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Huh, interesting you don’t know that one. Memes had a bigger impact then: there were fewer of them, they were more unexpected (because they were newer), and in

Huh, interesting you don’t know that one. Memes had a bigger impact then: there were fewer of them, they were more unexpected (because they were newer), and in fact the word meme either did not exist or, if it did, it was certainly not in widespread use. Anyway: “ On June 1, 2006, YouTube was taken down temporarily for maintenance. The phrase "ALL YOUR VIDEO ARE BELONG TO US" appeared below the YouTube logo as a placeholder while the site was down. Some users believed the site had been hacked, leading YouTube to add the message ‘ "No, we haven't be [sic] hacked. Get a sense of humor.”’ I can’t imagine YouTube doing anything like that today for a meme?

krapp 6y ago
>and in fact the word meme either did not exist or, if it did, it was certainly not in widespread use. The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene, in 1976. The internet got the term from the book.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  Thanks, but as I said, it was not in widespread use in the 90s... at least not in an internet context.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    Merriam-Webster has a 1998 [0] reference that sounds close to the modern usage, though I don't know when got popular - at or before 2008 though, based on their next example. I do vaguely remember "viral video" and "image macro" were distinct in the early/mid-00s though, at the time I don't think they were grouped together under "meme". [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/meme-word-origins-history https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/meme-word-orig...
    - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
      Ah the dancing baby meme. That was huge and you could buy a software “package” on windows that had hundreds of video variations of the baby. I still have that software (no, I did not buy it).
etrabroline 6y ago
That's because it was probably just one guy who had the authority to put that there without any threat of getting fired. Google today would set up a committee with diverse groups represented (including HR, PR and Legal) to focus test any and all potential "hate joke incidents" to ensure bland and inoffensiveness to all. The ongoing YouRube Rewind fiasco demonstrates this very well. I have to thank the Japanese for having a sense of humor otherwise "all your base" would have died a slow and painful death long ago at the hands of the joke police, and it still might if it were to ever leave its relative obscurity.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  > The ongoing YouRube Rewind fiasco demonstrates this very well. Do you have a link for this? I’d like to read more about it. Searching for YT Rewind gave me the Wikipedia article and some scrubbed articles that don’t include stuff a out a fiasco.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    I believe they mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_Rewind_2018:_Everyone_Controls_Rewind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_Rewind_2018:_Everyone_... a youtube video which youtube featured prominently on the front page and which received a lot of downvotes at the time. Julia Alexander of The Verge suggested that YouTube had intentionally left out the biggest moments on the platform in 2018 from the video in an attempt to calm concerned advertisers over controversies that had plagued the platform over the past 2 years, saying "it's increasingly apparent, however, that YouTube is trying to sell a culture that's different from the one millions of people come to the platform for, and that's getting harder for both creators and fans to swallow".
grishka 6y ago
The elusive kind of company that is run by engineers, not financial people. I miss these dearly.

krapp 6y ago

>and in fact the word meme either did not exist or, if it did, it was certainly not in widespread use. The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene, in 1976. The internet got the term from the book.

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
Thanks, but as I said, it was not in widespread use in the 90s... at least not in an internet context.
- Izkata 6y ago
  Merriam-Webster has a 1998 [0] reference that sounds close to the modern usage, though I don't know when got popular - at or before 2008 though, based on their next example. I do vaguely remember "viral video" and "image macro" were distinct in the early/mid-00s though, at the time I don't think they were grouped together under "meme". [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/meme-word-origins-history https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/meme-word-orig...
  - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
    Ah the dancing baby meme. That was huge and you could buy a software “package” on windows that had hundreds of video variations of the baby. I still have that software (no, I did not buy it).

etrabroline 6y ago

That's because it was probably just one guy who had the authority to put that there without any threat of getting fired. Google today would set up a committee with diverse groups represented (including HR, PR and Legal) to focus test any and all potential "hate joke incidents" to ensure bland and inoffensiveness to all. The ongoing YouRube Rewind fiasco demonstrates this very well. I have to thank the Japanese for having a sense of humor otherwise "all your base" would have died a slow and painful death long ago at the hands of the joke police, and it still might if it were to ever leave its relative obscurity.

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
> The ongoing YouRube Rewind fiasco demonstrates this very well. Do you have a link for this? I’d like to read more about it. Searching for YT Rewind gave me the Wikipedia article and some scrubbed articles that don’t include stuff a out a fiasco.
- michaelt 6y ago
  I believe they mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_Rewind_2018:_Everyone_Controls_Rewind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_Rewind_2018:_Everyone_... a youtube video which youtube featured prominently on the front page and which received a lot of downvotes at the time. Julia Alexander of The Verge suggested that YouTube had intentionally left out the biggest moments on the platform in 2018 from the video in an attempt to calm concerned advertisers over controversies that had plagued the platform over the past 2 years, saying "it's increasingly apparent, however, that YouTube is trying to sell a culture that's different from the one millions of people come to the platform for, and that's getting harder for both creators and fans to swallow".

grishka 6y ago

The elusive kind of company that is run by engineers, not financial people. I miss these dearly.