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The flash-game portal that gave "I'm bored" a URL. AddictingGames launched in 2002 as a constantly updated grid of free browser games, became one of the sites school IT departments most loved to block — and somehow outlived Flash itself.
Four animated hamsters repeated ad nauseam, set to a sped-up Disney sample — one of the internet's first viral sensations. Created in 1997 by a Canadian art student as a GeoCities tribute to her pet hamster, The Hampster Dance puttered along unseen until a 1999 email chain sent it stratospheric, spawning hit songs, merch, and a permanent place in internet history.
The Flash cartoon empire that ran on merch and goodwill — no ads, ever. The Chapman brothers' site built its voice through Strong Bad's absurd email replies, one of which spawned Trogdor the Burninator, a scribbled one-armed dragon that became internet legend.
Welcome to Zombo.com. You can do anything at Zombo.com. Anything at all. The only limit is yourself. And then... nothing — the internet's greatest anti-website: pulsing dots, a silky voice making infinite promises, and a quarter-century of delivering absolutely none of them.