What 12 months is it? The ninja behind early 2000s web video sequence Ask a Ninja clearly anticipated the reflexive response to his first new video in 9 years, main off with an prompt parry. “What 12 months is not it?” he says inside the first three seconds.
“For those who’re nonetheless believing in time, my pal, I do not know what to let you know. Have you ever ever heard of the web? Every thing lasts perpetually on the web! Besides MySpace pictures, or should you had a Flickr Professional account. 2025, I am nonetheless alive!”
I can not consider that the Ask a Ninja man seems and sounds precisely the identical as he did 20 years in the past, when pirates vs. ninjas and the final idea of bacon have been the most well-liked matters on the web. Ask a Ninja sprang forth from the harmless time when memes lasted for years as an alternative of days and placing on a balaclava, doing a humorous voice and importing 360p movies may get you a ebook deal and result in you interviewing Will Ferrell. Seeing him all of the sudden pop up and do new jokes in 2025 makes me really feel extremely outdated. That balaclava higher be hiding some grey hair.
However I feel it is also… making me blissful? Possibly confused. Unsettled. Yesterday I used to be ready to put in writing the return of Ask a Ninja off as a freak incident, however possibly there’s one thing within the water (or within the tubes), as a result of in the present day Homestar Runner printed a brand new video celebrating its twenty fifth 12 months on-line. It is a tune known as “Again to a web site,” and appropriately celebrates a time when “the entire web wasn’t simply on 4 web sites on peoples’ telephones.”
I’ve some deep, unhealed wounds from being in highschool when Homestar Runner was thought of peak comedy by 15-year-olds—I might actually be okay going the remainder of my life with out listening to Robust Unhealthy’s voice—however this tune nonetheless speaks to me. As PC Gamer’s Joshua Wolens lately advocated, the web was a richer place to be when it was made up of one million thriving pockets of weirdos with no monolithic social media corralling everybody into the identical centralized area.
However I am really a little bit optimistic about what feels to me like a groundswell of curiosity in rebuilding some model of the 2000s web with extra private blogs and decentralized social media that values individuals over platforms. Within the final 12 months I’ve seen extra individuals undertake the idea of “POSSE,” or Publish (in your) Personal Web site, Syndicate In all places; push again towards Substack’s try to personal newsletters in favor of impartial publishing; and go all-in on making the fragmented internet simpler to navigate.
Possibly the Homestar Runner video is solely a cheeky approach to rejoice the location’s longevity, however “let’s return to a web site” manages to really feel like fairly a well timed message to me in 2025. There are some good jokes in there about internet rings, visitor books and hit counters, quaint fossils of the early web. But Homestarrunner.com nonetheless makes use of Flash courtesy of open supply emulator Ruffle, and it is proof the video has a degree. Clicking round that web site is simply enjoyable in a method that almost all websites in the present day should not.
Ask a Ninja’s return video is well timed in its personal method. “Is the ninja neighborhood being affected by tariffs?” he is requested, which will get a easy pivot to “Ninjas are far more affected by tear-offs—we now have to pay an additional responsibility for each arm that we take away!” I am not saying that the ninja returned from his lengthy slumber as a result of the state of the world was so dangerous it awoke him in grand Arthurian custom simply after we wanted him most. However his second Return Period video, launched three days in the past, is titled “Zune vs iPod”—clearly it is a man who is aware of the right way to deploy the therapeutic energy of Remembering 2009.
I am undecided two incidents are sufficient to declare a pattern, however be looking out for the Potter Puppet Friends or the Peanut Butter Jelly Time banana to reappear at any second. If this is not proof sufficient the early 2000s web is making a comeback, I do not know what’s.
