Hampster Dance

About

The Hampster Dance or Hampsterdance is one of the earliest examples of an Internet meme. It was a single-serving site featuring dancing hamsters that became popular through e-mail, blogs, bumper stickers, and bait & switch.

Origin

The original Hampster Dance website was created by Canadian art student Deidre LaCarte for a GeoCities (a now defunct service) page.^[1] She was competing with her sister and best friend to see who could generate the most internet traffic for their resepective websites. The ultimate result was a page that featured rows of animated GIFs with hamsters and other rodents “dancing” in various ways (as an homage to her pet hamster, “Hampton Hamster”), create in August 1998.

The music that played in the background was from a 9-second WAV file that contained a sped-up sample from the song “Whistle Stop”^[2] by Roger Miller, written for the 1973 Robin Hood Disney cartoon.^[3]
The Original “Whistle Stop” song:

The Sped-up “Whistle Stop” version used in the original Hampster Dance:

Spread

The Hampster Dance suddenly became popular through e-mails, pranks, and blogs. Before January 1999, the page was only getting about 4 views a day. Afterwards, it would be getting more than 15,000 views.

Soon, many other internet users attempted to imitate the Hampster Dance. However, many of these websites were hosted on GeoCities^[4] and AngelFire^[5]. As a result, the majority of these “dancing” websites are no longer available.

But a few still survive to this day: “The Funky Pez Dance of Love”^[6], “The Cool Dance !!!”^[7], “The Pig Dance”^[8], “The Matchstick Dance”^[9], “The Jesus Dance”.^[10]

Popularity

Because the website was getting so much attention, some tried to capitalize on the fad with their own renditions of the “Hampster Dance song”:

• “The ‘Official’ Hampster Dance Song,” which stayed on the Canada Top 40 for two weeks.
• “The Hampster Dance Song,” reaching #5 on the ARIAnet singles chart.^[11]

And several albums based on the phenomenon as well:

• Hampster Dance: The Album
• Hampster Dance Party
• Happy Times Ten
• Hampster Dance Hits
• A Very Hampsterdance Christmas
• The Don Flanco EP

It has also spawned other merchandise, including clothes, toys, audio recordings, and audiovisual recordings. The highly commercial page was also launched on the official site.^[12]

The Hampster Dance Today

The Hampster Dance is the predecessor to many modern Internet fads. For example, it was one of the first memes to incorporate bait and switch, preceding the modern 2 Girls 1 Cup and Rickroll memes. It is also one of the most popular Single-Serving sites of all time.

To this day, the most popular musical rendition of the Hampster Dance is “The Hampsterdance” by Hampton the Hamster.^[13]

Besides these, a YTMND version was posted to there in 2006^[14], and a hand-drawn animated video featuring Touhou characters got popularity in 2009 in Nico Nico Douga.^[15][16]

Search Interest

Google Trends

Google trends: results for “Hampster Dance” (in blue) and “Hampsterdance” (in red).^[17]

Google Insights

External References