July 4th

Today is the birthday of one of the first memes on the internet, one that went mainstream before we even had Wikipedia to document its rise and fall. In 1998, a Canadian art student named Deidre LaCarte created a geocities page with a short remix of the main theme from Disney's Robin Hood and some hamster gifs. The page was intended to get LaCarte's pet hamster Hampton famous. And it worked. Today we know this page as the origin of the Hamster Dance, as some guys called The Boomtang Boys made a dance remix inspired by the website and it spawned a whole virtual band and everything. They even made a direct to DVD movie that nobody really wanted and it ended up as lost media for a bit. Much to do about some hamster gifs methinks. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Fun note: it’s actually spelled “Hampster Dance”, not “hamster”. Why? Presumably after Hampton himself. Just another way to make you confused about spelling. I’m sure someone has some Mandela Effect conspiracy about this.]