So here's one that had me grinning from the moment I landed on the homepage. DHMO.org is the online home of the Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division, a site dedicated to raising awareness about a dangerous chemical compound that "kills uncounted thousands of people every year." The site has been online since 1997, and it is a masterpiece.
If you haven't figured it out yet, dihydrogen monoxide is H₂O. Water. The whole site is an elaborate, completely straight-faced parody that presents ordinary facts about water using the scariest possible framing. And the commitment to the bit is extraordinary. This isn't a one-page joke. It's an entire web ecosystem built around the gag, with the kind of depth and attention to detail that you just don't see anymore.
Let me walk you through what's here. There's a full FAQ page that covers everything from "What are some of the dangers associated with DHMO?" (death due to accidental inhalation, even in small quantities) to its use in "cruel animal research" and "the distribution of pesticides." Every single claim is technically true. That's what makes it so good. There's an environmental impact report noting that DHMO was found in "significant levels" in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. There's a cancer page pointing out that DHMO has been detected "in virtually all tumors and other cancerous and pre-cancerous growths." There's even a proper Material Safety Data Sheet with a CAS number and everything.
But the pages that really got me were the ones where the real world started bumping up against the joke. The dairy industry exposé is incredible. It features a "former FDA employee" warning about DHMO contamination in milk, and then, beautifully, it includes actual correspondence from the publishers of Hoard's Dairyman magazine demanding that the site remove a copyrighted photo of a cow. Tom Way (the site's creator) asked if they could keep using the cow photo "for the children." They said no, apparently because they were worried people wouldn't understand the joke. So now the page features a "simulation" of the cow image instead.
Then there's the conspiracy page, where a researcher apparently contacted the EPA asking if they were covering up the DHMO issue, and the EPA's response was this wonderfully bureaucratic non-denial that reads like something out of a spy novel. The site frames their boilerplate "please remove our name from your site" language as "saber rattling," comparing it to "talk from a movie gangster."
The research reports page collects actual survey results from schools and organizations that tested the DHMO premise on real people. One study from Westlake High School in 2008 found that when students were given scary-sounding facts about DHMO, 63% supported banning it. The site references the original 1997 study by Nathan Zohner, a 14-year-old whose science fair project found that 86% of people supported a DHMO ban. That kid's project is genuinely famous in science education circles, and this site is its spiritual home.
The design is pure late-90s web. Simple navigation sidebar, plain backgrounds, lots of text. The last update note on the homepage says October 14, 2004, though parts of the site have content from later. There's a link to us page with downloadable 88x31 buttons, banner ads, and copy-paste HTML code. There's a spam warning page with full email headers analyzed. There's even a press kit with the username and password printed right on the page (both are "press").
Tom Way built something here that works on multiple levels. It's funny. It's a genuinely useful tool for teaching critical thinking and scientific literacy. And it's a time capsule of what it looked like when one person with a good idea and some HTML knowledge could build something that would still be making people laugh (and think) over 25 years later. The domain is still up. The pages still load. The joke still lands.
Go poke around dhmo.org. Read the FAQ start to finish. Check out the dairy industry page. Try to keep a straight face. I dare you.