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If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go to the LINKS below and visit at least the original Hampster Dance before reading further. But do so at the risk of losing your own soul. Mine is already lost: witness Amoeba Dance, BabyDance, Disco Fish and Toys In The Attic. You can lose your sanity as well: Make Your Own DANCE PAGE.
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It's like this: Several weeks ago I was blithely entering 'strange', 'weird', 'odd' and 'bizarre' into various search engines in a desperate attempt to beef up my sad little links page, which, at the time, accounted for most of my site. I was sorting out the inevitable kinky porn hits when a title caught my eye - "Hampster Dance". Hmmm, thought I, they misspelled 'hamster'. I didn't think much more about it for a while. |
| Then I visited Hampster Dance. I did not feel the frisson of a life about to be forever altered, but no mere portent of doom could have possibly been sensed over the synaptic white noise of the 32 oz of pure caffine coursing through my veins. In the beginning, as the first be-bopping little vermin loaded, I thought the site was kawaii and clever. Then the music began . . . |
| It was crude, really. Four endless animated gifs that didn't even match in style. Corny music that didn't loop smoothly - there was an audible scritch as it began again and again and again. And I do mean again and again and again. First I showed it to my boss, who was impressed that the creator of Hampster Dance had A. paid for the webspace and B. were selling merchandise based on it. "We should do something like this" were her exact words. Then I showed it to my friend Chaz. He just laughed. But it was an oddly hollow laugh. As if he could sense the evil lurking behind the cute little rodents. I added Hampster Dance to my links page and pretty much forgot about it. Then one day at work I found myself humming that song. But I couldn't get it quite right. Was it doodle-eep-doop-doodah-do-dop or deedel-doop-dop-doodop-dee-dop? With a gnawing (sorry) sense of forboding, I returned to Hampster Dance. I noticed it had links to fishydance and cowdance. They were technically better - fishydance fit mostly all in the window, and cowdance had an impressive array of MIDIs to choose from. But, somehow, they just weren't Hampster Dance. |
| I returned repeatedly, helplessly fascinated, unable to comprehend the uncanny hold the page exerted on me. Those cheerful little gray hampsters, bouncing up and down in a chorus line. They moved with perfect synchonicity, up and down, up and down, like the pistons of some furry, chipmunk-cheeked machine. The power-walking-in-place hampsters, their eyes fixedly staring out in mute appeal as they pant and jiggle. The ones that didn't even dance, just twirled in an endless circle, beady eyes shut and stubby arms rapturously raised to the heavens. I've tried spinning in place like that. It's fun, and what's more, it leads to a unique altered state of reality. Let us toast: To a new world of gods and Hampsters! Guess what? After weeks of close study and careful analysis, I realized this was no mere disco. It was Hamster Hell! These were the souls of naughty hampsters who bit small children, who escaped and lived free in the house until they chewed an electrical cord, and who had a litter of adorable squirming babies and then bit their heads off right before the eyes of an aghast owner.  Then I took a cold shower, watched Frasier, and came down off my cappo high. More guess what . . . |
| Now I really know what Hampster Dance is: (insert eerie music please) A MEME!!! Yes indeedy. These things were discovered by Richard Dawkins and dismissed in a page or two in his book, The Blind Watchmaker. Memes are the ethereal equivilent of genes. They are coded thought-information which can replicate, be passed on, and mutate, altering your brain function. A perfect example of a meme is a pop song going round and round in your head like a hamster on a wheel (more sorry). Religion, language, fashion - culture itself is a meme. Yes, the Hampster Dance meme has etched a new little wrinkle on the blobby grey meat in my head. There it resides forever, trapped and screaming. Throbbing like a telltale heart, only with pictures. Pictures of hamsters. Dancing Hampsters. |
| And the horror continues . . .in a desperate attempt to purge the Hampsters from my every waking minute, I have painstakingly created more Dance Pages of my own. DISCO FISH Ah, life! The meme has done it's job well. It not only infected my mind - and I assume, the mind of it's creator, who I'm sure is happily occupied chewing the rubber off his or her bedroom walls - it has reproduced!!! |
ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER!
HERE THERE BE HAMPSTERS!
| THE HAMPSTER DANCE The one that started it all. Say hi to the orderlies for me, and tell them I'll mail the jacket back after I get it off. |
Close VARIATIONS ON HAMPSTER DANCE:
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The Cream of the Crop
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You are soul number |
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