Facebook Profile Trends: Cartoons from the '90s on the Rise

The need for television entertainment is strong; however, a blast to the past can sometimes be stronger. With the marriage of television and the Internet, the union has created a new way to portray oneself. For example, many people who use Facebook will use an avatar instead of a real photo of themselves. The same is true of many other social networking websites as well. However, on Nov. 16, an unofficial "Facebook Cartoon Profile Picture Week" began. The trend apparently started in Cyprus and Greece and hoped to erase "human photos" for that time.

Why Cartoons from the '90s?

Cartoons from the '90s were some of the greatest cartoons ever made and most of those same shows are still going strong today in 2010. In fact, of the 20 most popular '90s cartoons of which include "Pinky and the Brain" (1995 to 1999), "King of the Hill" (1997 to 2009), "SpongebBob Squarepants" (1999 to present), "Family Guy" (1999 to 2002 and 2005 to present), "Futurama" (1999 to 2003), and "Beavis and Butt-Head" (1993 to 1997), 19 of them still run at least once a day on any given cable channel. While most of these popular cartoons were aimed towards the "older generation" of the time, many were cross overs geared towards teens and young adults. Some, such as "Animaniacs" (1993 to 1998) and "Bobby's World" (1990 to 1998), were aimed at elementary school children and typically had a moralistic purpose.

The original '90s cartoon

The original '90s cartoon, though it did not start in the '90s, is The Simpsons; the longest running cartoon in prime time network television history. This cartoon started Dec. 17, 1989, and set the bar for all cartoons to come. This popularity created the "need" for people to become "Simpsonized," or a way to make a cartoon rendering of themselves using Simpsonize Me as a base for the resulting avatar. Another popular cartoon,South Park (1997 to present), also has its own cartoon conversion website called "South Park Studio." Using the same concept as the Simpsonize Me website, users can create South Park characters of themselves using various features of the cartoon characters married with their own features.

Since these two websites popped up in the late '90s, other sites began to offer the same services, and software people can download and use on their computers, although most are not based on specific cartoon characters. For instance, AvatarGenerator.org is a website anyone can go to and pick a cartoon avatar and then edit it based on personal preferences. With the availability of most services free, it is easy to pretend to be someone, even if only online. The freedom to be someone else for a time is liberating and another of the reasons the Facebook '90s cartoon avatar trend is on the rise, not to mention that most of Facebook's users now were the targeted audiences of '90s cartoons.