early internet

A 1993 episode of The Computer Chronicles on the early Internet, with guests including Howard Rheingold discussing online community. It is a window into how the internet was seen and what hardware was in use at the time.

A 1994 Today Show clip in which hosts puzzle over what the Internet is and how to say the at-sign in email addresses. It is a short archival piece from the early days of the web.

A short clip of Bill Gates appearing on David Letterman's show in 1995 trying to explain the value of the internet. Letterman is visibly unconvinced.

A clip from a 1995 Late Show with David Letterman in which Bill Gates discusses Microsoft's origins and the internet while Dave is skeptical of computers.

Bo Burnham's song from his special Inside, a satirical take on internet culture, attention and extremism.

A short compilation of NBC Today show clips from 1994-95 in which hosts and guests puzzle over the World Wide Web and email. It includes Bill Gates and the Today anchors.

A two-minute Microsoft ad for Internet Explorer 10 in which a karaoke-style song addresses people who hate the browser. It is part of the "browser you loved to hate" campaign.

Home video of the 11 March 2011 Japan earthquake, filmed as an early warning system detected the P wave and gave seconds of notice before the shaking began. The raw footage shows the warning in action.

Internet Historian's comedic retelling of how internet users located and captured the flag from Shia LaBeouf's He Will Not Divide Us installation, framed with Metal Gear Solid parodies. It covers the trolling campaign and the geolocation of the flag.

Innuendo Studios uses Phil Fish, creator of the game Fez, as a case study in internet celebrity. The essay argues that fame online works differently from traditional fame, and shows how audiences turn on the people they have elevated.

Writer and artist James Bridle shows how strange and disturbing children's videos on YouTube, from surprise eggs to algorithmic mashups, are produced for ad revenue. He argues they reveal problems in a data-driven internet.

A very short clip from the children's cartoon Arthur riffing on the line about not believing everything you read on the internet.

A 1995 Letterman appearance in which Bill Gates explains the origins of Microsoft and tries to convince Dave to get a computer and get online.

Full-day livestream of the 2016 Decentralized Web Summit at the Internet Archive, with speakers including Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, Brewster Kahle, Cory Doctorow and Mitchell Baker. It explores the technology and impact of a decentralized web.

Dan Tentler shows a rapid-fire tour of insecure things found on the open internet using Shodan and his own scanning, from unprotected VNC endpoints to industrial controls. The emphasis is on how little security was considered before connecting them.

A short archival capture of the 2001 Flash website of 2Advanced Studios, an agency known for high-end Flash design. It is part of the Web Design Museum's collection of early web design.

A short Supernova 2007 provocation in which Clay Shirky uses a 1300-year-old Japanese shrine, rebuilt periodically, as a metaphor for how networks change business and collective creativity.

A one-minute 2012 Microsoft television commercial for Internet Explorer 9, set to Alex Clare's 'Too Close'. It pitches a 'more beautiful web' with fast one-click access to favorite sites.

In an IT Crowd episode clip, Moss and Roy convince Jen that the internet is a small black box. She believes it and carries it around.

A long interview with Elon Musk at Gigafactory Texas on Tesla's early days, covering why electric vehicles, who founded Tesla, founder departures, Roadster engineering and early funding.

Jon Bois tells the story of a 2008 bodybuilding forum thread in which users spent a weekend arguing over how many days are in a week. It is episode six of his Pretty Good series for SB Nation.

Tom Scott makes a short descriptivist argument that language keeps changing and that casual internet writing conventions, like lowercase typing and dropped full stops, are legitimate. It is part of his Language Files series, written with Gretchen McCulloch.

A one-minute clip about Paul Otlet, the Belgian bibliographer who in 1934 imagined users accessing a remote database through an electric telescope over a phone line. It presents his vision as a precursor of the web.

The classic MrWeebl animated music video Badgers, a short looping song of badgers, a mushroom and a snake. It is a staple of early internet absurdist humor.

A short spoof of a nature documentary shows spiders building webs after being given various drugs. It is an early internet comedy classic.

The full documentary 'The Internet's Own Boy' about programmer and activist Aaron Swartz, with interviews with family, friends and internet figures. It covers his work on access to information and the legal case preceding his death.

Kurzgesagt examines how AI-generated content is flooding the internet, from video and music to news and books. It looks at how this makes verifying what is real harder.

Eric Parker connects a fresh Windows XP machine to the internet in 2024 to see how quickly it gets infected with malware. He documents the dangers of running an unpatched legacy OS online.

A DEF CON 22 panel with Rob Graham, Paul McMillan and Dan Tentler on the quirks of scanning the entire internet with masscan. They discuss how fast IPv4 can be scanned and what the results reveal.

A short Futurama clip lampooning pervasive internet advertising, first aired in March 2000.

A spoof commercial by the Groen Brothers for a Star Wars-style laser defense system against mosquitoes.

A 2007 Fox news segment that portrays 4chan users as hardcore hackers.

A short comedy video reading out a famously misspelled Yahoo! Answers question about pregnancy over music.

A one-minute clip of Miss Teen USA 2007 contestant Miss South Carolina giving a rambling, incoherent answer to a pageant question. It became a widely shared internet meme.

Sebastien Bubeck presents the Sparks of AGI paper at MIT, showing early experiments with GPT-4 across many domains and asking whether artificial intelligence has arrived. It includes the TikZ unicorn example.

Dan Tentler's DEF CON 20 talk on odd things he found on the internet through Shodan, such as stoplights, power systems and other non-computer devices exposed online. It highlights how many devices need no credentials.

Branch Education explains how Starlink works, from the ground dish and satellites to phased-array beam steering and data routing. Animations cover how a beam stays connected to a satellite moving at 27,000 km/h.

The original Broadway cast performs 'The Internet Is For Porn' from the musical Avenue Q, with press-reel footage synced to the live performance.

Jason Scott of textfiles.com tells the story at DEFCON 17 of being sued for two billion dollars by a scammer who plagued him and others for over a decade. The talk is tragic and funny, covering what he learned about misleading schemes.

A video essay from lawyer-turned-YouTuber Moon Channel on the South Korean gender war, tracing its historical roots and modern origins through the lens of a gacha game controversy. It is the first part of a two-part series.