34 born · 6 peaked · 2 died
Born in 1996 34
- ↺88x31 ButtonA tiny rectangular badge linking to a friend's site or announcing your browser loyalties.…
- ☠A/S/LAge, sex, location, asked in that order of every stranger. Died when platforms began answ…
- ◐AFKAway from keyboard. Once a real status; now an artefact of a time when leaving the machin…
- ●Affiliate LinkA link that pays the poster a commission if you buy — the affiliate link — Amazon's inven…
- ▲AngelfireGeoCities for people who had already been thrown off GeoCities. Technically still online,…
- ☠Ask JeevesA cartoon butler who took questions in full sentences and mostly misunderstood them. Ever…
- ●BFF'Best friends forever' — the declaration, from 1990s slang and a sitcom into text messagi…
- ☠Best Viewed at 800x600A warning that the page had been designed for exactly one monitor. Responsive design did …
- ●CampingStaying in one spot with a good weapon and waiting. The oldest gaming insult still in use…
- ▲Command & Conquer: Red AlertAn alternate-history Second World War in which Einstein removes Hitler and the Soviets in…
- ↺Crash BandicootAn orange marsupial spinning through crates in a 3D corridor, built by a small studio as …
- ☠Dancing BabyA 3D infant cha-cha-ing in a void. The first viral animation, and the first one to appear…
- ▲Duke Nukem 3DA shooter with a wisecracking hero in a vest, strippers, a toilet you could drink from an…
- ☠Forum SignatureA block of quotes, banners and a Naruto GIF under every post you made. The last place on …
- ☠FramesA page made of several pages in windows that scrolled independently, none of which could …
- ●Heel TurnA wrestling good guy becoming a bad guy — the heel turn — the oldest trick in the busines…
- ☠HotmailThe first big free webmail, launched on American Independence Day 1996 as a symbol of fre…
- ☠ICQThe first instant messenger, with numbers instead of names and the uh-oh. Lasted twenty-e…
- ▲ICQ Uh-OhThe sound of someone wanting you. The first push notification, and the last one anybody w…
- ☠MIDI Background MusicA tinny synthesised song that started when the page loaded and could not be stopped. The …
- ▲Mario Kart 64Four players, one television, and the debut of the blue shell, which hunts the leader and…
- ●PhishingFishing for credentials with a fake login page, spelt in leet. The only 1990s hacker coin…
- ▲Pokémon Red and BlueCatch 151 creatures on a Game Boy, trade the rest through a link cable. The 1998 Western …
- ▲Quakeid Software's true-3D follow-up to Doom, with a Nine Inch Nails soundtrack and, from Dece…
- ●Resident EvilA mansion, fixed camera angles, tank controls, zombie dogs through a window, and voice ac…
- ●Script KiddieA person who uses other people's hacking tools without understanding them — a script kidd…
- ●ShippingWanting two characters to be in a relationship. The founding verb of fandom, and now also…
- ●SmurfAn experienced player on a new account, beating beginners — a smurf — named after two War…
- ☠Spacer GIFA one-pixel transparent image stretched to hold a layout together. The whole visual web w…
- ☠Splash PageA full-screen intro between you and the content, with a button reading 'Enter site' or 'S…
- ●Super Mario 64The first 3D platformer that worked, with an analogue stick built for it and a castle ful…
- ☠Table LayoutBuilding a page out of nested spreadsheet cells because there was nothing else. Every des…
- ↺TamagotchiThe egg-shaped keychain pet from Bandai, released in Japan in November 1996, that needed …
- ☠w00tA cheer, with zeroes. Word of the Year in 2007 and never typed sincerely again after the …
Peaked in 1996 6
- ☠AuctionWebThe online auction market Pierre Omidyar launched in September 1995, two months after Ama…
- ▲CyberspaceSomewhere else that you went when you logged on. Died when there stopped being a here to …
- ▲NetiquetteThe idea that there were manners online and that they could be taught. Filed as a fossil …
- ☠Netscape NavigatorThe browser that was the web in 1995 — 80 per cent of users, a $2 billion IPO that starte…
- ▲QuickCamThe Connectix QuickCam, a grey plastic ball on a stand, sold for $99 in 1994 and captured…
- ▲Trojan Room Coffee PotA filter coffee machine in the Trojan Room of the Cambridge computer lab, filmed by a cam…