Zombo

About

Zombo is a satire website that was created in 1999 as a parody of the flash-based intro animation that became widespread during the early days of flash animation in web design.

History

Zombo.com was launched in 1999 as a joke poking fun at how websites would play a small Flash animation before actually transitioning into the main page. It took this concept to the extreme, playing a small animation along with a repeating tune welcoming the visitor to zombo.com. After some time, an option to purchase T-shirts or sign up for a newsletter would appear, and if neither were clicked, the loop would resume indefinitely. These services have since been discontinued. The website steadily gained notoriety and was shared throughout emails and forums all throughout the Internet.

Highlights

In 2011, webcomic XKCD released a strip about Zombo.

The site divided viewers at the time, with some praising the humor and others finding it useless. On the positive side, artist Dave Rowntree has listed Zombo as his favorite website, saying, "I think that paraphrases the net. Promises you the earth but delivers a bit of animation with a scratchy soundtrack!"^[1] On the negative side, Joel Veitch chose Zombo.com as the least useful website, since "it doesn't do anything except tell you how wonderful it is."^[2]

In 2004, "Conservitives.com" owner Paul Walters set his site to redirect to Zombo.com, causing some to believe political hacktivists had attacked a political party.

Search Interest

External References