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Originally filmed by Charlie Schmidt in 1984 — making it one of the oldest internet memes by original footage date. The video of his cat Fatso wearing a blue shirt and appearing to play a keyboard was uploaded to YouTube in 2007. It became a punchline format: a fail video would play, then cut to Keyboard Cat as if to say 'play him off'. Schmidt's cat Fatso passed away before the video went viral, but he adopted a new cat and continued the tradition.
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.