internet birthday 🎂

ever wondered what the internet looked like the day you were born? like, did google even exist? was youtube a thing? what browser were people using - netscape??

this actor takes your birthday and gives you a full nostalgia trip. wayback machine screenshots, #1 songs and movies, what stuff cost back then, and how long it would've taken to download a movie. spoiler: it's depressing.

what you get

#1 song & movie - what was topping the charts the year you were born? prepare for some bangers (or some questionable choices)

download time calculator - how long would it take to download a 4K movie at 1995 internet speeds? 337 days. you'd start downloading and finish almost a year later.

cost of things - gas was $1.15. movie tickets were $4.35. a computer cost $1,800 (that's $3,700 in today's money). wild.

the web that day - how many websites existed (spoiler: way less than you think), what the average internet speed was (28.8 kbps anyone?), and what browser people were using

websites that existed - actual wayback machine links so you can see what amazon looked like in 1997 (it's rough)

websites not yet born - this is the fun part. "youtube: 10 years away", "instagram: 15 years away", "tiktok: didn't even exist for another 21 years"

if you invested $100 - we calculate what apple, amazon, or microsoft stock would be worth today. prepare to cry.

example

input your birthday (1995-06-15) and get:

🎂 INTERNET BIRTHDAY: Thursday, June 15, 1995

🎵 POP CULTURE THAT YEAR:
   #1 Song: "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio
   #1 Movie: Toy Story ($373M)

⏱️ DOWNLOAD TIME:
   Downloading a 4K movie would've taken 337 days

💵 COST OF THINGS:
   Gas: $1.15/gallon
   Movie ticket: $4.35
   Big Mac: $2.32
   Computer: $1,800 ($3,708 in today's dollars)

🌐 THE WEB THAT DAY:
   Total websites: 23,500
   Internet speed: 28.8 kbps
   Top browser: Netscape Navigator

🔮 STILL IN THE FUTURE:
   Amazon: 1 month away
   Google: 3 years away
   Facebook: 9 years away
   YouTube: 10 years away
   iPhone: 12 years away

💰 IF YOU INVESTED $100:
   AAPL: Worth $54,286 today (543x)

🎉 FUN FACTS:
   • Google wasn't founded until after you were born!
   • Facebook didn't exist yet - people actually talked in person!

how it works

pulls data from the wayback machine API to find actual archived snapshots from your birth date. cross-references with historical data on music charts, box office, consumer prices, and internet speeds.

the download time calculator is my favorite part. it takes the actual average internet speed from that year and calculates how long a 100GB 4K movie would take. in 1995? almost a year. brutal.

why i built this

i thought it would be fun. and it is. try it with your parents' birthdays if you really want to blow their minds (or depress them about investment opportunities they missed).

also thought it could be a nice shareable thing - post your internet birthday on social, start some conversations about how wild it is that we used to wait 5 minutes to load a single image.

use it

just enter a date in YYYY-MM-DD format. that's it.

works best for dates after 1990 (the web literally didn't exist before that) and before like... yesterday.