I could also have titled this post What We Did Online Before Facebook, because this is essentially what faffing about on the internet was before social media was invented – and in many cases, before everyone had broadband so you’d have to do all your browsing before someone wanted to use the phone. (Second phone line? Ha ha ha no, who’s going to pay for that? Not you, you don’t have a job and you’re 14).
When you got home from school or uni you’d go through your bookmarks of random websites and hope they’d updated since yesterday, then send the best ones to your friends on MSN, and the content that was “important” to Teenage and Student Autumn (after all, you had to really want to watch something to wait for it to load over dialup).
These days I mostly watch videos about true crime on YouTube and Twitch streams about old games from the 90s, gaze longingly at places I can’t go and food I can’t eat because of the plague on Instagram, forward memes to my friends on Messenger, and despise Facebook for being evil and propagating Nazis but can’t be arsed to delete it. Teenage Autumn would have been amazed you can be online all the time without blocking the phone line (and probably that MSN isn’t still a thing). I know the first time I used broadband at uni about blew my mind that I didn’t have to stare at the progress bar on whatever Flash site I was on for five minutes before being able to watch anything.
Making friends in the early/mid-2000s mostly involved asking people if they’d seen Salad Fingers or Yatta! or Potter Puppet Pals, and then linking them to or showing them the ones you liked and hoping they enjoyed them.
Millennial humour is “LOLRANDOM!!!1 XD XD XD” at its finest, and we probably couldn’t tell you why these things were so funny or compelling at the time in some cases. The honest truth is that there was actually fuck all to do on the internet in the early days – once you’d checked all your sites and there was no one on MSN you wanted to talk to, all there was left was to update your LiveJournal, check your emails, try to steal some songs from Napster or LimeWire or your piracy tool of choice, and log off and go and play Tomb Raider or something.
Anyway. Go and find your crappiest laptop speakers and let’s have a look at the early-2000s internet.
For the record, I hated Happy Tree Friends (which only the edgiest edgelords liked), Peanut Butter Jelly Time (stupid), and JoeCartoon (see Happy Tree Friends). And anything with jumpscares or shock sites so that car ad where the gremlin pops up can fuck right off.
Homestar Runner Not to be confused with Homestuck, which makes no sense and only twats like it. I read a few pages of it after tripping over grey-painted idiots with no spatial awareness at a con one too many times and felt like someone was trying to scoop out my brain with a melon baller.
Homestar Runner is the don. The OG of Flash cartoons. I discovered it from a link on someone’s Diaryland page to the original Trogdor cartoon, thought it was hilarious, and promptly devoured everything else on the website.
Strong Bad is still hilarious. I once saw a dude wearing a Strong Bad hoodie in the Shires in Leicester (because they sold merch my horrible parents would never in ten million years allowed me to buy off the internet!!) and had to talk myself out of going over to high five him.
What started as a random kids’ book spawned a website with its own complicated character mythologies, alternate universes, songs, 80s film and video game references (which I definitely didn’t get all of at the time), endless quotable videos (Trogdor! Teen Girl Squad!) and – the other important thing from 2000s internet – Flash games. I still can’t hear the music for the HARD AS BALLS Megaman-esque platformer Stinkoman 20X6 without tasting overpriced ramen from the campus shop and Diet Coke because I played it so much when I should have been revising for my first year exams at uni.
Everyone is different. No two people are not on fire. awwwww
Salad Fingers I think in the early days Salad Fingers was on Weebl’s Stuff as well as Newgrounds. Anyway, if you know, you know, and you’re totally hearing his voice and/or Boards of Canada in your head right now. I once watched it while stoned and 0/10 would not recommend.
Weebl’s Stuff I discovered most of these cartoons in the PC room in sixth form by using the one computer that had a working sound card. Arguably best known first of all for the pie-obsessed egg creatures Weebl and Bob, this site was also home to a cornucopia of random looping animations about mangoes, Patrick Moore, Kenya, underpants, things in disguise, a stabby man, and the infamous badgers, mushrooms, and snakes.
There was also The Lord, which is being converted for YouTube at the moment but lives on by being quoted regularly by me and a colleague: “As you can see, I am no longer under the influence of the horse.” “You see, I have the fear!” I never found Cat Face or Parsley Boobs all that funny, though.
