Hampster Dance

1998

Published March 10, 2026

Hampster Dance is one of the earliestsingle-serving sites, featuring rows of dancing hampster GIF sset to a sped-up sample of the song " Whistle Stop" by Roger Miller.

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Overview

Hampster Dance is one of the earliestsingle-serving sites, featuring rows of dancing hampster GIF sset to a sped-up sample of the song " Whistle Stop" by Roger Miller. The site became popular in the late 90s through e-mail, blogs andbait & switchpranks.

Origin & Background

Creator
Deidre La Carte

How It Spread

The Hampster Dance site began spreading through e-mail and newsgroups, with little mention before 1999. That January, hamsterdance.com and hampsterdance.com were sold to Nutty Sites, a company unrelated to La Carte. She proceeded to register hamsterdance2.com, notifyingviewers that the other domains were unrelated to her and the original page. In August 1999, webzine Getting Itpublished one of the earliest articles about the site, where it was revealed Hampster Dance only saw 800 visits its in first seven months online. La Carte told the webzine that over the course of 4 days in March 1999, the site acquired nearly 60,000 new hits.