The demoscene is steeped in decades of lore, and notoriously a little insular with its many cherished injokes. One expression of that came in the form of Gasman’s song We Didn’t Start the Färjans, which parodies We Didn’t Start the Fire with a long list of demoscene allusions.
I am autistic enough to try and find out what they all were, so strap in. Here’s the song:
Probably goes without saying, but I was not here for most of this—some of these injokes are older than I am. Still, here’s my best attempt to unpack them.
Verse 1
The song is roughly chronological, so the first verse mostly concerns the C64 scene of the late 80s and early 90s, with a little Amiga at the end.
- SID chip
- the Sound Interface Device chip notably used on the Commodore 64, the computer on which the demoscene was born, used to program chiptunes.
- Berlin Bear
- a classic cracktro from the very early demoscene
- Floppies at computer fairs
- the demoscene grew out of copyparties, where cracked software would be exchanged on floppy discs. Presumably these were also exchanged at mainstream computer fairs?
- Piccolo Mouso
- an early C64 demo from 1983 depicting a mouse masturbating
- parallax stars
- not sure about this one, but scrolling parallax effects were one effect widely used on the C64
- Tristar
- demogroup founded in 1987 with a long history
- Finnish Gold
- demogroup founded in the late 80s, organised demoparties in Finland
- Cracker Journal
- a diskmag for the C64/Amiga that began in 1988
- Venlo
- a regular event in the city of Venlo that came to be regarded in retrospect as the birthplace of the demoscene
- Static Bytes
- a demogroup in the C64 scene, founded around 1990
- Fairlight
- a renowned Swedish demogroup and cracker group, beginning in 1987 and still active
- Alcatraz bars
- a popular C64 demo effect which created a wiggly line with a wall coming down underneath it, named after the demogroup Alcatraz. A thread discussing how it’s done.
- World of Commodore
- a renowned demo from 1992
- spheres on a checkerboard
- spheres and checkerboards are easy to render procedurally and thus feature often in early computer graphics, dating back all the way to 1979; the video shows the 1989 Amiga demo All Around by Fairlight, which shows a raytraced sphere reflecting other spheres
- Spaceballs
- demogroup founded in 1988, named after the Mel Brooks film.
- Desert Dream
- landmark Amiga demo from 1993
- Letting girls get in for free
- apparently a common feature for 90s demoparties, due to the heavy demographic skew of the demoscene, and because some sceners wanted to invite their girlfriends.
- Maniacs of Noise
- demogroup that existed since at least 1988, very popular for their music, including works outside the demoscene in games
- atomic playboys
- referring to a sample in the renowned demo Second Reality, quoting a memetic phrase that originated with US Vice Admiral W.H.R. Blandy speaking about the nuclear bomb tests at Bikini Atoll
- CNCD
- Finnish demogroup also called Carillon & Cyberiad, dating back to at least 1992
- No Copy
- refers to a late-90s controversy over pixel artists creating pixelised versions of other artists’ work, often without crediting sources. Referenced artists included Boris Vallejo, Cindy Crawford, and Hajime Surayama. The No Copy website has many examples of demoscene pixel art and the pieces it references.
- Barti / Nooon
- a legend DOS coder in the 90s who apparently became somewhat notorious after getting cancer and returning to the demoscene with some inscrutable demos.
- Boozembly
- demoparty running since 1995
Chorus 1
The choruses mostly relate to the Färjan meme.
- We Didn’t Start The Färjan
- Färjan is the Swedish word for ferries. As a demoscene meme, this dates back to a 64k invite Finlandsfärjan by Jumalauta, made in a hurry on the ferry from only materials to hand at the time. A later remake subsequently inspired numerous parodies and remixes. By the time the tool färjanmaker was made in 2018, it seems everyone was in on the joke (almost every comment is a riff on the same meme).
- It was always floating while the nerds were coding
- Self explanatory!
- We Didn’t Start The Färjans
- Jumalauta caught ‘em in the early autumn
- A pun on the song Early Autumn by Mezzoforte, recorded from the ferry sound system and used in Finlandsfärjan.
Verse 2
This verse takes us into the late 90s.
- Ravers in the sleeping hall
- many demoparties set aside a room where people can bring sleeping bags to sleep during the party instead of having to get a hotel. I assume that at some point a bunch of ravers came into the sleeping room and partied there, though I can’t find when on a quick search; apparently this may have happened at The Party in 1995.
