The Web's enormous influence on modern life is a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it brings an infinite amount of information to our fingertips and gives us profound new modes of instantaneous communication.
It is also the most powerful drain on human productivity that has ever existed'a digital stew chock full of flash animations about poop, videos of fat kids dancing and boat loads of other absurd content that, if watched for too long, will probably make you illiterate.
Fortunately, a lot of this stuff is absolutely hysterical. And thanks to the cubicle dwellers, college students and countless geeks that watch them, Internet sensations, or 'memes,' have gone mainstream.
So without further ado, I present my top five memes of all time...
5) Ellen Feiss: In 2002, an Apple ad featured Ms. Feiss telling the story of how her bleep-bleep-bleeping PC 'devoured' her paper. Ellen's blood-shot eyes, slurred speech and incoherent charm were attributed to the ad's late-night filming and Feiss' allergy medication, but the giggling masses watching the clip online thought otherwise.
Moment of glory: Ellen's spacey performance garnered her invitations to both Jay Leno and David Letterman'she turned both offers down.
4) Peanut Butter Jelly Time: Add one serving of a dancing banana, a half-dollop of the Buckwheat Boyz and stir vigorously and you've got a recipe for Internet stardom.
Moment of glory: In a recent Family Guy, Brian Griffin's homage to the gyrating banana didn't cheer up Peter, but it delighted geeks and fans of peanut butter everywhere.
3)You're the man now dog (YTMND.com): Flash videos are crude, poorly produced and usually of little cultural value. Amazingly, YTMNDs, basically just a graphic or brief animations with some sound tacked on, make flash cartoons seem like Masterpiece Theater, by comparison. Low production values aside, a good YTMND is like a perfect nugget of non sequitur'you can't just watch one...
Moment of glory: When rival site ebaumsworld.com posted a YTMND clip without permission, geek warfare was waged and both sites eventually got hacked.
2) Star Wars kid: Here's a lesson for all of you'if you film yourself performing not-so-graceful feats of light-saber acrobatics, don't let the tape just lie around in your high school A.V. department. The Force is not strong with this one.
Moment of glory: In an online petition, the Star Wars Kid received 140,000 digital signatures in an attempt to get him a cameo role in Star Wars Episode III'George Lucas sympathized with SWK, but declined.
1) Strong Bad: Whether it's teaching his friends how to draw a dragon, designing his Japanese cartoon alter-ego or just making fun of the e-mails he receives from his fans, Strong Bad and the rest of Homestarrunner.com are a Web institution, and for good reason. Strong Bad describes himself as 'cool, awesome, hot, video games, the hottest and real, real hot.' As long as he keeps answering our e-mails, it's hard to disagree with him.
Moment of glory: They Might Be Giants put Strong Sad, Strong Bad's brother, resident scapegoat and misunderstood artiste, in the director's seat for their 'Experimental Film' video.
Adam Dylewski is a junior majoring in genetics and life science communication. He's left way too many embarassing tapes in the A.V. department. Letters? Send them to adylewski@wisc.edu.
