'Net Furballs Bring Fame, Fortune But Fade Fast

First the dancing hamsters made Thomas H. Lotze '01 laugh. Then they made him famous. And just as quickly, the fun might be over.

The hamsters in question were residents of Lotze's Web site, who cavorted to the tune of a song from Disney's "Robin Hood." In a matter of days, these rodents won Lotze fan mail, job offers and fifteen minutes of Internet celebrity.

Lotze's Web page, previously available at enb.hcs.harvard.edu/~lotze, was getting approximately 35,000 hits an hour since Monday. Today, Lotze, who is also a Crimson editor, is being interviewed on KKAR-FM of Omaha, Neb. about the magic his Web page has spread.

Due to tangled copyright rules, however, the dancing hamsters have grooved their last groove on Harvard's campus--at least for now.

Soon after he launched his page, Lotze received an e-mail from a person claiming to be the hamsters' original creator, Deidre LaCarte. LaCarte, who said she created the page in 1997, asked for copyright credit, and Lotze added her name to the bottom of the page.

Unfortunately, Lotze received word last night from his senior tutor, Judith A. Murciano-Goroff, that his efforts were not enough.

Lotze said LaCarte wrote an e-mail complaint to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Computer Services.

"Harvard's policy is apparently to take the site down and figure out the answers later," Lotze said after removing his site last night.

Several weeks ago, Lotze, who is a member of Harvard Computer Society (HCS), was directed to a Web site featuring the dancing hamsters by a friend, Janak D. Ramakrishnan '00. But when that page added pornographic banners, Lotze decided to put the hamsters in a quieter location.

"I decided that this was opposed to all the hamster dance stood for--such noble ideals as truth, justice, and the pursuit of small dancing rodents," Lotze's Web page reads.

The page features rows of hamsters of all shapes and colors, from Chip 'n' Dale lookalikes to cousins of the stout Harvard Yard squirrels. With smiles on their faces, the hamsters shake, shimmy and bounce to the high-pitched sound clip from "Robin Hood."

LaCarte has her own site of the dancing hamsters, which is also very popular.

"She's gotten a ridiculous number of hits on her dancing hamster site," Ramakrishnan said. "I think she's gotten over a million. It's the biggest thing since the dancing baby."

Lotze put the hamsters on his HCS Web site about 10 days ago. As of Monday, Lotze's hamster page was receiving about 75 percent of all HCS Web traffic. At that point, HCS gave the page its own server.

"The page was getting so many hits that we were concerned about the load on the HCS server," said Webmaster Lee D. Feigenbaum '01.

HCS provides Web service to about 50 individual students and 200 student groups, according to Assistant Administrator Michael J. Epstein '00.

"Our server was fine--it could handle the load--but rather than overload it, we decided to move the page," Feigenbaum added.

Lotze said he enjoyed his moment in the spotlight, but will not be too sad if the hamsters have danced their last.

"In a way it is fair, because she is the creator," Lotze said. "I'm just kind of worried about all of the people who won't get their hamster fix."

That may sound silly, but Lotze's e-mail inbox backs it up. He gets numerous e-mail messages from Web surfers about the glory of the dancing hamsters.

"Thanks for giving me a tool that constantly reminds me how productive humanity can be in its quest for balance and harmony with self and rodentia," said Ross Brown, vice president of a Seattle-based consulting firm, in an e-mail message to Lotze.

But the hamsters have brought Lotze more than fan mail--they may win him a job as well. He's heard from a banker at Goldman Sachs, where he will apply for a summer job, and a senior economic analyst from the United Nations, who offered Lotze a summer job in Austria over e-mail.

"One of the hardest things about being a job-seeking college student is getting in contact with companies," Lotze said. "If I did that through the dancing hamsters, then I'm happy."