Internet Animation Phenomenon: Creativity Is Not Dead!
The Internet is truly a place where magic is alive. The magic of creativity goes unstifled by the demands of studios, producers or networks, making it an ideal venue for the releases of independent animated projects. Over the years, those pioneering new technologies and bored animators have captured the imagination of their niche audiences through the Internet.
What is most striking about the most successful animated phenomena on the Internet is how the overwhelming priority of their creators is to make something different and creative. The most successful Internet animation phenomena have not sought to monetize the works the animators created. That gives the creators of Internet animation a huge creative outlet that remains free to the fans. A whole subculture in the animation industry has sprouted of animators who have never been associated with a major, commercially-successful enterprise. Their works endure solely, purely, as their Internet animated phenomenon. Some of the most notable are:
Salad Fingers. Salad Fingers was a web-based animated series that David Firth produced and released in 2004 and 2005. Firth is a British cartoonist who prioritizes message and content over a flashy style. Firth created Salad Fingers using the relatively unsophisticated Adobe Flash for the animation. Salad Fingers went viral in 2005 and is now the subject of extensive merchandising, like t-shirts and toys. The original nine episodes of the crudely-drawn Salad Fingers remain free online to this day.
Joe Cartoon. Joe Cartoon is a decent example of how a viral animator’s work may become a gateway to more mainstream opportunities for an animator. Joe Cartoon was the platform upon which “Gerbil In A Microwave” and “Frog In A Blender” were released. More than simply disturbing Flash-based animations, they became a phenomenon. “Frog In A Blender” was downloaded over 110,000,000 times before the hosting site it was on crashed! Since then, Joe Cartoon has appeared on independent platforms, the television channel G4 and now YouTube. Having been producing since 1998, Joe Cartoon illustrates a longevity few other Internet phenomena may claim.
Dancing Baby. The Dancing Baby was a weird bit of animation and most fans of Ally McBeal probably had no idea of its origins. The appearance of the Dancing Baby on Ally McBeal made the graphic, animated baby a mainstream phenomenon. However, the programmers who originated the Dancing Baby developed the program two years prior and it was a hit on the Internet!
Because the Internet is clearly here to stay, mainstream culture is growing to accept that animated Internet phenomena are only likely to spread off the Internet and into the real world.
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