01
Aqua’s “Barbie Girl”
Aqua’s plastic-pop duet made its chorus and candy-colored video instantly recognizable.
Archive score94
Internet archive / 1997
Internet moments from 1997
Backdrop
The Internet in 1997
Year reference
Mars PathfinderRemote technology became a shared public spectacle.
Source: NASA/JPL via Wikimedia Commons- The web was still built from personal pages, web rings, email forwards, and search directories rather than feeds.
- Instant messaging entered everyday life with AOL Instant Messenger, making online presence feel social and immediate.
Archive order
Archive picks
02
Bert Is Evil
A cranky Sesame Street puppet kept turning up at history’s worst meetings—because one art student kept putting him there.
Archive score93
03
TROOPS
Stormtroopers patrolled Tatooine like small-town cops, treating Star Wars plot points as routine calls.
Archive score92
04
Poke Alex in the Eye
A college-friend joke about poking Alex in the eye became a tiny web game with an absurdly literal premise.
Archive score84
05
Sluggy Freelance
Pete Abrams gave a freelance web designer and a cynical rabbit a near-daily comic strip.
Archive score80
06
The Best Page in the Universe
Maddox made the certainty of an internet rant into a comic persona.
Archive score79
07
User Friendly
Illiad turned the daily indignities of an ISP office into an early webcomic institution.
Archive score78