I reunited with my high school besties this past weekend and it brought me back to being 16 years old and staying up until 2am watching stupid videos online and giggling. As you might have concluded, we were really cool and popular. But this got me reminiscing on the days when YouTube was fresh on the scene and one poorly-made video would be quoted for the rest of high school. Let’s revisit the top videos that shaped my introduction to the wonders of the internet for ole times sake.

1. Shoes/Muffins

Shoes was obviously the more popular but I’m more of a Muffins gal myself. There’s something about doing a stupid voice for Cahtoon Muffin that can still make me laugh out loud. Plus it remains relevant for quoting, like when I abruptly brought back the terrifying ending to this video during the blood moon a month ago. Also I just re-watched shoes because it had been a cool 6 years since I’d last seen it and distinctly remember multiple people saying “I’m gonna betch slap you, shetbag” as an actual insult when this came out. High school was a weird time. Double also that video is really yikes city…maybe just watch Muffins. PAPAH CLIP.

2. Love Letters

You could say that this comedian Liam Sullivan owned the internet back in 2006. I never even realized this was him until right now though, you know because he’s not wearing a wig and being creepy. This one was an odd video that my best friends and I latched onto real hard. It gets inapprops for a minute (then again I don’t even want to know what teenagers today are watching) but actually vegetables pretty much do taste like despair. Sincerely, America.

3. Can I Have Your Number

MadTV was weird because they had a lot of up and coming comedians on it, but they rarely got attention because like, SNL…ya know? However, this skit and Bon Qui Qui spread like wildfire and gave us a world of stupid phrases to repeat. They also did a scary accurate parody of Laguna Beach (obviously vital to high school pop culture) called Laguna Biotch that I had to be convinced Kristin Cavallari didn’t play herself in because it was so spot on, AND Ike Barinholtz (The Mindy Project, Neighbors) played both Jason and Talan in it. But anyway, not to get sidetracked, finding out this character Daryl–pronounced Darelle– was actually a female rocked my world.

4. Homestar Fluffy Puff Marshmallows Commercial

Homestar Runner was an odd animated creature that had his own website of short videos including a random collection of friends who would guest star. My sister and I frequently visited this website for giggles, specifically taking a liking to his friend named the Poopsmith. We were really mature for our age. This video was his most famous…I KNOW can you BELIEVE it?!

5. The End of the World

I don’t remember LoLing a lot to this one but it did create WTF, mate?! which was trendy AF to text to people using T9 word on my enV.

6. Boys Will Be Girls

Say it with me now, our diet starts tomorrow. Obviously this is supposed to be a crack at a typical girl hangout except that these dudes have clearly never met me because I would rather eat a bagel I dropped on the ground to savor it than throw half in the trashcan. This came about in my college years and it showed that my humor had really matured (not.) I also recommend Secret Santa and Hipster Thanksgiving by the HST sketch group. Although to be honest I shared Hipster Thanksgiving with the fam before turkey one year and it was crickets city, so clearly not for everyone.

7. Grape Stomp

I love how at the beginning of this video a popup appears that says find out what happened to the grape stomping lady…ummm I assume she went into hiding? Like there’s no way to recover from this. Essentially the first viral video in internet history was at the expense of this lady acting like a real turd on live television and humiliating herself. Does that stop me from laughing every time I see it? No it does not. Falling will always be hilarious, and I welcome people to laugh at me when I take a digger. Fortunately none of mine have been recorded and immortalized on the world wide web.

8. Doglover199709

I’m mostly putting this up because Doglover199709 was a sensation in my early webbin’ days and this is a plea for her to come back and show us what she’s up to now. I have SO many questions. Did she end up with a lighting job after they saw her light switch flipping skills to the beat of Disturbia? Does she still live in that same lime green bedroom? Do Jonas Bros posters remain on the walls untouched like a temple? Are her weekends full of shutting her bedroom door and choreographing dramats dances that her parents probably didn’t know she was uploading for the world to see? I need Doglover199709 back in my life. Hit me up, girl. PS her youtube name is 100% what we all did with our first AIM screenname…take something you like and add the year you were born to it. Unfortunately for me, basketjay91 was taken so I had to settle for basketjay45. I was such a baller.

9. The Landlord

Unfortunately the only version I could find to embed was censored, LAME SAUCE. But this skit was genius and still holds up today because toddlers walk like drunk people anyway so Pearl really embodied that role. Also if I ever do have children I 100% plan on exploiting their cuteness to advance my career and/or make millions of dollars from a viral video. That’s the reason you have kids, right? GIMME MY MONEY!!!!

10a. Whistle Tips

My brother in law showed me this one like 6 years after the fact but I’m so glad he did because where else do you find a newscast where a guy named Bubb Rubb screams WOO WOOOOOOOO over and over again. I commend this station for five star journalism.

10b. Bed Intruder

I’d like to think that Whistle Tips paved the way for this number, which is why they’re together on this list. Antoine Dodson became famous from literally saving his sister from getting raped and then sassing about it on television. Ah, remember the days when every video was turned into an Autotune song? Thanks, T-Pain.

 

BONUS: Dom Mazzetti

(This is an after-publish add, because I remembered my boy Dom and was pezzed at myself for not including him in this fire flames list.)

Dom and his Jersey-accent mockery of everything young adult basically got me through my college years. In fact, he did a European tour that I missed by a mere few weeks when I was studying abroad and my friends and I were crushed that we lost out on the opportunity to party with D to the O-M. His web series is full of hilarious videos but this one about resumes is my favorite and often one that I watch every time I give my resume a tune-up (which is more than I’d like to admit.) I’m guessing that if my re-zoom outlined my dunking skills and a fake GPA, I would have a job right now.