Another Trip To 2000s YouTube

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[@milena2080]

This is such a wild experience if you didn't grow up English-speaking. We're the same age but i only started watching English KZbin content around 2015, so this feels a little bit like walking through a surreal museum of a culture I've never heard of before

[@saso5096]

oh my, yes exactly! Last video of this series I knew most of the content, but _this?_ Totally different world lmao

[@360sunset]

Super curious to hear what kind of content goes/has gone viral in your native language. Got any recommendations?

[@jbone877]

That's a super cool perspective to have!

[@mothma_am]

that's such a cool perspective! i was only born in 2006 (16), so i didn't really grow up watching a lot of old KZbin, but the horrific tales have passed through many a generation to get to me. aka, my older sister terrorized me with early youtube videos when we were little.

[@idiotsandwich1045]

YEAH EXACTLY I'm Italian and here youtube wasn't the biggest thing when I was little, I only started visiting it aroud 2016 and until the last couple of years i wasn't really aware of early youtube culture. I do however remember my cousing showing me an Italian dubbed version of the Annoying Orange back in 2012 or so

[@gingersnap189]

Hey fun fact about the Fred movie: Lucas Cruikshank was actually a contributing writer and director on it and had an actual vision for the story and the symbolism of Fred’s journey via the characters he meets all being reflections of facets of his personality. There’s a shot in it that was directly inspired by King of Comedy (he admitted so himself on the directors commentary) and it’s the same shot that Joker 2019 also uses from King of Comedy. Fred also has a dark, angry version of himself he speaks to for the entire movie named “Derf” that only he can see and that despises him and keeps telling him to behave normally. The ending is also super ambiguous and if you’re reading it like a genuine attempt at an art film it straight up implies that Fred entirely breaks down after years of bullying and retreats deeply into his subconscious to cope by imagining a world in which he wins at the end, but that win isn’t real and he’s actually just super depressed and sitting at home, miserable and lonely. TLDR; Fred did the Joker 2019 before the Joker 2019 was even a working thought and then sprinkled some 90’s Coming of Age and a smidgen of Fight Club, and literally no one but Lucas at the time and the 5 people who have listened to the commentary track know about it.

[@akiraeatsguitarpicks491]

Where does the Expired Cow fit in all this though

[@librasuperstar3779]

“I’m gonna get that cake Fred”

[@mlpdisneylover]

Holy shit…

[@atmosphericentry0]

Lucas Cruikshank could do Joker but could Joaquin Phoenix do Fred? Exactly.

[@akiraeatsguitarpicks491]

@@atmosphericentry0 holy shit a bald joker would be kinda funny

[@kaylasutton9521]

Thank you Strange for repeatedly digging up core memories, and helping me figure out why my sense of humour is fucked.

[@Tirgo69]

For me it was discovering YTP in 2007

[@pengomode7442]

real

[@SettMetabolik]

Amen brother

[@dollbowz]

NO FR i just like to think we were all ahead of our time in the unhinged tumblr days, we collectively invented twitter humor

[@ReptilianTeaDrinker]

Same here. LOL I used to watch these and for some reason, liked them. Now I'm just figuring out what the fuck was wrong with me back then... Or, what's wrong with me now, because I watched these when I was a teenager.

[@tinyfroghag]

I *immediately* started smiling so hard as soon as Kitty Cat Dance came on because my husband, a 28yo hyper masculine man (he’s a truck driver for Christ sake lol), on a regular basis will just randomly be going through the house and just scream CAT! (Turns to make eye contact) I’m a kitty cat! Followed by a silly little dance, and it never fails to crack me up lol i get so much joy knowing ive implanted that deep into his brain palace

[@maddieb.4282]

This is the best thing I’ve ever seen

[@tinyfroghag]

@@maddieb.4282 it’s truly heartbreaking that I’ve yet to catch it on camera😭😂

[@Yessica13]

My spouse and I regularly do the "Cat! I'm a kitty cat! And I dance, dance, dance / And I dance, dance,dance" to each other.

[@zbcrazy]

For all its flaws, early to mid 00s internet was a beautiful era. I about passed away when you said Numa Numa is almost 20 years old.

[@LikeTheProphet]

I literally tweeted sometime last year something to the effect of “I wonder how Numa Numa Guy is doing. I hope that he’s doing well. Unless he’s a n*zi.” I’m actually relieved to know he’s a more or less normal, nice person who’s just straight chilled this whole time. I hope Gary has every good thing in life ✨

[@crunchbuttsteak8741]

It was the internet in it's most pure and anarchic form. A consensual hallucination experienced by billions every day but with the knowlege that the laws and customs of cyberspace was different than meatspace I miss it. I liked when the internet was another world you had to log into with a laptop or a desktop. Not a filter built over society that you carry around with you everywhere

[@willowarkan2263]

Hell I miss ad free youtube, i think their introduction of ads may have been the cause of my life long hatred of marketing. Seeing the evolution of youtube ads from very occasionally a skippable 5 sec ad to the hell we live with now. Also being able to preload videos/ having to because our internet couldn't load them fast enough, so I would have them staggered so i could watch while the others loaded.

