Thursday, August 16, 2012

Kids in 1995 TOTALLY predicted Internet's future!


From CNN, It took me a few watches to finally determine the video below was not a perfectly-staged hoax. It's too perfect. Too prescient. Too... cheesy.

Because not only does it feature a classroom full of school kids flawlessly predicting the future of the Internet in 1995 -- but it does so in an era-appropriate, low-budget haze of mock turtlenecks, backwards hats, HTML 1.0 screengrabs and planetarium music.

The video from the Young Montana Media Group stars fifth-graders from Ray Bjork school in Helena and is, ostensibly, about convincing kids why they need "the Internet!" in their schools and libraries. However, now it's about admiring the forehead-slapping accuracy of their digital forecasting.

"By the time we're in college, the Internet will be our telephone," says one student. "Television!" adds another. Then, "Shopping center! Aaand workplace!"

I'm not unconvinced 1995 Steve Jobs didn't see this and immediately run back to his laboratory.

But the best part of the whole thing? We now know exactly when the Internet's undying obsession with cats began.

As the students excitedly rattle off a list of things the Internet can do ("Get soccer scores for a team in Italy! Chat with a friend in Australia!) one girl clutches a cat and tells us: "And I even found a recipe for cat food cupcakes!"

If Helen of Troy was the face that launched a thousand ships, hers is the one that launched a thousand memes.

Thank you, unnamed 1995 Montana school girl. Now tell us: When will we all finally get our jetpacks and X-ray goggles?

1 comment:

Octopunk said...

Hmm, I guess. I mean, it's 1995, so there already sort of is an internet, you know? I know it wasn't yet all the stuff they say it will be, and it did become those things, but the fact that it existed* takes some of the thrill out of it for me.

*For those with the stamina of dealing with the early internet, a group that did not include me.

Still though, you gotta love the peppy techno music. I've been delving through my iTunes lately and I think 90's techno might be my favorite music ever.

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...