- Phong shaded metaballs
- Phong shading, invented in 1973, is one of the earliest shading techniques in computer graphics, and very easy to code. Metaballs are implicit surfaces created by finding the isosurfaces of 3D fields—you can mesh them to create triangles or render them with raymarching. These are both stereotypical things to see in early computer graphics. The video shows the 1995 demo Dope, which boasts onscreen of how many Phong-shaded triangles it’s displaying.
- Contrast
- an influential DOS demo from 1996
- Megablast
- another significant DOS demo
- Hugi
- a diskmag for Windows, running since 1996
- PAiN
- a diskmag running since 1994
- Spectrum, Pentagon
- the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was a classic 8-bit computer; the Pentagon was a Soviet clone of it. Both have been used in the demoscene. The video shows PSG-Wins by Prestige.
- Mekka and Symposium
- a demoparty that ran from 1997-2002 in Saxony, Germany
- Hyperventilation
- a 1998 DOS demo by the group Byterapers (hell of a name…), notably featuring samples from ABBA
- paper aeroplanes
- the video shows a brief clip from Paper, which was a classic 1996 64k demo; this apparently inspired people at the Wired party where it was released to fold and throw paper planes until someone got one in the eye
- Poetry
- refers to ‘scene poetry’, the practice of putting text with short, emotive phrases into demos. Although it’s featured in some popular demos, this is often regarded as a bit pretentious and corny. The group Replay was particularly known for this, and one of their works is shown in the video here.
- 303
- a popular DOS demo from 1997
- Dutchies and their colour schemes
- an injoke, referring to demos with tasteless, oversaturated colours, especially orange, red and yellow, associated stereotypically with Dutch sceners. apparently this joke originates with someone called Macaw on the comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos usenet newsgroup.
- Gravenreuth on the attack
- German lawyer Günter Freiherr von Gravenreuth threatened lawsuits against many members of the warez scene, only to be eventually found to be involved in large-scale for-profit piracy himself
- Secret Life of Mr Black
- a DOS demo from 1997, apparently representative of the group ‘Orange’
- Sunflower
- a succesful DOS demo from 1997
- Stash and Jizz
- two demos by demogroup The Black Lotus; Jizz and Stash were both released in 1997 (coincidentally some of the earliest demos to be recorded on Pouet, occupying IDs 2 and 3 in the database)
- Blowing up the power grid
- according to scene legend, the power draw of hundreds of computers and CRT monitors at The Party in 1997 burned through two 25,000 amp fuses and caused a blackout for a portion of the Danish town of Aars
- Enlight
- A ZX Spectrum demoparty which ran from 1995 to 1997 in Russia. Became memetic after the final edition of the party was shut down and had the police called in for drinking and noise.
- State of Mind
- A popular DOS demo from 1998
- real party is outside
- A meme referring to the outdoor gatherings during demoparties where sceners hang out, chat and drink—ironic since it doesn’t really involve any of the main demoscene stuff (making demos and looking at them).
Chorus 2
- We Didn’t Start The Färjan
- It was always floating while the nerds were coding
- We Didn’t Start The Färjan
- But we’ll recreate it on a crusty 8-bit
- the video shows Tasavaltafärjan, a recreation of the original Finlandsfärjan on the 8-bit Commodore 64
Verse 3
This verse takes us into the 2000s.
- Heaven Seven
- a famous PC demo from 2000
- Voodoo3
- an early video card, which was used by some computers in the 2000s.
- music by Fear Factory
- Fear Factory is an industrial band, not to be confused with the demo group. The demo VIP 2 by Popsy Team used their music in a demo, instead of using music original to the demoscene, which caused some controversy.
- Deus Ex Machina
- a C64 demo from 2000.
- Rob is Jarig
- a comedic Windows demo from 2000 for the birthday of someone called Rob, which has inspired many parodies and remixes
- Festivål
- as explained to me by Gasman, during Assembly 2003, an unofficial music contest was held. The winner (by Jumalauta or tAAt) started with a quiet jaunty melody on a bottle orchestra, abruptly interrupted by someone yelling ‘FESTIVAL!’ and the rest of the group coming in on “whistles, drums and other football-crowd-style noisemakers.” Yelling ‘Festival!’ rapidly caught on and became a running joke in the prizegiving ceremony.