[@sciencefantastic]

*Plays aging into dust scene from Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade”

[@adultdeleted]

the internet died when tiktok attacked

[@gooseontheinternet7922]

i just want to say, as an autistic person who finds eye contact very hard even in videos, your new background is amazing. there’s so many nice things to look at while listening

[@Ratman.Not.Batman]

I like looking at the butch poster lol

[@leokonge4624]

Not to mention her earrings are always interesting

[@ihatesansseriffonts]

I light to stare at the light reflected in her bangs

[@TPNsBiggestFan]

im also autistic - i find eye contact very hard but not so much with videos (unless the person is staring intensely at me), however i have a tendency to just. stare at everything. so i love her new background too lol

[@WishGender]

Same though

[@owenrichmond2]

as a trash child of the 2010s i can confirm that we had the peak of viral videos

[@adamlambboy8332]

Salad fingers and Charlie the Unicorn for LIFEEE

[@little_flitter]

@@adamlambboy8332 did you see the finale of Charlie the unicorn?

[@brinut65]

@J Prez Charlie the Unicorn is also pre-2010s

[@enikawamoriko1406]

Dragonstea din tei is still such an iconic bop. Play it at an European college party and people will go WILD

[@simply_lucas]

I meet you in my dream last night. You were 2 meters tall, insulted my friends, told me my hair looked nice and proceded to buy multiple kilos of margerine from a butcher. Probably one of the most memorable dreams I will ever have.

[@mcwjes]

This could be a poem.

[@jbone877]

@@mcwjes it already is

[@alicethemad1613]

I had a dream with Teya in it too! I went to a pool and my hair turned green after I got out so I started sobbing in a corner while everyone had a birthday party without me and Teya and her gf came over and were like “hey ur hair still looks cool, don’t cry. U wanna make a video?” And then I was in a certified strange aeons video crying with my mint green chlorine hair

[@MinoriGaming]

why did the butcher have margerine?????

[@rainy8702]

@@MinoriGaming as a butcher myself, I'd like to shine a line a light on the little known fact that butching causes the body to produce abnormally high amounts of margarine. Some butchers, after returning home after a long day at the butch mill, will collect the margarine and sell it for extra profit. DO NOT PURCHASE REGULAR BUTTER FROM A BUTCHER. IT IS NOT APPROVED.

[@nbdjz1058]

as an european, it shocked me so much that you had to explain what dragostea din tei is. this is the cultural essence of EVERY european country

[@Speederzzz]

We still play the song at work!

[@klisterklister2367]

I still hear it on the radio

[@charleseunson2629]

One of my cooworkers is Romanian, and it was a bonding experience for him that we all knew the words xaxa

[@applepatronum4934]

As a hungarian, i didn't realise why it had to be explained. It was played many times in freshman's camp last august. And i remember singing a hungarian parody of it in like, 3rd grade.

[@cat_in_a_sock1948]

that and lasha tumbai

[@jaxsmolenbee4683]

As someone who has a brother in middle school I find his addiction to asdfmovies videos fascinating.. like I knew them for YEARS and now he CONSTANTLY references them and thinks they are the best shit on earth

[@averynerdybookworm972]

Exactly!! Mt little sister quotes them and is constantly telling me vines without knowing what vine even was

[@grey8288]

He should get the Muffin Time game, it's a blast to play with my friends cus we hear every card deep in our souls

[@anfearaerach]

They are tho, Tomska is genuinely funny xD

[@jessica23claire]

I STILL reference it and I am a 27 year old adult human

[@buchelaruzit]

same with my little sister. they're right tho

[@ogami1972]

Old guy here: Newgrounds was a lot more than YT before YT. It was memes and macros and thousands of flash games and chat rooms and message boards and everything else internet-culture. It pretty much was one of THE places you went when you were online, why you were in the first place, a destination where you could spend hours. Point being, when something went viral on newgrounds, it reached EVERYBODY. Good video :)

[@ruedelta]

Yeah, imagine if she picks up on the whole stickman fight scene stuff.

[@kaitlinroberts1792]

​@@ruedelta That just unlocked a memory, thank you

[@bishielurfer]

I spent hours on newgrounds as a kid and young teen and have so many great memories of it (I was so happy when the Henry stickman games got put on steam because it was really sad losing a lot of those games to the death of flash). I loved the flash animations especially. To this day I quote some of them (aside from the ones referenced here, I also frequently reference "Kerrigan's Big Invention" and the Final Fantasy song). But oooh my god that site had some inappropriate games 😅

[@Ellie-Fisher]

@@ruedelta i know this isn't newgrounds, but remember pivot animations? those were great

[@Tehbestestevasss]

If we're gonna talk about Newgrounds, we gotta talk about the king of all videos on the site... The Ultimate Showdown (of ultimate destiny). I can still sing that whole song word for word to this day. Such a core memory

[@rhonab6698]

the fact most US peeps discovered numa numa through memes and not through actual music charts always makes me laugh. like we were unironically vibing to this at school dances for about 2 years before the US realised it was a bop.

[@LikeTheProphet]

In our defense, US pop culture has been pretty insular until maybe the mid-2010s. I was bullied pretty hard for liking j-pop, k-pop, and europop music in high school (all downloaded off limewire, burned onto CDs, and loading up the family computer with viruses of course). As a person in my 30s, it’s honestly been so nice knowing that these things are so widely available to people now, and no one has to worry about being harassed or bullied for liking what they like in the same way I did. People are still assholes obviously, but the things I got bullied for are largely accepted and celebrated now. So please be gentle with us, we all have Spotify now and can get in on the party much more quickly!

