Dino Ignacio presents

Bert is Evil!

This is a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Bert is Evil. Join us as we relive the history of one of the first memes on the internet.

 

Learn about BertSee the NFT collection
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the history of Bert is Evil

The year was 1997

The internet was new, and digital illustration tools were in their infancy. Most of the websites on the burgeoning World Wide Web were serious and academic. A majority of the web domains were government (.gov) and education (.edu). This meant that the internet was mostly filled with factual information back then. This is the story of a little website that popularized misinformation and helped reshape the Internet.

Bert is Evil was launched in March 1997 as part of a website called Fractal Cow. Its creator, Dino Ignacio, was a Fine Arts student at the University of the Philippines. He made the website as a way to practice his digital art skills and to make his friends laugh. 

Dino was highly influenced by Weekly World News and Mr. T Ate My Balls.

**Weekly World News was a tabloid publication renowned for its outlandish cover stories and an approach to news that verged on the satirical. 
**Mr. T Ate My Balls was a website that featured ridiculous comic strips that put Mr. T in compromising situations.

The Content

Bert is Evil’s content was a combination of the absurd fake news format popularized by the Weekly World News while focusing on a beloved personality like Mr. T. 

Dino decided to use an unwittingly irritable muppet from the popular children’s television show Sesame Street as the target of his project.

Dino started crafting a narrative that Bert from Sesame Street was part of many of the major moments of evil in history.

Some of the images Dino created included:

  • Bert hiding in the grassy knoll as John F. Kennedy’s motorcade drove through Dealy plaza
  • Bert raising a flag while standing beside a Klan member
  • Bert alongside Hitler as they survey their empire

 

 

The NOTORIETY

The website started to become famous and was featured on other websites and publications like Internet Underground. As the website grew in notoriety, Dino was approached by artists like Victor J. Zuylen, N. Ross Gilbert, Wout Reinders, and Jasper Hulshoff Pol, who contributed to the site and expanded the mythology of Bert is Evil.

In 1998 it was nominated and won the Webby Awards for the category Weird and People’s Voice Award. Shortly after winning the Webby Awards, the server cost of running the site became too high, so Dino zipped up the whole website and offered it up for others to host on mirror sites. 

This decentralized version of the site spawned many variants and additions to the collection of images making Bert is Evil one of the internet’s first memes. 

The Legacy

A few years later, in 2001, soon after September 11, an anti-American rally was held in Bangladesh. Among the many images taken at the event, a picture of Bert is spotted in a poster that the protestors were carrying. 

**The image of Bert with Osama Bin Laden has since been identified to have been added by one of the decentralized mirror sites.

This incident broke across CNN, Fox News, NPR, Reuters, and AP making this the first time an internet artifact hit mainstream media.

The cosmic irony of it all is that a website that tried to parody moments in history landed squarely in the middle of one. Today, Bert is Evil is still seen as an example of the power of convergence culture.

The brand of misinformative humor and reality bending narrative that Bert is Evil popularized is now commonplace on the internet. 

the NFT

BERT #1

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of one of the original memes. Dino Ignacio has redrawn the first image from the original collection in full color and high resolution. 

This NFT celebrates the first web phenomenon to transcend the internet and become mass media. Bert is Evil appeared on CNN, FOX NEWS, NPR, and many newspapers when the internet was a fringe medium. It feels appropriate for it to come back and become part of the new digital format.

**Half of the proceeds from this sale will be donated to the Seattle affiliate of the Public Broadcasting Service.

This NFT will be listed and available in March. Please join the mailing list to be informed of the listing’s exact date.

the NFT

BERT #2

This is a minting of the home page screen of the original Bert is Evil website from 1997. This is a glimpse into the early days of the internet. The original website featured Courier as the font and a stark black-and-white look reminiscent of an investigative dossier.

Bert is Evil is known as one of the first memes. It was celebrated in the 2nd Webby Awards in 1998 and won the Weird and People’s Voice Award category. This is the webpage that started it all.

**Half of the proceeds from this sale will be donated to the Seattle affiliate of the Public Broadcasting Service.

This NFT will be listed and available in March. Please join the mailing list to be informed of the listing’s exact date.

the NFT

BERT #3

This is the black and white version of the illustration with the head isolated. This version is reminiscent of the original black and white art on the home page of the site.

**Half of the proceeds from this sale will be donated to the Seattle affiliate of the Public Broadcasting Service.

This NFT will be listed and available in March. Please join the mailing list to be informed of the listing’s exact date.

the NFT

BERT #4

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of one of the original memes. Here is the original image in full low-resolution pixelated glory.

**Half of the proceeds from this sale will be donated to the Seattle affiliate of the Public Broadcasting Service.

This NFT will be listed and available in March. Please join the mailing list to be informed of the listing’s exact date.

Dino Ignacio © 2022