Just like anything on the Internets, the response “O RLY?” has it’s roots in hardcore geek culture. The photo of a surprised looking owl with the words “O RLY?” added was originally used in the Something Awful forums as a response to anything that may have been found boring, doubtful or unimpressive.  The correct response to “O RLY?” is “YA RLY” with a picture of a brown owl looking stern, and then “NO WAI!” with another owl looking amazed.

source: Know Your Meme

If there is any predictor of what will become a successful Internet meme, it’s probably whether cute animals (or kids) are involved. So, it’s probably no surprise that LOLcats has become so popular.  LOLcats are images of cats in various poses with text placed over them in broken English known as lolspeak. While LOLcats became widely popular in 2007 from the website, Icanhascheezburger.com, the pop culture roots in a famous “Hang in there, baby” motivational poster from the 1970s.

Digging in the Cache is a series where we go back in time to look at fun tidbits of Internet and computer history. While OK Go, a band originally from Chicago, has been around since 1998, they are probably best known for their elaborately choreographed dance on treadmills for their song “Here It Goes Again”. In the first six days, it was viewed by over 1 million people on YouTube, and has since been viewed over 50 million times which puts it in 42nd place for the most views of any video. It also is one of the most favorited music videos of all time on YouTube. Ok Go won a Grammy award for “Best Short-Form Music Video” for the video in 2006. Just goes to show that being a little bit different and fun may work out for the best.

Read more at Wikipedia.

Digging in the Cache is a series where we go back in time to look at fun tidbits of Internet and computer history. Would you like to travel the world, but don’t have enough to finance the trip? What if you were willing to dance at every place you visited, record it on video and post it on the Internet? Well, that’s exactly what Dancing Matt did…

Digging in the Cache is a series where we go back in time to look at fun tidbits of Internet and computer history. Up this week — another annoying, yet catchy tune, complete with a dancing banana…

Digging in the Cache is a series where we go back in time to look at fun tidbits of Internet and computer history. A cat playing the keyboard is funny, right? Well, maybe, but when you use a silly video of a cat playing a keyboard and use it as a way to depict a failure, sometimes with the tagline, “Play him off, Keyboard Cat!”, you have an Internet meme.

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Digging in the Cache is a series where we go back in time to look at fun tidbits of Internet and computer history. There was a day in the not so distant past when watching video online seemed like the unattainable future… computers didn’t have big enough processors, internet connections weren’t fast enough, and no one would want to watch video on a device other than a television. During the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike, Joss Whedon and his brothers, Zack and Jed, and actress Maurissa Tancharoen, wrote Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a three-part musical miniseries to be produced exclusively for Internet distribution. [Read more...]

Digging in the Cache is a series where we go back in time to look at fun tidbits of Internet and computer history. Ever feel exasperated by someone on online? Wish you could show your frustration? According to Wikipedia, Facepalm “is a physical gesture of lowering one’s face into one’s hand, usually partially concealing the face… The facepalm was popularized as an Internet meme based on an image of Star Trek Captain Jean-Luc Picard performing the gesture.” [Read more...]

Digging in the Cache is a series where we go back in time to look at fun tidbits of Internet and computer history. What could be more fun than luring your friends to go to a website that’s completely different than what they expect to find?  With the rise of URL shorteners which can easily hide the address of the linked page, sending people to a site that they don’t expect is fairly easy.  In 2007-2008, it was a fad to trick people into visiting a page with a music video of Rick Astley singing his 1987 song “Never Gonna Give You Up”.  The person who was tricked into viewing the video was “rickrolled“. Since the video of Astley was safe for work, it was more appropriate than many Internet pranks to spread throughout the workplace. [Read more...]

Digging in the Cache is a series where we go back in time to look at fun tidbits of Internet and computer history. While Ask a Ninja is still producing episodes, it did start way back in November of 2005 by Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine, a couple of LA-based improvisational comedians. Ask a Ninja started as a video show where the Ninja answers questions from “viewers”. The show is very campy, yet often hilarious and has a pretty loyal following. It goes to show just how little planning (sometimes) needs to go into Internet video (and there isn’t any “secret sauce” to being successful online other than creating content that people want). Ask a Ninja has had a regular video podcast, almost stopped producing content entirely in 2009, and is back to now producing daily videos. [Read more...]