[@greenhowie]

That's the feeling I had when Astronomia became known as "the coffin dance" - KaZantip memories are way more depressing these days :(

[@noaw418]

Yes! I always find it so weird and funny. Dragostea Din Tei was on the radio! Everyone knew the words! We sang it outloud with my friends at recess and watched the music video on TV a million times. And to the Americans it's just that funny little internet song. 😂 Edit: I looked it up; it was number one on the Eurochart for basically the entirety of summer 2004!

[@willowarkan2263]

Hell I think I heard the spanish interpretation of the song's lyrics even before seeing the numa numa guy. Only really know the memetic part of the chorus now: "pluma pluma gay", yes it was the 2000s.

[@jlust6660]

I found it so funny when I met someone from the US who just didn't know it at all. To my little kid brain in 2004 that song just seemed so everywhere.

[@twinkiefluff8868]

Watching that opening of Salad Fingers reminded me of being oddly fixated on the video at like, age 11 and quoting it everywhere like a little meme freak. I remember, multiple times, saying the "orgasmic" line out loud completely unaware of how uncomfortable it made the adults around me. Awesome vid as always, Strange!

[@TPNsBiggestFan]

gonna be honest here that is terrifying

[@WilliamnotW]

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared is a legit work of artistic genius.

[@zigzagzoom369]

It got a tv show now! It's airing in channel 4 over here in the uk

[@flugansomintekomhem]

Honorable mention to "they're taking the hobbits to isengard" along with a Swedish song about Aragorn smelling like dead bodies and potatoes. They were my favorite of the 2000ths. Also "Sagan om de bannlysta" for any other swedish 00"s lotr meme lovers out there...

[@kerycktotebag8164]

what about the swedish song about sitting on ventrilo (an instant messenger) talking to ppl on your headset playing Defense of the Ancients "basshunter" is the artist

[@labgrownhumanbrain]

sagan om ändringen is another funny swedish 00's lotr thing its too bad most of the original videos got deleted

[@thatboringone7851]

Reading this unlocked some Jar of Dirt memories I was not prepared to remember.

[@yuvalinbar1921]

Definitely! They're Taking The Hobbits To Isengard and Why Is The Rum Gone are still going strong. Especially now with Rings Of Power, "Tell me where is Gandalf, for I much desire to speak with him" is once again amazing meme content

[@jmckenzie962]

OH MY GOD yes the hobbits to isengard. I genuinely forgot that was a thing until I read this comment, that takes my brain RIGHT back to 2008

[@strwbrryvagabond8864]

Honestly, the two deep dive videos and just thinking about viral content in the 2010's explains why Millenial and Gen Z humor is the way it is better then any article ever could

[@ReptilianTeaDrinker]

It should be in the history books, tbh. lol It's just pages upon pages of info on old YT videos and an explanation on why Millenials and Gen Z have the most unhinged humour. XD Though, the boomers will never understand us, no matter what we do. :'(

[@jinkouyuki8027]

I was an intensely online and unsupervised internet access child, so I remember showing all of these videos to my friends and leaving very poorly-written comments about how cool they were... It would be SO COOL if you could cover more 2000s web content. Homestar Runner, the hamsterdance, maybe even some old AMVs... What an era.

[@ravenwolfkittyface1802]

Oh man homestar runner. The background videos of my childhood.

[@BigGayIncorporated]

"hamster dance"... I thought I repressed that memory...

[@kerycktotebag8164]

homestar runner is still going

[@spacebunsarah]

Omg AMVs and YTMNDs.

[@ifeeltiredsleepy]

The Hamster Dance is technically a 1990s internet meme.

[@mbacree]

If you ever have 4 hours to spare, Quinton Reviews' deep dive into the Fred empire is incredible and so well done, it's such a thorough exploration and stays interesting the entire time?? You somehow end up with a weird soft spot for Fred

[@chatnoir9038]

Quinton has the power to make anything interesting

[@CheersMyDudes]

He legit gets me through my working days some days. Mike’s Mic is another if you also enjoy long ass recaps of cheesy shit like pretty little liars and glee

[@seekerstheshy3842]

dude that video was so good

[@flamingmonkeyheads]

quinton has set a new standard i cant listen to anybody talk about icarly or victorious if they aren't him

[@justinwatson1510]

I sincerely love his videos, despite the fact that I couldn't care less about / have never seen the source material for most of the topics he covers.

[@anastasiagreen666]

so wild to see you talk about tomska, the only youtuber i've been following since the 2000s and still adore as easily one of the most honest, self aware and imo always one of the funniest people on the platform, right before casually cutting to annoying orange, something i had so deeply repressed and that ignites such rage in me

[@cocacola7845]

I remember actively avoiding the annoying orange on KZbin back then. It was terrible when my friend showed up to school with the backpack key-chain plush that talks when struck

[@Garbaz]

It's interesting to see which of these ever arrived in my German sphere of early KZbin. For example the asdf movies were highly popular here, because there was a German guy making translations of them. To me, he just was the guy for asdf content, it wasn't until much later that I learned that asdf movies originally were in English, and weren't just popular in our class, but a viral video a lot of people knew.

