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A 5-second clip of a prairie dog — not a chipmunk — turning dramatically to face the camera, set to a suspenseful orchestral sting from the Japanese variety show Hello Morning. Uploaded to YouTube in 2007, it became one of the most remixed and referenced clips of the Web 2.0 era. Despite being obviously a prairie dog, the internet insisted on calling it a chipmunk and the name stuck forever.
YouTube launched, MySpace peaked, and image macros were born. Broadband became mainstream and memes could spread in hours instead of weeks. This era produced some of the most iconic content in internet history.

Created by artist Matt Furie in 2005 as part of his comic Boy's Club. The character Pepe originally appeared with the catchphrase 'feels good man'. He spread to Myspace and 4chan around 2008 and became one of the most versatile and widely used meme templates in internet history, representing everything from happiness to sadness to smugness. Furie later fought extensive legal battles to reclaim his character.

A bait-and-switch prank where a hyperlink appearing to lead to relevant content instead leads to Rick Astley's 1987 music video 'Never Gonna Give You Up'. Originated on 4chan in 2007, evolved from an earlier prank called 'duckrolling'. It became so widespread that Rick Astley himself participated in a Rickroll at the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It remains active to this day — you never stop getting Rickrolled.

In December 2004, Gary Brolsma filmed himself lip-syncing and dancing enthusiastically to the Romanian pop song 'Dragostea Din Tei' by O-Zone while sitting at his computer. Posted to Newgrounds, it became one of the first webcam videos to go massively viral before YouTube even existed. Brolsma reportedly became embarrassed by the attention and briefly went into hiding before embracing his internet fame.