terrorism has hindered its continuance, I don't
know nevertheless, for a time in 2003 it was the shiz!
Fad check list:
- Requires Internet for existence - check
- Out of control growth - check
- Derivative works - more than one Flash Mob occurred, but I'm
not sure if that qualifies as derivative
- Acronym - nope
- Wired News article - check
- Decline into obscurity - check, big drop off
Drawbacks:
This fad appears to have had a very short lifespan, on the matter
of half a year or a year at most.
Links:
[Flash Mobs]
[Wired
News article]
[Austin
Flash Mob Report]
2. Star wars kid (4.7 stars)
Ahh Ghyslain. Here we have a near perfect web fad. The only
drawback is the "priceless" humiliation heaped upon Ghyslain
Raza. If we could have had the entire fad without hurting
Ghyslain it would have been perfect, but of course we had to have
him. It is his obvious devotion that injects much of the humor
into the videos. In a sense we all see ourselves in Ghyslain, for
who has not, at the age of 14, whipped a broom stick around and
at the very least thought ourselves to be ninja worthy. We just
happened to be smart enough to not film ourselves, of if we did
film ourselves, we made sure we kept the video in a closely
guarded location.
Fad check list:
- Requires Internet for existence - check
- Out of control growth - check
- Derivative works - check
- Acronym - check - swk
- Wired News article - check
- Decline into obscurity - check
Drawback:
Unfairly humiliates young teen.
Links:
[starwarskid.com]
[He's
suing his classmates]
[Blogs
are raising money for him]
[and the
meme/derivative "Star Wars Kid Are Belong To Us"]
1. All Your Base Are Belong To Us. (5 stars)
The reigning champion. The archetype of web fads. Here we have it
all. The requirement of the internet for its very existence. The
snowballing out of control growth. The derivative works. The
acronym AYBABTU. The Wired News Article and the eventual decline
into obscurity. If you were to hatch an internet fad of your very
own this is your template.
Fad check list:
- Requires Internet for existence - check
- Out of control growth - check
- Derivative works - check
- Acronym - check - AYBABTU
- Wired News article - check
- Decline into obscurity - check
Drawback:
Absolutely none.
Links:
[Wired
News Article]
[History of All
Your Base]
[the
flash video]
