this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

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[–] hglman@lemmy.ml 143 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Rick roll is hardly early internet.

Source, im old

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one 55 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Yeah, but goatse isn't very wholesome. Let the kid believe :P

[–] Donjuanme@lemmy.world 28 points 2 years ago

You're the man now dog?

Dancing baby?

Hell there were viral things before Google existed.

[–] Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 years ago

Goatse is the definition of some hole, tub girl on the other hand...

[–] TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

No, but it is hole-some.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Star wars kid, daft punk hands, daft punk girls, ninja kid there are tons of earlier internet memes.

[–] brygphilomena@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

I forgot about daft punk hands. Wow.

Badger badger badger was always fun. So was End of ze world.

And even those are pretty late memes.

[–] Zerlyna@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I second this comment. I am old too. 🤣

[–] Pandantic@midwest.social 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I think all your base is pretty wholesome :3

I mean, TAKE OFF EVERY ZIG!! 🥰

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[–] lowleveldata@programming.dev 7 points 2 years ago (6 children)

Actually it was found that Rick roll was originally inspired by an old Internet video dated back to the late 70s. They did a research on that if you're interested.

[–] PithyPolynym@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 years ago

Knew what "a research" was linking to, but I clicked it anyway.

[–] blindjezebel@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago

I got an ad before the video, ffs. My day is ruined.

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[–] foggy@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

Why, when I saw my first decapitation video I was merely a boy!

[–] Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee 95 points 2 years ago (8 children)

2007 wasn’t early internet lol.

Early internet’s most famous meme was probably either hamster dance or dancing baby. All Your Base wasn’t long after.

[–] bhmnscmm@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I mean there were even fax machine "memes". Checkout Faxlore if you weren't around at the time.

[–] Regna@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Thank you, I had forgotten some of the memes and jokes from that era.

[–] kiwifoxtrot@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago (3 children)
[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 3 points 2 years ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/kCpjgl2baLs

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

[–] dandroid@dandroid.app 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)
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[–] dandroid@dandroid.app 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I miss the days of looping flash videos. The Badger Song, The Llama Song, Magical Trevor, etc. Those defined my childhood.

[–] TimoBRL@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers Badgers mushroom mushroom

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[–] idkwhatimdoing@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 years ago

For sure dancing baby. Was shared as an attachment on emails even before YouTube was a thing

[–] keefshape@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 years ago

Nuhuh.

True early internet meme was pics from Madonna's coffee table book. Iykyk.

[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Ron Livingston playing piano as a cat.

[–] moody@lemmings.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

He was imitating this video which went viral before his.

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 48 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Like many other commenters, I wouldn't consider rickrolling to be "early internet." First of all it's a mutation of the duckroll meme, and dates as late as 2007. Trogdor predates rickrolling by 5 years.

But, I do have to say, I appreciate the rickroll as the internet's official prank. Tricking someone into watching a slightly cheesy but inoffensive music video to an actually pretty good song about being a faithful lover is pretty okay.

[–] Drgon@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago (3 children)

It's better than when a link could bring you to meatspin, lemon party, or Goatse

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[–] coaxil@lemm.ee 9 points 2 years ago

Consummate V's!!!!!

[–] mister_monster@monero.town 38 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Youtube isn't the early internet friend.

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 years ago

I still remember the first time someone told me about YouTube. I thought they were saying U2, the bad, and was really confused.

Fuck I'm old.

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[–] Mishmash2000@lemmy.nz 25 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Just for a bit of context I was "surfing the internet" in 1994 via Gopher, an early alternative to the web as we know it now and I used it primarily to find and download apps stored on computers connected to the internet.

In 1995 I was using the Mosaic browser and later Netscape to surf the World Wide Web mostly via webrings that were individual webpages that had links to other wepages of similar content linked to them.

I don't recall and am not aware of anything that would resemble a meme from that time? This is a year or so before Dancing Baby which is usually considered the first viral video and even then that was originally shared via email forwards.

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Memes back then were under construction gifs.

[–] GreenMario@lemm.ee 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Geocities circa 94-96. The first place anyone could have a little webpage.

We didn't even have CSS then! We had to build our pages in a cave with a box of HTML tags for scraps. You could do some sick shit with some fancy nested TABLE tags tho.

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[–] vashti@feddit.uk 4 points 2 years ago

Usenet was absolutely swarming with memes. They were text-based rather than image-based but they were definitely memes.

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[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 23 points 2 years ago (2 children)

This is the moment to mention that Rick Astley still makes music and just released a new song, it's called Never gonna stop. I'm not kidding, also, it's a banger.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 6 points 2 years ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=FON2SycdqaM&

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one 6 points 2 years ago

Rick Astley is an amazing vocalist, for real. I've heard some of his more recent stuff, and it's very good.

With that being said, I'm still not clicking that link

[–] Pacers31Colts18@lemm.ee 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Dancing baby is the early internet meme.

[–] Today@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

I hate that baby!

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 years ago

Lol dude what the fuck? That is not early Internet. That's a good decade and a half past early Internet.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 years ago

That was not early internet.

[–] ChlorineAddict@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

My spoon is too big

"You wouldn't get this from any other guy" is less wholesome and more incel, TBF.

[–] Donebrach@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

Hah. "early internet." Just like how Video Games' first foray into existence was in 2003 with Knights of the Old Republic. Before then, nothing existed.

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