There’s a website that’s very nostalgic to me. It was the strangest hub of the strangest stuff back when I was in elementary school. Videos such as the jump scare car video (where it goes behind the bushes and the monster-thing jumps out) and others such as the talking unicorns (Charlie The Unicorn) animation. These videos were the epitome of this weird site. It was almost like a PG-13 dark web with strange funny videos, soundboards, scary videos, funnyordie videos, etc. As a kid, this was a very fun website to browse. Do you remember? This website was called Ebaum’s World.
Nostalgia made me go back and revisit this strange territory and do some research about it (it’s still live). It was founded in 2001 by a Dad (Eric Bauman) and Son (Neil Bauman). The website started as a media hub of everything obtuse, strange, niche, and entertaining. The website gained a lot of clout. It was well-known by people that browsed the early internet. This is probably due to the notorious watermarking of their videos. They gained so much popularity that in 2006 there was actually a show on Fox featuring content from this website.
The sad part about all of this history is that most (if not all) of the content posted on their site was stolen. They watermarked videos that weren’t theirs (like a ton of people do on social media today). I guess it’s not the most atrocious crime, yet they faced a lot of trouble and criticism due to it. The Fox show got thrown in the trashcan because people at the company Albino Blacksheep (similar content during that time) told producers of the show that they were stealing content. Ebaum’s World was sold two years later in 2008, for $15 million.
Ebaum’s World was very weird and odd website. Although, they are one of the founding places of meme’s. It actually goes full circle, because the popular website Know Your Meme (where you can find the origin of specific memes) now owns Ebaum’s World. In some twisted way, it was browsing this website as a child that lead me to the point of creating this website. He made the website his own world (unethically, but the point still stands) and I can respect that. Thank you Eric Bauman, because in some way you Inspired me. I hope to do the same one day.