- Farbrausch
- demo group founded in 2000; one of the most famous demo groups. Very recognisable for the fr-0## numbering scheme for their productions. Also known for creating the sizecoded 96k FPS kkrieger.
- coup de coeur
- a feature of Pouet that allows you to attach a little badge to a production if you’re very active on the site
- Boyfriend makes you disappear
- A reference to the line “My boyfriend can make you disappear” from the 1999 Windows demo melrose space
- Variform
- popular PC demo from 2002.
- Liquid… Wen?
- another popular PC demo from 2002
- Moppi second place again
- Moppi Productions is a demogroup which took second place at the Assembly demoparty for several years running
- Hallo… was?
- German for ‘Hello… what’. Two samples from a German meme video in which a confused woman talks to police, which became a meme after Sobec used to play the samples at a loud volume at parties such as Breakpoint 2005. It became a kind of call-and-response thing: yell ‘Hallo’ and someone responds ‘was?’
- Kewlers suck
- Kewlers is a Finnish demogroup with an irreverent style, whose ironic slogan is ‘Kewlers suck’
- Slengpung
- a website archiving photos from demoparties
- Garbagetruck
- a respected oldschool scener aka ‘truck’, known for hosting Scenesat
- Neuropol
- a font with a scifi vibe, widely used in the demoscene to the point of cliché
- Outline
- a demoparty in the Netherlands, running since 2004
- Guten Morgen Sonnenchein
- a German song, whose remix became a regular fixture in the mornings at demoparties
- Poké-mini
- a tiny handheld device which has nonetheless had two demos made for it
- growing trees
- a demo effect in which tree-like structures grow outwards, heavily used by the scener Smash in the Fairlight group. The video shows the 2006 PC demo Track One.
- Ballet dancing deities
- 2005 Windows demo The Ballet Dancer
- Conspiracy in Hungary
- Conspiracy is a Hungarian demogroup founded in 2002, known for their impressive feats of sizecoding and visual design
- Fair Play To The Queen
- popular Windows demo from 2005
Chorus 3
- We Didn’t Start The Färjan
- It was floating while the nerds were coding
- We Didn’t Start The Färjan
- We just made a killer piece of compo-filler
- Compo-filler refers to low-effort productions made to ‘fill out’ a competition, usually aiming more for humour and charm than impressive technical effects.
Verse 4
- Debris
- fr-041 Debris (2007) by Farbrausch is one of the most famous PC demos in scene history
- ASD
- Andromeda Software Development, a Greek group active in the 90s DOS and 2000s Windows scenes, known for impressive OpenGL demos
- seal with bucket
- a 2000s-era meme; in 2007 a joke thread on Pouet saw people repeatedly post this picture
- lft
- a demoscener who is known for creating custom hardware to run demos, such as 2008’s Craft
- Masagin
- a Windows demo/invite from 2008 featuring lots of vector graphics
- Wolverine
- Twentieth Century Fox funded the Breakpoint demoparty in 2009 to promote the film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, leading them to run a Wolverine compo
- subdivide the Spectrum scene
- a Pouet thread arguing that different variants of the ZX Spectrum should have their own database categories. 22 pages. You can imagine how that went.
- Hasselhoff Big Band
- a band focusing on performing synthpop and classic chiptunes from games and the demoscene, who performed at demoparties
- Tempest versus Timbaland
- the producer Timbaland sampled the work of demoscene musician Tempest; this led to a controversy significant enough to make Wikipedia
- Ragdoll sumo wrestling
- refers to the sizecoded physics-based wrestling game Sumotori Dreams by demoscener Archee aka Gravity Sensation. the game subsequently released successfully on mobile and Steam
- song, people dancing
- Pouet commenter SoLo2 had a habit of simply describing demos in comments instead of offering an opinion; this brief comment became a meme in its own right, later becoming the title of a prod
- Jesus Christ Motocross
- an Amiga demo from 2009
- Elevated
- an impressive 4k demo from 2009 featuring an elaborate procedural landscape
- Pants Off
- a joke demo from 2009; also described to me as ‘the Danish lifestyle at parties’
- Happiness is round the bend
- a popular Windows demo from 2010
- Locked the random image thread
- the Pouet ‘random image’ thread was closed in 2010 after 1312 pages of random images. I don’t know the story there.
