Early internet history - Part 4

Sorry for the delay everyone - I had a buddy call me up and ask if I could sub in on their softball team and it wiped out my entire evening. But now I'm back with 5 more classic memes! Again - sorry if you don't like the term "early", but I'm sticking with it for consistency.

Up first is one that you all have asked for during all 3 of the previous editions: Homestar Runner!

This flash site created by Mike Chapman, Matt Chapman, and Craig Zobel was launched on New Year's Day in 2000. Featuring Homestar and his friends, every now and then the site would update with a new short. Strongbad became a quick favorite among everyone and got his own feature set called Strong Bad Email. Other breakouts were the Teen Girl Squad and Marzipan's Answering Machine. The site is still up, so go check it out.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/

Next up in the 4th edition is the Kitty Cat Dance

A music video created by Steve Ibsen while he was a senior in high school shows various photos of his cat, Kayla, dancing using stop motion animation. Originally uploaded to his website in March of 2004, the video really hit a stride in the following year, after uploading to YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP_tfVGKxdE

Are you ready to get pumped? Because #3 is Real Ultimate Power

This satire website shows a fan tribute to Ninjas written from the viewpoint of a 13 year old boy. Launched in 2002, this website quickly gained a following and had a lot of copy-cat websites created in the same vein.

http://www.realultimatepower.net/

Number four on our list is Kelly's Shoes (OMG SHOES!)

A parody music video created by Liam Sullivan and uploaded to YouTube in 2006 shows him, cross dressed as a girl, talking about how much "she" loves shoes. Inspired by the movie Napoleon Dynamite, Liam started doing the skit in standups before recording and uploading the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCF3ywukQYA

Last in this edition is Chocolate Rain

This music video, created by Tay Zonday in early 2007 (making this pretty late for this series, but I'll count it), took off because of the strange lyrics and his deep voice. Zonday eventually claimed the song is about institutional racism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cd

Thanks again for reading - I hope this was another trip down memory lane. As always, please let me know if you'd like to see more or if you have corrections. I promise Salad Fingers will be in the next one.

Part 1: http://imgur.com/gallery/u21U0
Part 2: http://imgur.com/gallery/QkTKc
Part 3: http://imgur.com/gallery/YdCQ4