Kids, I've been on the internet a long time. A long time. A very, very long time, from a century far far away. I remember watching viral videos before the term was coined. I remember watching video online before the proliferation of flash. RealPlayer, Shockwave, Quicktime plugins were all normal things to have installed in Firebird. To share things with your friends, you'd remember a random combination of keywords to type into Google or Yahoo to find a specific hilarious item, and call your classmates to your computer to check out these hamsters dancing to crappy MIDI music. Back in the day, we didn't have a Facebook, Tweeter, Tumblr, Digg, Reddit, or any of these services to share these things. Our social network was shoe-powered.
Props to Tumblr friend Pam for posting a single frame from one of the first "viral videos" I remember watching around 10 years ago or so. I don't know which one of my friends stumbled upon this, or even how, but it happened. Oh, did it happen.
