Entry tags:
Old internet memes turn into tacky tourist traps
I recently reminisced about Hampster Dance, one of the earliest internet memes.
It looks like the original web address was taken over by a company offering lots of cheap tacky crap, including names and profiles for all the hampsters. Amusingly there was a page offering the original "authentic" hampster dance. What's shocking is that they didn't get either the music or the design of the original right.
Another site is much more quietly hosting the correct version (at least as I remember it)
Wikipedia has the tale of what happened.
In the end it's not surprising that the site was turned into a cheap tourist trap. It's the same thing that has happened to other pop-oriented artifacts... once they cease being real, they're turned into legends full of exaggeration and commercialization.
Just wait 15 years and there will be sites offering the "authentic World of Warcraft experience" complete with some reconstructed compressed watered down level 60 dungeon run done by you, a guild of NPCs, and a "guide" that tells you exactly what to do and ensures that you never face any real (simulated) danger.
It looks like the original web address was taken over by a company offering lots of cheap tacky crap, including names and profiles for all the hampsters. Amusingly there was a page offering the original "authentic" hampster dance. What's shocking is that they didn't get either the music or the design of the original right.
Another site is much more quietly hosting the correct version (at least as I remember it)
Wikipedia has the tale of what happened.
In the end it's not surprising that the site was turned into a cheap tourist trap. It's the same thing that has happened to other pop-oriented artifacts... once they cease being real, they're turned into legends full of exaggeration and commercialization.
Just wait 15 years and there will be sites offering the "authentic World of Warcraft experience" complete with some reconstructed compressed watered down level 60 dungeon run done by you, a guild of NPCs, and a "guide" that tells you exactly what to do and ensures that you never face any real (simulated) danger.