And when Bitchney was on one about Phantom of the Opera or Nightwish or whatever this week, singing while she made dinner or looked at clothes in H&M, it was great fun for me to drown her out by singing “I’VE GOT A BIG BAG OF CRABS HERE, I’M GONNA PUT THEM IN MY MOUTH, OH YES!” at the very top of my voice because a) it annoyed her b) I hate Phantom of the Opera c) she only liked Nightwish because Eric liked Nightwish.
Rathergood If you’ve ever thought “this is so fucking stupid” while laughing at a Flash cartoon and it wasn’t on Weebl’s Stuff or a hosting site like Albinoblacksheep or Newgrounds, it was probably on Rathergood. There was a lot of crossover between the two for a while.
I especially liked Hover Bacon, Alf Garnett, Immigrant Song Kittens, Gay Bar, We Like The Moon, and Bill Oddie. There was also a baffling series about Mick Hucknall from Simply Red and his relations with rabbits.
Rathergood also featured the excellent Buffy’s Swearing Keyboard, because when you’re 19 and stoned making it yell “MINGE!” over and over again is the height of comedy. (OK, I am 34, very much sober, and making it yell “MINGE!” is still funny).
Making Fiends Becky introduced me to Making Fiends, which was created by Amy Winfrey, who went on to work on one of my absolute favourite shows ever, BoJack Horseman. Charlotte moves from Vermont to … somewhere dark and spooky where everyone is afraid of Vendetta, because she can make “fiends” – creatures that make everyone else’s life miserable.
Charlotte is somehow oblivious to how fucky the world around her is, immediately decides she and Vendetta are BFF, and edgy hilarity ensues. Vendetta’s voice is still one of my favourites in all animation and I often find myself saying “no! My hamster doesn’t like singing!” in my best imitation.
Ill Will Press If you’ve been on the internet since the early 2000s and you haven’t even heard of Foamy the Squirrel I really don’t know what to tell you. The tech support ones haven’t aged very well and Foamy’s entire schtick of being angry at everything (squirrelly wrath!) is a bit … repetitive, but there’s still some little nuggets in there that make me laugh.
CKY Skeletor vs Beast-Man Sometimes people would send you videos with absolutely no context. Sometimes they were screamers and that’s why I have trust issues. Sometimes they just made absolutely no sense but stuck in your consciousness.
I live for the day when I’m not just minding my own business trying to work or concentrate and suddenly my brain is like “furry fool breakdance, take off your furry pants, take off your high heels and put them in your ass!”.
If you’re remotely familiar with CKY/Jackass/Viva La Bam I’m sure you know what kind of mid-2000s crude frat boy type humour to expect. If not… uh, read the above and don’t say I didn’t warn you.
They’re Taking The Hobbits To Isengard You will never be able to watch The Two Towers in the same way again once you know the immortal line is coming. Also bonus Aragorn (or Legolas if he was more your thing).
Llamas With Hats They’re llamas. They wear hats. One of them is called Carl, or more precisely “CAAAARRRRLLLLLLLL!”. Carl is not very nice.
Kelly Part of what inspired me to do this post was that Kelly is a thing again! Shoes was amazing in 2006:
…and Kelly is back to a) call her horrible mother out on her shit (relatable) and b) remind everyone to wear a fucking mask because you’re selfish and cunty not to. Wear a mask betch.
Rejected Rejected cannot be explained, it can only be witnessed, and then you will know its ways.
The End of the World h’okay. So here’s the earth. You definitely heard someone quoting “but I am le tired!” at some point in the 2000s.
Evangelion ReDeath The existential nightmare that is Evangelion isn’t exactly light-hearted and fun, and someone decided it needed to be. I was introduced to this fandub by my then-boyfriend when I was on Erasmus (ooh, spoilers) because he knew I loved Evangelion and it’s still hilarious.
The Llama Song here’s a llama there’s a llama and another little llama fuzzy llama funny llama llama llama duck llama llama cheesecake llama tablet brick potato llama llama llama mushroom llama llama llama duck I was once a treehouse I lived in a cake but I never saw the way the orange slayed the rake I was only three years dead but it told a tale and now listen little child to the safety rail did you ever see a llama kiss a llama on the llama llama’s llama tastes of llama llama llama duck half of llama twice the llama not a llama farmer llama llama in a car alarm a llama llama duck is that how it’s told now is it all so old is it made of lemon juice doorknob ankle cold now my song is getting thin I’ve run out of luck time for me to retire now and become a duck
I may have watched this one a few too many times since I just typed that out from memory. Llamas were a thing in the early 2000s because a) it’s a funny word to say and b) they’re amusing to look at. Fairly sure this was one Bitchney showed me when we were first hanging out together so it’s her fault.
