Hampster Dance
You might remember it as Hampsterdance, Hamster Dance
The archive has not found a surviving copy.
Most viral ever23 of 32
1997·Early web, before YouTube·skill
One of the earliest things anyone called an internet meme, and the origin of a song that outlived the page.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- Hampsterdance
- Spread in
- 1997
- Began as
- A web page
- Made by
- Deidre LaCarte, a student and martial arts instructor from Nanaimo, British Columbia
- Where it started
- A GeoCities page
- The song
- A nine-second loop: a sped-up sample of Roger Miller’s Whistle Stop, from Disney’s 1973 Robin Hood
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
A other classified under dance, described as skill.
Why it matteredWhat changed
One web page of dancing hamsters, made to win a bet about traffic, sat almost unvisited for a year and a half and then drew sixty thousand views in four days.
TimelineIn order
- Made
Deidre LaCarte builds the page, in a competition with her sister and her best friend to see whose site can draw the most visitors. It shows four animated hamsters repeated in rows.1
- Took off
Word of the page spreads. Having had about eight hundred visits in its first nineteen months, it gets about sixty thousand in four days in March.1
- Remixed
The Cuban Boys release a single built on the sped-up sample.1
- Mainstream
A version marketed as the Hamster Dance song reaches number four in the UK at Christmas.1
- Remixed
The Hampsterdance Song, by The Boomtang Boys, is released and reaches number one in Canada.1
- Later
LaCarte sells the rights to the site.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asAn instant hit in 1997.
ActuallyIt had about eight hundred visits in its first year and a half. It spread in February 1999.1
Commonly remembered asHamster Dance.
ActuallyThe site is spelt Hampster, on purpose. LaCarte’s own pet shared the misspelling.1
LegacyWhat it left behind
- LaCarte did not register the obvious domain name, and a copy of her site was set up on it by somebody else.1
More from hereIn this collection
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · a moment that changed what the internet did next · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
This began as a web page, not as a video. Originally published on GeoCities.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This began as a web page, not as a video. Originally published on GeoCities.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
ConnectedFollow it further
- Spread by GeoCitiesPhenomenon · 1996
The page was built and hosted on GeoCities, the free service where personal web pages of the time lived.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things