On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.
Although published in the New Yorker in 1993, I probably heard of it later on.
Not sure it qualifies as a meme, but Ralf Brown’s Interrupt List was an essential tool for early programmers and PC hackers, and around with the birth of PC communications.
The site says Badger, Badger was 2003!!
Now that’s definitely some “Xerox circuit” material to my eye. I used to have a huge collection of those things in my desk in a file folder (more like five or more) but they got misplaced whan I brought all that stuff home.
Does anyone else remember seeing this one from those days:
The contents are far from politically correct.
Yeah, me too – and my mom and I promptly made them! 
(It’s a pretty good recipe.)
That can’t be accurate, I don’t think. I’d place it pre-2000 at a minimum. But my memory hooks for it may be crossed up with something else like it.
Bad memory, I guess. I could swear that was before my “retirement” in 2000. But I can’t find anything to support my “memory.”
Sorry for doubting your find, ZipperJJ!
Some of these aren’t really memes. Yeah, everyone knew Badger Badger Badger… and Hampsterdance, but people referring to them would just link to them. The defining trait of a meme is that it gets passed along.
There’s also List of Internet phenomena which I’ve been looking through to see what familiar things are there. So far, no mention of those clips I mentioned in the OP (cubicle guy and chimp stinkfinger) but lots of others I seem to recall and oodles that I have yet to encounter.
I guess I’ve never been clear on the distinctions between viral videos, memes and other “must see” stuff people share in email and such. Is there a reliable glossary for all that?
The Hamster Dance, I think.
Yeah, this.
I’m not sure if hampsterdance was a meme, but Badger Badger was. Whenever anyone makes a list that contains mostly the same item, I always think of responding with “snake! it’s a snake!”
Gotta be the dancing baby. I hadn’t even registered the concept of “internet meme” when that one was going around.
I know it’s not quite the same, but I very clearly remember logging on to the AOL message boards and damn near every topic on every board was about Mark Paul Gosselaar being dead. Looking it up online, that was back in 1993.
Another vote for Hampster Dance. I remember my older brother had a friend over who showed it to us. My mind erupted. “What is this I don’t even…”
I’m in my mid 20s and late to the internet, so the earliest meme i can remember stumblin upon was the Yo Dawg Xzibit meme.