The Deep Dank Depths of the Wild Wild Web

the year was 1996 it was a different era for memes before viral videos before anybody argued over whether it's a gift for a jiff its gift jeff has peanut butter there was the dancing baby [Music] what is the dancing baby who better to ask than his father Michael Gerard what are you doing here the dancing baby remember when the dancing baby while Robert Murray and I work together to design the animation the idea was to show that movement could be programmed and projected onto different characters so Autodesk the company that Michael worked for started sitting around the software to other developers and animators it was just another demo film until it landed on the LucasArts server it was there that ROM Lussier tweaked the original file converted it into a chip and thenthen email would change his life forever so we thought we should ask what about his experience but you know every time that you've got male voice rang welcome you've got mail files done goodbye it was another goddamn dancing baby even I got an email that goddamn dancing baby that point on it was unstoppable everywhere you looked there was a dancing baby on television on t-shirts on ties and commercials even boxers boxers yes Michael boxers there's all begs the question what is it about the dancing baby that makes it so irresistible what does it say about us have you heard of the uncanny valley it's a paradox where the more a computer-generated figure resembles a human the more will you become revolted by it the dancing baby is the uncanny valley the dancing baby is the uncanny valley it's been over two decades since Gerard and his team unleashed their monstrosity of the world does he regret it yes 100% [Music] well better given here for joining CMI achievement but coming soon some united sir I think you guys know really fast enough I can even hear him again [Music] here in the st. petersburg apartment building you can find tatiana subha tina better known as the green-screen grandma a retired engineer Tatiana has attracted a following creating some unique content for YouTube Tatiana's channel has almost 30,000 subscribers and over two and a half million views pop idealist buy chocolates illegally linear the canoes Mikasa prism surprising because Tatiana is completely self-taught la Monte young vigil event led SPG's aquella mujer que da vigil a pole in a bikini ponds Muslim dollies in starett Buddhist art for master guru Sri soon appears programa premier Pro Skater a co-producer montage what I became of resin here which allah prophet muhammad o publicity once she graduated from puppetry a giannis channel really took off there was one video in particular that really propelled her to the national stage na minha hidden a man into available in limine young prostitutes poem tota via sheer moto truly Kotori yes nila the air would you want a mobile article by a bicyclist or a smoker he took a role on the Chinese nation the so beautiful the risk level quite a scaling just ask you a think aloud what a communion with the frania rhythm it's very large and growing audience the general appearance of a star yes I stole her honest attack minion Roberto youtuber deviousness cockeyed originally with Ganesha Dharma means most pathetic a malinka Monica Michelle module which get a baby star now but you ought to be famous don't you are amazing modification is crawling back at you [Music] people enjoy mayhem especially when it happens to other people this is definitely a factor of schadenfreude watching something go terribly wrong to someone else [Music] Yuni u-haul you're about to start your first semester at Duke and driving down the road you see this side and another side you may know tension and then this time lights up and then disaster strikes you're about to get your 15 minutes of fame all thanks to this man hi i'm uragan hen these infamous nice parts right you're good one could say that yes I am now I know c11 put a guy around here you get it his wife started eleven foot eight calm which is what exactly eleven foot eight website records all the truck crashes that happen here at the 11 foot eight bridge it's really all it is eight years ago I set up camera outside my office here and started recording the traffic that goes under the railroad trestle behind me within a few weeks I recorded the truck crashing into the railroad bridge since installing the camera you're going to upload a video of a hundred and thirteen crashes at the bridge and amassed over ten million views most bridges in the state have a 15 percent the 11 foot eight bridge however because both 100 years ago its lower height now experience these crashes I've dedicated following I'll fans are really intensely interested in these crashes and they love to buy souvenirs little piece of crash art what's crusher the crash art are meant mangled pieces of aluminum that usually form the frame of the truck and the impact crushes that aluminum and kind of twisted in interesting shapes people will buy the crash art they love it for summer room it's almost like owning a piece of the Berlin wall whether the town just raised the trestle or lower the roof from the perspective of the city and the state d-o-t the low clearance is clearly marked and it's up to the driver to decide their next move structural changes that the intersection would be extremely costly well if we have these off videos right I get no satisfaction out of being in you crash it we found an actual solution to prevent this tomorrow I'd be all over I love it [Music] meet Jenny Lee my name is Jenny and I lobbied for the dumpling takeout box fortune cookies and chopsticks emojis and this is a story of how Jenny is getting us or new emoji like it it smells to me like there should be a dumpling MMG and I glommed or at it we should add the takeout box fortune cookie in chopsticks as of 2017 they're coming to a keyboard interview Jenny was on an emoji crusade I see in order to pitch an emoji you have to infiltrate this worldwide consortium maybe Unicode you get very quickly to the Unicode consortium which is a nonprofit organization which basically oversees emoji there are the people who control the alphabet of your emoji keyboard it has 11 full voting members they pay 18 thousand dollars a year to like have a full vote unicode sets the standard and parameters around emoji you see there are a set of rules all emoji must abide by there are no plans no deities and new celebrities and when you hear about quotes emoji those are not real accepted emoji those are sort of like rogue emoji that are really stickers so Jenny started to attend meetings for a swift 75 bucks anyone can attend the meeting as a non-voting member and you basically like feel very welcome and so it feels a lot like going to a new church back to the dumpling what I did was you know write a whole proposal about why the dumpling deserves its own emoji especially since is so Universal and what's kind of cool is that like not only is it a dumpling image it can be a pierogi emoji or no empanada emoji got that passed as a candidate emoji in January of this year seems like a lot of work for fun symbols now it's actually much faster than I thought oh okay I think it's really interesting to watch the emoji evolve and that my friends is how an emoji is born [Music] you got you you've got there you've got you you've got man goodbye you all of you who thought a o L was voiced by a computer now let's set the record straight I recorded those phrases well done you've got mail files done goodbye my name is Elwood Edwards and I'm the voice of you've got mail in 1989 my wife was a customer service rep for the company that was about to become America Online she heard Steve Case talking to some of the programmers about how fun it would be to add a voice to the software I've been an announcer throughout my entire broadcasting career and she volunteered me I scribbled those phrases on a piece of paper and like I'd say on the cassette deck I recorded the welcome you've got mail files done goodbye it started off as a test just to see if it would catch on and lo and behold in the mid-90s it had really caught on and at one point they said my voice was heard more than 35 million times a day but the problem was I was typecast the one thing I did do was a voice for The Simpsons you've got leprosy goodbye being associated with AOL has been gratifying even today you go on AOL comm I greet you I greet myself you

Channel: Great Big Story

Views: 689,598

Rating: 4.8329124 out of 5

Keywords: great big story, gbs, lag, documentary, docs, great big reel, reels, dancing baby, meme, memes, internet, green screen grandma, can opener bridge, dumplings, emojis, you've got mail, AOL

Id: ew5U6NYLtfs

Length: 11min 18sec (678 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 19 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

The Unicode Consortium is much more than emoji. :/