28 born · 20 peaked · 3 died
Born in 1998 28
- ▲All Your Base Are Belong to UsA mistranslated line from a forgotten shoot-'em-up, and the first thing the entire web la…
- ●Asterisk CorrectionA typo fixed in the next message with an asterisk — 'their' / '*there' — as the chat conv…
- ●Centaur (AI)A human working with an AI as a team, dividing the labour along a clear line: the machine…
- ↺CybergothNeon dreadfalls, goggles, gas masks, platform boots and a dance that looks like stamping …
- ☠DMOZVolunteers categorising the entire web by hand, for nineteen years, in a hierarchy nobody…
- ◐Dance Dance RevolutionAn arcade machine with a floor of four arrows and a screen telling you when to step. Kona…
- ☠Demotivational PosterA black border, a photo, a caption, a subtitle that undermined it. The meme format that c…
- ☠First!A comment announcing that it was the first comment. A race to be seen having nothing to s…
- ●GLHF'Good luck, have fun' — the pre-match courtesy of competitive gaming, typed at the start …
- ●GTG'Got to go' — the exit line of the instant-messaging age, with G2G as its numeric variant…
- ▲Half-LifeA physicist with a crowbar, a tram ride instead of a cutscene, and a story told without t…
- ☠Hamster DanceRows of animated hamsters and a sped-up Roger Miller loop. Made to win a bet about traffi…
- ●JK'Just kidding' — the retraction that follows a joke that might not have landed, from AIM …
- ●JajajaThe Spanish typed laugh — 'ja' being 'ha' — which anglophones first met in mixed chatroom…
- ◐LineageKorea's first mass MMORPG, a castle-siege game that filled PC bangs alongside StarCraft a…
- ●MDR'Mort de rire' — dying of laughter — the French 'lol', born in late-1990s chat and still …
- ●Mario PartyA board game with dice, stars and minigames that has ended more friendships than any othe…
- ▲Metal Gear SolidA stealth game in which a boss reads your memory card, comments on your other games and m…
- ●OOC'Out of character' — the roleplay marker, from 1990s MUDs and forum games, that separates…
- ☠Open DiaryThe first site where strangers could comment on your diary. Everything about the social w…
- ●Skitt's LawAny post correcting an error will contain at least one error. The Usenet version of Muphr…
- ▲Slashdot EffectA small site collapsing under sudden attention from a large one. The concept survives; on…
- ●StarCraftThree asymmetric alien races in a real-time strategy game that South Korea adopted as a n…
- ▲Starsiege: TribesA team shooter with jetpacks, enormous outdoor maps and vehicles, in which players discov…
- ●SuperintelligenceAn intellect that outperforms the best human minds at practically everything, from scienc…
- ●The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of TimeThe first 3D Zelda, with lock-on targeting, a horse and an ocarina played with the C butt…
- ▲You Are the Millionth VisitorThe flashing banner that announced you had won — 'You are the 1,000,000th visitor! Click …
- ▲Zerg RushOverwhelming an opponent with many cheap units, early. A tactic, then a metaphor, then a …
Peaked in 1998 20
- ☠AOL CDA free trial disc that arrived in every magazine, cereal box and letterbox on Earth. At o…
- ☠AltaVistaThe first search engine that indexed the whole web, and the first to be beaten by a clean…
- ☠Bert Is EvilA Sesame Street puppet photoshopped next to history's villains. Retired by its creator 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…
- ↺Final Fantasy VIIThe role-playing game that made the genre mainstream in the West, sold the PlayStation as…
- ◐Flame WarA public argument that had stopped being about anything. The word is fading only because …
- ↺GoldenEye 007A film licence that became the console's first great multiplayer shooter: four players on…
- ↺Hit CounterAn odometer at the bottom of the page announcing you were visitor number 000412. Most wer…
- ▲Mario Kart 64Four players, one television, and the debut of the blue shell, which hunts the leader and…
- ↺Marquee TagText that scrolled sideways across the page for no reason. Outlived the blink tag by pret…
- ◐NewbieA newcomer, before the spelling turned hostile. Now used only by newbies.
- ●Resident EvilA mansion, fixed camera angles, tank controls, zombie dogs through a window, and voice ac…
- ▲ScreensaverThe animation that took over an idle monitor to stop images burning into the phosphor — f…
- ↺Solitaire (Windows)Klondike solitaire, written by a Microsoft intern who was never paid for it and shipped w…
- ☠Surfing the WebMoving from page to page for the pleasure of it. Died as a phrase when there stopped bein…
- ↺Under Construction GIFAn animated workman, digging, forever. Admitted that a page was unfinished — a form of ho…
- ↺WebringSites linking to each other in a circle, on purpose, with no algorithm involved. Currentl…
- ☠Yahoo DirectoryTwo graduate students listing every website by hand, in categories. Worked until the web …
- ▲You've Got MailAn announcement that someone had written to you, spoken aloud by the computer. Became a r…
Died in 1998 3
- ☠Information SuperhighwayA metaphor for the internet used exclusively by people who had not been on it. Died the m…
- ▲QuickCamThe Connectix QuickCam, a grey plastic ball on a stand, sold for $99 in 1994 and captured…
- ▲Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?An educational detective game in which a thief in a red coat steals landmarks and childre…