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Nostalgic meme remembers the absurd bowling alley animations we all love

Why are the animations so weird?

Morgan Sung

on May 23, 2019

Why are bowling animations like this?

If you've ever been bowling, you probably remember the absurd 3D-animated scenes that played after each turn. Sometimes it's an anthropomorphic pin flashing you a thumbs up after a strike, jerkily rubbing its bowling pin head as if you personally hurt it. Other times an animated bowling ball will fly through the alley and straight into a terribly rendered galaxy. Whether you're scoring well or not, the most memorable part of the game is often the scorekeeping console's animations.

Bowling alley memes have taken over Twitter and Reddit. The nostalgic memes poke fun at the outdated, surreal, mildly horrifying animated scenes that fall right in the uncanny valley.

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The meme got its start on YouTube, Know Your Meme reports, when a YouTuber commented on a 10-hour long compilation of sea shanties from the 1700s. Kraken Gaming joked it looked like "the screen at the bowling alley when you get a strike."

A Redditor lifted the comment and posted it to r/dankmemes.

Reddit

Since then, the meme jumped across social media platforms and found a home on Twitter, where users are pairing it with not only surreal 3D animations, but random blurry videos.

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If you suck at bowling, at least you have some shitty animations for consolation!

Topics Memes