[@Vickyeverythingelsewastaken]

Back when Coldmirrors Harry Potter-Parodies weren't age restricted yet.

[@Nimoes_archive]

I grew up in the UK and moved to Germany around age 14 in 2013, now my partner is German and I love to discuss early 2000's KZbin with them and see what they know and what they don't. @Vicky OMG I feel so blessed that my friends introduced me to the Coldmirror Harry Potter parodies and I am so sad that I can't share them with my friends from the UK cause of the language barrier. I feel like they are heavily missing out, that woman is a LEGEND. XD

[@yoshooie6512]

Tomska is still my favourite youtuber, and surprisingly nice in person too. Met him this year at a con and he had like ten minute+ chats with everyone that queued for the meet up.

[@Cooliscoolandstuff]

i love tom so much, such a genuine and funny guy. i hope he comes to australia someday so i can meet him too

[@Jessie_Bee]

Some other viral videos from the 2000s I remember that you didn’t talk about are “Do You Like Waffles?” and “The Yes Dance/Let’s Do the Fork in the Garbage Disposal,” the latter of which is one of my favorites!

[@RisingSunfish]

I discovered Parry Gripp in college, and only learned like a month ago that he did “Do You Like Waffles?” and it felt like discovering an ancient conspiracy. I’d be interested in specifically a comparison video between him and Weebls, but I understand if that’s not really Strange’s speed lol

[@BigGayIncorporated]

I found a video of the full performance of that song and it fucking sent me, I felt like I'd found a priceless artifact.

[@Aeroductile1]

the yes dance is a proper blast from the past, such a classic

[@bishielurfer]

Oh my god I had completely forgotten the garbage disposal dance, but the second I read those words it came flooding back to me

[@pinchetii6555]

the do you like waffles is having a resurgence on TikTok rn lol

[@ProfessorDoctorC]

Ah, the Numa Numa song - here in Europe the song itself was actually a pretty huge hit internationally way before it became an internet meme. It was weird to discover that in America it was always associated with that youtube video because i remembered it being just EVERYWHERE for about a year before that

[@galaxymew5138]

I've always remembered it vaguely from the meme but honestly, the song is still a banger

[@seauouiaiouieaux546]

I was in a nightclub the other day and everyone went mental when Dragostea Din Tei came on. It's so wild that a lot of Americans only think of it as a meme and not the Europop banger it has always been

[@lamewalrusxd4781]

Since spanish is my first language, I wanted to add that the numa numa song here sounded like "pluma pluma gay" (pluma means feather, and was also a term to refer to femme gays), so it was used as a joke in parties but also reclaimed by the gay community and I think that's beautiful.

[@arachnidlupus7625]

Also I am seeing a disturbing trend where the overwhelming majority of our beloved viral videos have tragic trajectories...like, you'd think that videos from the mid 2000s are just some RANDOM internet memes, but no we cannot have NICE THINGS.

[@jmckenzie962]

Can't believe Peanut Butter Jelly Time still hasn't been mentioned yet. That video is, no joke, 20 years old now - it was originally posted in 2002 and was popular enough by 2005 that it was referenced in an episode of Family Guy, all before KZbin even entered the scene. I realize as I'm saying this that it's probably another Star Wars Kid situation where it's too old to even be considered an early KZbin viral video since it was already popular long before KZbin was even created, but I still really wanna mention it since a) it was one of the first things I remember seeing on the internet so it'll always have a special place in my heart and b) the band that made the actual Peanut Butter Jelly Time _song_ - the Buckwheat Boyz - has an absolutely fucking buckwild story.

[@Felixfiefdom]

Absolutely cannot forgot how Salad Fingers deeply ensnared me and my friend group. It was creepy, like creepypastas, and had so much potential for fan theories before FNAF. Also I remember it being weirdly popular with folks with fetishes for gore and seeing some general sexual fixation around Salad Fingers.

[@tzatwar]

this came unsurprising cuz of salad fingers himself's weird almost sexual fixation on inanimate objects & dead things

[@Hatsune-Miku_Fan]

@@tzatwar and that prickly plant that irritated his nipple

[@midsommarvvitch7182]

i went to a horror convention a few years ago and some very tall person was dressed up as salad fingers and i genuinely couldn't look up from the ground until they passed. it still terrifies me to this day

[@PageShearling]

@@midsommarvvitch7182 He's canonically 6'6" you know.

[@victoriaivars3340]

The annoying orange video came out when I was 5. I vividly remember my dad laughing his ass off and calling me to the computer room to watch it with him lol

[@elliotlofton9970]

The Fred videos always had a kind of discomforting loneliness that I found addicting when I was younger. I often wondered if I was supposed to believe that Fred was lying for attention, which is tragic.

[@vsGoliath96]

People don't give Lucas Cruikshank enough credit for what he was trying to pull off with Fred.

[@owlyellie4051]

Tom Ridgewell is the nicest guy, I went to a fan meet of his when I was in high school and met him at several comic cons since and he's just a really lovely and genuine person! I'm glad the Internet has been kind to him

[@iamsocks]

this video made me realize that Fred was my introduction to the “unreliable narrator” trope and is why I love it so much 😅

[@roseslime713]

This is a scary throwback for me. As a 2000s kid, I'm very familiar with a lot of these videos and the fact I get to have a full history lesson "behind the memes" is actually phenomenal. Can't wait for the 2010s! So much has happened...

