Animutations Were Millennial Brainrot
(Warning: Videos linked contain flashing colors and images.)For as popular as I remember animutations being when I was a kid, I’ve seen next to nothing in terms of articles or videos or really anything about them.
For those not in the know, animutations were lol so randum xD Flash videos from the early 2000s, and were mostly posted on Newgrounds (this was before Youtube). They were sort of proto-Youtube poops, and were just a mashup of random pop culture images and clipart over songs, usually Japanese ones, with incorrect subtitles. Neil Cicierega (aka Lemon Demon) kicked it off, and it was definitely a big influence on early internet humor. (As an aside, I had never heard of Lemon Demon until relatively recently; my husband, who’s a fan, had to explain to me that it was Neil Cicierega, the same guy who came up with animutations. I had no idea haha.)
I was obsessed with these things as a kid, and would show them to my friends when we’d gather around the computer to look at stuff like Newgrounds or AlbinoBlacksheep–I have no idea how I had friends at all back then lmao.
The first one I saw was Hyakugojyuuichi, which used the Japanese version of the original PokeRap. I thought it was incredibly funny, and while many others created their own animutations, Neil Cicierega was the OG and really had the best ones.
Looking back at them now after not seeing them for over two decades, they are truly awful. Impressively unfunny, and incredibly quaint. In a way, animutations were a type of early internet brainrot; they have the same energy younger kids get from stuff like Skibidi Toilet or those sped-up TikToks with Subway Surfers gameplay playing underneath them. Different format, same overstimulated dopamine hit.
I also think that it embodies an early type of internet humor that no longer exists, at least not in quite the same way. It encapsulates a microcosm of what the kids call Millennial Core nowadays: weird, kinda cringe, but also oddly charming in its quaintness.
But hey, I’m an adult now, and not a kid anymore, so maybe it’s unfair to judge them too harshly. Kids love silly stuff, whether it’s animutations or Skibidi Toilet. And honestly, there’s nothing wrong with that. Let them have their fun--we sure did.
All that said, here are my childhood favorite animutations (it's quite the list!):
