If you’re looking for another way to waste the next fifteen minutes, rest of the afternoon, what have you, then look no further – we give you the YouTube Time Machine.
It’s all the time-wasting goodness you’ve come to expect from YouTube, but with controls to select what type of historical introspection or nostalgic throwback you’d like. In the mood for a choppy video of a bathhouse from 1902? How about some 4 Non Blondes from 1992? The YouTube Time Machine has it all.
Justin Johnson, one of the sites creators, recalls a late-night watching Michael Jordan videos as the inspiration for the site that makes walking down memory lane all that much easier.
It made me feel so awesome deep down inside … like it was Sunday afternoon, and I was 14, sipping on a milkshake and watching my fav team play. That Jordan-fest lurched into a 4 am search for Primal Rage videos, and countless other mid-90s stuff.
I realized then, that it wasn’t specifically Jordan or Primal Rage videos I was searching for … it was 1996 … the feeling of being in 1996 …the intangibles of that year fascinated me, but getting bogged down in the specifics and having to make CHOICES eventually spoiled my quest.
Thus, was born YouTube Time Machine, the website that allows users to make a few simple choices – such year and content type – before blasting them straight to the past.
The timeline begins in 1860, with a video short about the first recorded sound and goes straight up to the current day. Want to relive what it was like to watch television as your four-year-old self? Choose the year, turn all the selections off but “television” and voila! Berenstein Bears, Power Rangers or Zorro here we come!
Like we said – say goodbye to your afternoon.