[@GamingintheAM0801]

Oh lord the Kitty Cat Dance. The way you described your feelings on it spoke to me. I was 14 when it came out and to this day I still hear it in my head all the dang time.

[@mrflibble3226]

I'm 44 & it pops into my head every now & then.

[@Adamant_Adam]

I feel like a baby xD I was born in '02. I remember my uncle (just 5 years older than me) and I begging my mom to put it on the computer in the good old days of '06/'07.

[@lovenotegestapo]

The Evolution Of Dance guy came and spoke at the university in my home town a little bit after he got big online. My friends and I went and saw him, and tho I don't remember much of what he talked about I do remember having a good time. I grew up having to listen and see a whole bunch of motivational speakers due to my mom being in Amway, and he was the only one who came across as not having an agenda. He just seemed like a nice guy who wanted to encourage people.

[@MythicalGriff]

As a very long time Tomska fan I honestly forgot that ASDF was what propelled him into the mainstream as I first saw his content through Eddsworld then later found his channel

[@vivianlessthan3]

if you were REALLY a Tomska fan you'd know asdf is spelt entirely underlined... smh my head🙄🙄🙄(/s)

[@georgecooper9766]

Yeah I didn't realise he was the same guy for quite a while. I knew ASDF movies and then came across some of his live skits later on and took me a long time to put them together. (and also to notice that a lot of the voices are famous youtubers lol)

[@ha_des]

through WGAT

[@anfearaerach]

For me it started with warrior cats meme videos with tomska audio.... On to the first videos he released xD

[@Axqu7227]

I was an early tomska fan too! I found him through eddsworld and my edgy middle school self thought he was the coolest one. I fell off the fan train when he had his (extremely public and ugly) mental breakdown after Edd passed, but I genuinely love his newer content more than I ever liked him as a kid. The dude’s come a long way and still has an edgy sense of humor but it’s less mean spirited now.

[@krissybaglin9206]

Tomska and the yogscast have been some of the youtubers I've followed since the old days of youtube

[@some_condiment]

"WHY IS THE BELT BELOW HIS ASS"

[@vsGoliath96]

Hey now, Yogscast is still 2010's! We gotta go even further beyond!

[@unpredictableaxolotl3762]

newgrounds was one of the big pre-youtube youtubes, but there was also albinoblacksheep and ebaumsworld, which were more general, whereas newgrounds was mostly for flash animation and games. individual content creators often had their own sites, too, and people would actually go to them - like for homestar runner, weebl's stuff, foamy the squirrel, realultimatepower, etc.

[@LikeTheProphet]

AlbinoBlackSheep was mostly what my friends and I used! So many great flash-animated video memories 🥺

[@kenna176]

Albinoblacksheep defined my middle school career.

[@Dreamachineries]

omg, Foamy the squirrel, I watched that obsessively lmao

[@petrichorbones]

OH ok i think you just solved a question i had for myself. i was wondering how i discovered klayworld outside of youtube esp bc i didnt start using youtube til 2007 or 8 (im baby) and its the only early 00s video series i watched outside of youtube. i think my dad introduced the videos to my brother and i now probably through ebaumsworld bc i played games on that video as a kid. didnt remember it had videos too lmaoo ok this theory makes sense to me

[@ry291]

Thinking of AlbinoBlackSheep reminds me of AmishDonkey too, don't hear it mentioned much

[@indigothecat]

Oh God, I remember the Bananaphone + Potter Puppet Pals crossover back in the day, lol. My friends were also obsessed with Salad Fingers, strangely I think teen girls liked Salad Fingers better than the boys, at least from my experience, but as a baby nerd gay in highschool with a gaggle of nerdy female friends, maybe it just felt that way.

[@morganp.9865]

It's so weird hearing people talk about the environment of my childhood in this way lmao

[@LikeTheProphet]

For me, it’s the environment of my adolescence. 😅 listening to young people talk about it makes me excited for people to know about my weird sense of humor as a teenager tbh. I was mercilessly bullied for my bizarre humor and nerdy interests in middle and high school, which was largely influenced by internet culture. and I’m just really excited that these things won’t get people bullied anymore! But also, this makes me ever so slightly want to shrivel into dust and blow away in the wind haha.

[@clsisman]

@@LikeTheProphet big same

[@SavvyNitro]

same like it’s some ancient time but to me feels like yesterday lol

[@UshioKiss]

I feel like covering all the viral videos from the 2010s would be next to impossible considering the amount of viral content just grows exponentially the closer you get to 2020

[@yungtessie]

Thank you Strange for the nostalgia! David Firth of Salad Fingers was such a tangible piece of my childhood. I completely fell down that rabbit hole in 5th grade, definitely a part of that "cult following." For anyone interested in more, his series "The News Hasn't Happened Yet" goes crazy- it's hilarious, surprisingly topical, and not *very* gory. (btw I've also made a video on his wack ass series "Spoilsbury Toastboy")

[@irradiated_woman8016]

Ah, david firth. I adore the spoilsberry toast boy series and the "take this pill" videos.

