Before YouTube, before Vine, before Instagram, there was eBaum’s World. The older generation knows what I’m talking about — this was a site that had the OG classic videos that we all learned to love, that later got transferred to YouTube. If you were born in or after the year 2000, you may trump us 90’s kids with basically all computer based knowledge, but we were there from the ORIGINS, the beginnings of the new world. You weren’t there for ICQ. You don’t remember MSN Messenger. You don’t fuck with Neopets the way we fucked with Neopets. Did you ever play MIST for Microsoft? Probably not. So if you don’t remember 9/11, sit down and shut up while I teach you a lesson in the CLASSIC videos that started everything you now know.

LEEROY JENKINS

Back when World of Warcraft was a new thing that people literally died to play (seriously, there are several accounts of people dying while playing this game because they were so immersed in this new gaming technology that they just didn’t leave their computers and would die of starvation in a pool of their own sweat and feces, but I digress!) – this video came out, of someone by the name of LEEROY JENKINS totally kiboshing what appears to be, the nerdiest plan in gaming history. Listen to these nerds. My favourite line is when one of these guys asks their predicted survival rate, and the other answers “33.3, repeating of course” – “that’s a lot better than we usually do.”

Kid Freaks Out When WOW Subscription Is Cancelled

In the same vein as kids valuing World of Warcraft more than their own lives, take in this classic video of a kid storming back to his bedroom and throwing the biggest fit I’ve certainly ever seen. The quality, not great — this was way before 4K but it’s worth it just to watch the part where he for some reason takes all his clothes up and tries to ram a remote control up his own butthole out of SHEER RAGE.

Just Two Guys

This video went viral long before this trio would grow to become The Lonely Island — responsible for all of SNL’s digital shorts. Here’s a lo-fi video from their humble beginnings. If you like this, check out their fake series they also made before Andy Sandberg made it to SNL – “The ‘Bu” (short for Malibu— a parody of The OC which is also something you may not have heard of but should look up).

Shoes

I honestly have no idea why people were so obsessed with this video. Like, I’m one of those people, but I think it was because it was a representation of what the “internet” was capable of. That’s why I think parodies were so popular, it was like a foreign concept or something. You could post SONGS about NOTHING on here? Anyway, this one is one I think that you’ll only like if it’s nostalgic to you, but I’ll post it anyway.

Urban Legends – Bloody Mary

Okay, before that TRASH movie came out, eBaum’s World made this HORRIFIC video explaining the legend of Bloody Mary. This video is the sole reason I would not have sleepovers when I was younger, because at some point someone would be like, “Okay, it’s 12:00 – let’s go scream Bloody Mary into the bathroom mirror” and then you would have to do that and just SEE if a demon came out of there! Like NO! No interest in that! There was another one called “Candyman” where you had to go into the bathroom and say “Candyman” a bunch of times into the mirror, and then what I assume was a demonic pinstriped Candyman would pop out and… strangle you? I don’t know. We didn’t have phones guys, and if Blockbuster wasn’t packing, we weren’t watching it. Obviously this is cheesy, but it is HELLA AUTHENTIC to the kind of shit we got off on.