The internet meme generator You’re the Man Now Dog has returned to help entertain you during the coronavirus pandemic.
This past weekend, site creator Max Goldberg reintroduced YTMND.com after the site accidentally got deleted almost a year ago. It's now ready to accept your images and sound files and merge them together into old-school memes, which will run on a dedicated YTMND domain.
According to Goldberg, the timing of the revival couldn’t be better. “YTMND's anniversary is coming up this week,” he wrote in a posting. “Also, the world is being plunged into chaos, millions of people are stuck inside with nothing to do other than dick around on the internet.”
YTMND originally started in 2001 as an internet joke. Goldberg decided to pair a looping sound file of actor Sean Connery uttering the line "You're the man now, dog!" over images of the Hollywood star on a web page, to hilarious effect. In 2004, he then created YTMND.com so anyone could create their own memes hosted on dedicated web pages.
You're The Man Now Dog
Although the site briefly skyrocketed in popularity, YTMND eventually fell out of favor with users due to the rise of Facebook, Twitter, and GIF-based memes. For the past decade, the site has largely been dead, but it briefly grabbed headlines in May 2019 when YTMND.com mysteriously went down.
Goldberg told Motherboard he himself wasn’t even aware his creation had gone offline until his friends began texting him the news. He later discovered that a 13-year-old server powering the site died due to a lack of maintenance. Since then, Goldberg has been gradually working to restore the site, citing support from diehard YTMND fans.
“It wasn't until there was an outpouring of support for the site that I really decided to modernize and update the platform,” Goldberg told PCMag in an email. The work took longer than he expected because the site’s servers hadn't been updated since 2011. But after all that hard work, Goldberg now says the revived YTMND.com is back with some new upgrades.
For instance, the site can now run on modern browsers on both PC and smartphone. The new YTMND has also done away with the need for Adobe Flash, and will instead play audio via HTML5. On top of all this, the revived site runs on encrypted HTTPS connections to prevent snooping from ISPs.
Goldberg is also refraining from monetizing the site with ads. He hopes to instead pay for the site’s hosting costs by getting fans to donate to YTMND’s Patreon account.
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