Yatta! (Irrational Exuberance) is best described as “very Japanese” and, much like Rejected, is otherwise fairly hard to explain to people. It just … is.
Princess the Dog All I should need to say for this is that it’s by the same people who make South Park and is somehow even more twisted and gross. I can’t think why it never got more than two episodes.
Ham(p)sterdance In 1999 it was totally normal to sit in front of your PC and wait for your crappy 56k dialup connection to download dozens of gifs of cartoon hamsters dancing over an infinitely repeating vaguely line dancey music loop.
Charlie The Unicorn Charlie the Unicorn is dragged to Candy Mountain by his two friends. It doesn’t end well.
AMV Hell Not all anime music videos* are pretty boys angsting while Linkin Park or Evanescence play over the top. Some of them just don’t make any sense.
(* Disclaimer: I was never that much of a weeb).
Fabulous Secret Powers/He-Man Sings/HEYEAYEAYEAYEA He-Man sings What’s Up by Four Non Blondes, for some reason. Skeletor says “MYAH!”. The chef says “now it’s time for cake!”. It’s a good time for everyone.
Potter Puppet Pals (and other Neil Cicierega/LemonDemon animations) Unfortunately, having seen the Bothering Snape episode was what made the Potter-obsessed Bitchney decide we should be friends (though I didn’t know what horrors awaited me at the time). I hadn’t read any of the books then and and been coerced into seeing the Prince of Azkaban film at school, so as far as I was concerned this was exactly what Harry Potter was about. Still better than The Cursed Child and also fuck JK Rowling and her transphobic nonsense while we’re on the subject.
There was also The Ultimate Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny which is the nadir of 2000s randomness.
Animator vs. Animation was the coolest thing ever in 2005. I still remember how real it looked blowing my tiny mind.
Bananaphone is Baby Shark from the 2000s. The earworm from hell… with gratuitous crudely drawn violence.
Webcomics were also a thing in the 2000s (and are still a thing now, though the only one I really have any time for is the very NSFW Oglaf). I’m sure there are others I used to read that I can’t think of but these were the ones that came to mind.
Sinfest Sex! Succubi! Angels! More sex! Everything the horny weeb could want in the early/mid 2000s.
I haven’t read it for a few years but while I admire his more recent feminist comments (and not just using Monique for fanservice) I am not here for the author publicly supporting JK Rowling and her TERF bullshit so fuck that.
Bunny is a little pink bunny with one-line captions. I especially like that the website is so old it still has a LiveJournal syndication feed.
Boy Meets Boy is a romantic slice-of-life comic I was linked to on an AOL messageboard (those are a whole other segment of 2000s internet I’m not sure I can recapture). I literally remember nothing about it except that Tabitha was the daughter of Satan and I wanted to be her, or kiss her, or both.
Pokey The Penguin I genuinely think this comic is still done in MSPaint. Pokey The Penguin lives in the Arctic and thinks the Italians are after him, for some reason.
I Harth Darth Cute little comics about Darth Vader the family man. I had a small existential crisis on realising it hasn’t been updated in literally 15 years. Good luck finding any images from it without a giant Photobucket watermark over the top.
Spamusement Back in the early 2000s, spam emails weren’t threatening to leak your nudes unless you paid ONE MEEEELION DOLLARS in bitcoin or trying to get you to sign up for some rando porn/casino site… oh wait. A lot of spam was random captcha-esque gibberish or weird phrases, which is where Spamusement gets its content. “It`s time to Refill armadillo“.
Natalie Dee Simple one-panel comics about slice-of-life humour or off-the-wall shit. I especially like this one because those Boys Are Stupid, Throw Rocks At Them posters were ubiquitous in the mid-2000s.
This list is far from exhaustive (I’ve had it in my drafts for weeks now, and a list on my phone so when I randomly think “Patrick Moore plays the xylophone” during my 45th Teams call that should have been an email of the week I can open it up and add it in. We might have to come back to the early-2000s internet at a later date when I inevitably remember twenty more stupid things we wasted dialup minutes on like a fever dream at 3am.
Ridiculous Teenage Diaries 
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