[@mirawinemiller1081]

I would also recommend “cream”

[@yungtessie]

@@mirawinemiller1081 cream is elite 👌🏻

[@WellWoopdidoo]

I think about The Child that Smelt Funny monthly, at least. Spines in brine are just so bloody cheap.

[@Axqu7227]

Dog of Man is one that nobody knows about but is one of my favorites!

[@cloudfrost8403]

Growing up in Canada, I had no idea Bananaphone was a meme - we used to listen to it all the time in the car as kids, along with Raffi's other songs. Possibly that's why Teya is confused about this, because Raffi is Canadian.

[@kaitlinroberts1792]

Thank you for saying this! I'm canadian as well and I just knew it, I didn't consider it a meme. I thought we were all nostalgic for it

[@hatemteirelbar9510]

But what you don't know is that his real name is Strange Aeons....

[@hannahfanning9585]

I swear this joke will be on every one of her uploads now XD

[@Tb40556]

I always check the replies to these comments, looking for panicked subs saying they didn’t know Teya uses he/him pronouns 😂

[@BiratesoftheCaribbean]

I think about this everyday

[@YumLemmingKebabs]

I understood that reference.

[@blueismylove3128]

Someone explain the joke to me please.

[@eza3381]

Man, Fred was dope. Watching that as a kid was such a trip how that guy managed to create such an engaging universe with honestly really good storytelling. Yea the screaming was a lot but for awkward hyperactive 12yr olds it was great content with an uncanny amount of depth. The neighbourhood squirrels maaaaaan. That, salad fingers, and the annoying orange is fond memories for sure x

[@PR0MAN01]

Another old 2000's series that I still love to this day in RvB. I know it started on other websites, but its still the series I think of when I think of a "KZbin show". Just some normal dudes recording their TV and talking on their phones created an 18 season long epic. That first episode was so insanely widespread on early YT with quotes that are still memorable like "You ever wonder why we're here"

[@eryaviel]

Oh lord, I remember quoting Red vs. Blue SO MUCH back in the day. "What in Sam Hell is a puma?!"

[@mrclean7164]

Ahhh classic

[@mrclean7164]

You got me wanting to go back and rewatch it!

[@TayDoesStuff]

I wish rooster teeth hadn't gone so corporate. :(

[@kandikidzora]

I still find ways to quote RvB no joke daily and it breaks my heart when people don’t get it, or get stupid excited when someone can add to the quote!

[@lucinahistoria8127]

The asdf series became widely known in Germany when it was dubbed around the same time the original came out. Not a whole lot of Germans know the "I like trains" catchphrase but if you mention the translation „Ich mag Züge“ they will know exactly where that’s from. I just think it‘s really interesting how much english/american KZbin content was dubbed by German creators and how much they actually influenced what Germans consumed back then on KZbin

[@vermillion6159]

I feel like it's because the general mainstream/pop culture of Germany has often overlapped with the American one for the last ~50 years so I can see why it was so popular here. The simplicity of the jokes helps that it doesn't get lost in translation as well, taking the reverse example, something like Coldmirror's Harry Potter parodies probably wouldn't work that well in English because it's slightly more "personalized"? I don't really know how to phrase it and I might be mistaken, but you get what I mean

[@sirius1770]

Oh yeah i remember we had our own translation of asdf movies in finnish too

[@phoeberose2429]

You talking about Fred was like a spiritual freewrite session. Like it just started and then all of a sudden you had all these fully formed opinions

[@BadgerOfTheSea]

I grew up in the town next to where the creator of Salad Fingers lived. He was a pretty active local DJ and a Tesco (basically Walmart), that has since been knocked down, had a Salad Fingers mural spray painted on the back of it near the bins

[@elvenbugs]

i once watched the fred movie with a friend as a young’n. we had never heard of fred before, nor did we know he was famous. the lack of context made it quite haunting.

[@alinkadebruin3455]

Dude, me and two friends watched it during a sleepover when I was like 11 and none of us knew who he was either. We were pulling an all nighter and that shit was surreal af, especially since we found and watched a few of his KZbin videos right after and since we watched random ones out of order nothing made sense. All I remember is that John Cena was his father???

[@Adamant_Adam]

I remember scrolling through cable one day and seeing the Fred movie (it was just the one back then) on Nick. I remembered him, and was shocked to see how popular he'd gotten that he even had a movie. I didnt watch his youtube vids much, but I remember loving the movies so much I'd replay them one after the other. (The 3rd was low-key my favorite, as cringe as it was.) Definitely a good time but not one I'd return to lmao

[@everestlol4309]

same lmao

[@Kaikaikai33]

It's super interesting to me as a person who was a mere infant/in some cases not even born yet around the time that all of these videos were posted and made popular, but a lot of them were still a super big part of my childhood and in my head were all from the 2010s.

[@arachnidlupus7625]

"The Evolution Of Dance" was the "Moses parting the sea" moment of KZbin, you HAD to be there.