Chorus 4
- We Didn’t Start The Färjan
- It was always floating while the nerds were coding
- We Didn’t Start The Färjan
- But here’s another boat for everyone to vote for
- Nothing to say here… but I need to put something in this definition list or the formatting will break!
Verse 5
Now, the 2010s up to the present…
- TV noise
- ‘TV noise’ became a meme in 2010, after Drunken Hobbit Coders posted a badly-optimised 32k intro showing nothing more than white noise; the meme turned into a sizecoding challenge, with various people creating optimised versions and porting it to other platforms.
- nyan cat
- a classic meme dating back to 2011; naturally it made its way into demos
- toilet tunnel
- at the Revision demoparty, the toilets must be accessed by walking down a tunnel underneath the E-Werk building. This has come to be affectionately known as the Toilet Tunnel.
- SceneSat
- an online radio and occasional videostream which broadcasts demoscene-related music and commentary
- Borrowing your votedisk
- We Have Accidentally Borrowed Your Votedisk was a 64k Windows demo from 2011; the ‘votedisk’ refers a disc you would use to save your votes and hand in to the orgas (prior to the modern online voting systems)
- Cocio and Finsprit
- a silly music piece that has been used in a number of demos, and notably is used for the gif competition at Revision
- Strawberries with LEDs
- refers to Gaia Machina, a 64k Windows demo from 2012
- Meteoriks
- the Meteoriks are an annual award show celebrating the best productions of the demoscene
- Kevin’s teeth
- refers to Hello, Kevin - A Dental Journey, a surreal self-referential PC demo from 2017 featuring a freaky looking cel-shaded guy called Kevin
- Eon
- a moody, cinematically styled Amiga demo from 2019
- Wrecklamation
- a tracker music piece from 2018 which also used the visual of the scrolling tracker to display visuals
- Notch
- node-based motion graphics software that has seen increasing use in the demoscene for PC demos
- Party Leben
- Party x Leben is a memetic song by Joey Bargeld and KITSCHKRIEG; in 2023 someone made a program to remix samples from it for Revision? not sure the history here.
- Pico-8
- the Pico-8 is a ‘fantasy console’, kind of like an emulator of an imaginary computer. It has become popular in the demoscene, along with its FOSS cousin the TIC-80.
- Schnappsgirls
- a demogroup who released comedy demos in 2017 and 2018
- Piledriver
- a popular Windows demo from 2019
- Sofa World
- during 2020, the Revision demoparty ran online only due to COVID; Sofa World was a a game in which sceners could go to a virtual version of the party
- Lovebyte
- an online demoparty oriented around sizecoding
- satellites
- since not everyone can attend Revision locally in Germany, various satellite events have sprung up around the world, local gatherings that restream Revision’s content
- demo on a disk drive
- Freespin is a 2021 demo that only uses the Commodore 64’s floppy drive as hardware, not the actual computer
- Wurstgetrank Twitch ban
- a photo showing a butt by Wurstgetrank may have been the cause of the Revision demoparty receiving a Twitch ban in 2021
- Pharmageddon
- a 2022 demo for a pharmacy sign controlled by a Raspberry Pi.
- byte jam
- a regular event on the FieldFX twitch channel, in which people spend one hour writing an effect for the TIC-80 to music. There is also a shader jam in the same place.
- Gen AI
- an ongoing controversy in the demoscene is the use of recent generative AI systems in the making of demos. Many sceners feel very strongly that it shouldn’t be allowed at all. AI arguments continued several days after Revision this year.
- Gargaj
- a well-known scener and member of the Conspiracy demogroup, and until recently the admin of Pouet.
- now the scene is gonna die…
- ‘the scene is dead/dying’ has been declared so many times that it’s become a running joke.
Chorus 5
- We Didn’t Start The Färjan
- It was always floating while the nerds were coding
- We Didn’t Start The Färjan
- But when the compo runs, we’ll let the scroll go on
- And on and on and on and on and on and on and on…
- ‘scroller’ demos featuring long pieces of text scrolling across the screen are a demoscene cliché, albeit one with some history
Phew, that’s nearly everything. I’m culturally literate now, right? Right guys? …right?
Edit: updated thanks to information from the demoscene discord. Thanks so much for the help! Any further inaccuracies, let me know and I’ll correct them.
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