[@ianisblue]

This feels very weird if you grew up in a different country. I wonder what it would be like to explain my countries early 2000s meme culture

[@merrittanimation7721]

Most likely very surreal

[@ianisblue]

@@merrittanimation7721 probably

[@tristanholderness4223]

I can't believe Shia LaBeouf (the original version which doesn't continue with the "wait, he isn't dead!") is from 2012. I could have sworn I remembered watching it on Albino Blacksheep back when I was still in school

[@LikeTheProphet]

If I’ve learned anything being a constant and proud citizen of the internet for the last 22 years, it’s that time is immaterial here, and becomes more immaterial by the day. 🌀

[@the_pipster]

i mean it makes sense, because the guy who made it was rob cantor and that was about the time that tally hall (the band he was in) went on "hiatus"

[@Cheesequeen1061]

I feel like the 2010's one is going to have way more memories for me than these ones because I was born in 2002, you just mentioning how animals eat their food unlocked so many memories

[@Chromaspell]

idk how fred got like three movies and a whole SERIES but i hope that man is set for life. he has contributed too much to the culture and has gotten too little recognition

[@lexismith8325]

Lucas has a KZbin channel!

[@crptpyr]

lucas cruikshank has a KZbin channel (just under his irl name iirc, so searching that should bring it up) he's actually a pretty cool guy he's also gay which means Fred is now an LGBT icon

[@davidkonevky7372]

He has a channel, it's called Lucas

[@davidkonevky7372]

@@crptpyr Judy was actually a man this whole time and we never knew

[@pickle6096]

Fred from an artistic standpoint is insanely deep and so interesting. I still unironically love fred

[@b0lkan]

Ah yes, playing games on Neopets while waiting for funny videos to buffer in the early 00s were the golden age.

[@mudkipmillie5216]

In 4th grade my best friend moved to my hometown from australia and went as salad fingers for Halloween and that honestly solidified us as being best friends forever, it’s wild to see the effects of the internet on people worldwide and our shared nostalgia ❤

[@cyanalien1238]

For me “taking the hobbits to Isengard “ is truly the most iconic 2000’s KZbin video.

[@himbokyles]

potter puppet pals just reminds me that you need to do a video on neil cicierega and how he somehow shaped people entire youtube with so much of his stuff, like his more recent work on gravity falls and the song two trucks, potter puppet pals, the ultimate showdown of ultimate history, brodyquest, ariel needs legs, the mouth albums (strange name but oh well) and honestly probably more that i just dont remember

[@the_pipster]

if you have ever been on the internet, you have probably seen something made by neil whether you realize it or not

[@BigGayIncorporated]

That one man alone has shaped SO much of the foundation of internet culture, it's fucking wild.

[@Raymundo_2112]

These videos are actually amazing you seem like a person I would be friends with

[@Kilroyan]

I feel like 'bananaphone' is probably best described as a meme song that served as the basis for many different videos that each lacked the impact to become true viral videos. still, they accumulate to turn the song itself into a sizable meme. I just realized I've been singing this song to myself for years and I've not seen any of these videos lol. I think that's speaks to how much people were listening to and singing this song back in the day.

[@alliecornelison7270]

the kitty cat dance and this was the first youtube video i ever saw, in a friend's basement and it was a hallmark for the future to me

[@davidtrujillo1689]

I was too young to understand most of the 2000's virals. But oh boy the 2010's are going to be a nostalgia train, literally my whole teens and I honestly can't wait.

[@artywolve]

Omg, I forgot about Fred! But yeah, I was waiting for Annoying Orange to come up. And I'm so glad to see that you had the exact same reaction I did when I was shown this at like 11 years old. Like. Just. Why???

[@familyminahan3343]

The trauma… i thought I had outlived it… but it has risen from the ashes and returned to haunt me

[@sonofaspyder3000]

From which video Or is it just all of them

[@eyeballjay]

Your mandela effect of only knowing the Banana Phone song from Potter Puppet Pals reminds me of how the version of Numa Numa I grew up on was this Resident Evil flash animation video of the characters singing the song, I had no idea about the original video with the guy singing it until like a few years ago lol it's a Resident Evil song to me

[@elieli2893]

Wow, thanks for unlocking the memory of being in middle school, seeing some guys from our class screwing around with a video platform they called "youtube" on a school computer, and shyly asking my friends, "hey, what's... a youtube?" xD I actually... Didn't realize it was a brand new platform back then!

[@ammitthedevourer7316]

29:02 Woah, brain blast, you’re right. One of the videos I found memorably hilarious was Fred auditioning or getting vocal lessons and he made up his own song for the occasion, complete with a piano accompaniment, about witnessing a murder. Randum XD and loud = funny comedy were my bag (hell, it still is) and I didn’t really realize how disturbing that would be in-universe. How dare you make me want to watch Fred for the lore.

[@averyjeanne]

Shane Dawson’s obsession with Fred was so creepy. Shane said on a podcast that he thought Lucas Crookshank was trying to hook up with him while Lucas was still a minor.

[@mrflibble3226]

Shane Dawson is so creepy. Full stop.

[@vsGoliath96]

I dunno, I've kind of reached this point where I don't trust anything Shane Dawson says. Bad vibes all around.

[@gaywalllbiter]

Ew. I watched both of them as a kid and this is so disgusting to think about, Fred was 15 to 16 in most of his videos.. Shane also made gross comments about his cat and about willow when she was literally 12 or 13

[@itsjustrhon]

i have had the melody of "bananaphone" stuck in my head for over 20 years. almost my entire existence has been plagued by that melody and that snippet of lyrics "ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring bAnAnApHoNe" .... until now i couldn't fully remember where i'd learned it. thank you for helping me recall where i gained this curse

[@harls4387]

My boyfriend sings banana phone every time we go to karaoke. If he’s drunk enough he will even shove a banana in his back pocket and pull it out when he sings. He’s been doing it for years. I love that man.

[@gaywalllbiter]

Stop this is so cute

[@scarlett2347]

SKDJDJFJSJ I LOVE THE LOCKED TOMB SERIES!! incredible book taste, i would love to see you make a video about what youve been reading/listening to :)

[@eryaviel]

Dragostea Din Tei is still on my playlist to this day. That song is a freaking bop.

[@lil_weasel219]

dragostea

[@eryaviel]

@@lil_weasel219 thank you! Edited my comment :)

[@hughcaldwell1034]

"Unsettling" is definitely the word for Salad Fingers. The background music is even called "Beware The Friendly Stranger".

[@nizhoni3339]

when i was a kid, i had severe behavioural problems. i would scream, cry, throw and break things, hit people and myself in meltdowns, well up to the age of 10 or 11. whenever my parents put on the kitty cat dance video, though, genuinely it was like a switch was flipped and i would just calm down and watch it.

[@ha_des]

the autistic fixation was too powerful

[@joshuajordan6278]

I remember when Numa Numa was on the freaking news back in the day. Society had no idea how to react to viral videos

[@spoofsmcjenkins2807]

I adore your stuff about old YT snd Tumblr. It's so nostalgic. Reminds me when I was kid/teenager

[@aquamarine13yt]

DUDE RAFFI WAS MY CHILDHOOD I had no idea his music became a meme at one point

[@samjohnson4751]

As someone who wasn't really on the internet until 2012 or 2013 it's interesting that and how I am familiar with all of these videos. Very excited for 2010's videos that I'll likely have actually seen when they were popular.

[@maxineschultze922]

I went through an annoying orange hyperfixation when I was around 10 because me and my sister just randomly picked out a dvd of the high fructose adventures of the annoying orange for a plane trip and then proceeded to watch it over and over again for weeks. My mom HATED it.

[@juliii_g]

I don't know when I first stumbled upon Fred but seeing his face unlocked a memory I didn't know I had 😂

[@brambleheart]

I was born in 2004, I remember watching these with the older kids on my street while our parents were drinking wine. The babysitter was a legend!

[@bogwitchburke]

I personally forced well over 20 people to watch the Bananaphone driving you crazy video on NewGrounds in the early 2000's. I'm wanted in 23 states.

[@gen_mxrdur4781]

I watched asdf in the psych ward, it holds a special place in my heart

[@solarcupid2583]

I had pretty much blocked out Annoying Orange from my memory, but that thumbnail just brought back all those memories. Thanks. I *really* wanted that. /s

[@AvenRox]

I come back to asdfmovie, laser collection, and llamas with hats every so often. For the nostalgia

[@fntthesmth423]

This is your reminder that the library also does audiobooks, Libby is my fave

[@hivacu96]

16:19 I want you to know that children’s KZbinrs still are doing covers of this banana phone song. My daughter loves it

[@hoyitsmiguel]

This is definitely where my tastes cross between STRANGE ÆONS Tumblr stories and Whang's Newgrounds/YTMND era stories from the internet - many of these internet tales had so much influence all across the spectrum, with so much backstory behind almost every one

[@cmmusic4721]

Banana-phone could be considered a proto tiktok sound style of meme. Nobody knows where it came from but it’s everywhere

[@bigtimechunk723]

It’s still a core memory for me that “cat, I’m a kitty cat” was the first video I ever watched online on my dial-up computer in the middle of nowhere in like 2007. Living so rural meant that I had dialup like that until like 2013, I do not miss it yo

[@Kaninchenbau]

It's so delightful how despite the sheer amount of viral videos you've already covered in these two parts, there's still so many more memes that haven't been mentioned, like. MAN the 00's had a SO MANY iconic memes/viral videos, it's a real iceberg lmao

[@squigglyworms]

a lot of these i found as a kid on flipnote hatena, some of these videos are like a year older than i am and i'm grateful that flipnote gave me the culture 🙏

[@steampunk-llama]

Ayyy same. Would honestly love to see a deep dive on Hatena, good god that was a wild time

[@Xiporah]

Banana Phone is the 2000's version of songs or audio clips going viral on tiktok, and everybody uploads their own video to go with it. I agree with you that ring ring banana phone has definitely been an auditory meme more than a visual one !

[@nicolefrancois8981]

I am so happy you talked about asdfmovie because I will try to reference or talk about with people now and I always felt crazy because no one ever knew what I was talking about. Also maybe it was just me and my school but Parry Gripp songs were iconic to me in 2010s. I know raining tacos is his most popular song although neon pegasus lives rent free in my brain. same with boogie boogie hedgehog but that was a 2000s song.

[@steampunk-llama]

Parry Gripps iPhone song being animated on Flipnote Studio had a chokehold on kid me

[@AlanQSmithee]

The research that went into this, rather than just being a straightforward list of "hey remember this"

[@MxNEWCASTLE]

Gotta appreciate that Lucas went from Fred to doing water park reviews with his brother and writing a song called "Shargay Evans."

[@ninjacheeto]

I know this video is a year old, but I would still love to see you dissect the viral videos of the 2010's