February 23, 2026
Six Degrees of Drama
The Oracle of Bacon: Thirty Years Later
Nostalgia and snark as the web’s OG party trick still sizzles
TLDR: The Oracle of Bacon, an early web gem that links actors to Kevin Bacon, turns 30 and still works. Commenters split between warm nostalgia for simple web magic and debates over whether it proves a tiny world or just Hollywood’s tight network, plus jokes that today it’d be marketed as “AI.”
The internet just bit into a crispy slice of nostalgia: the Oracle of Bacon turns 30, and commenters are roasting, toasting, and bragging about their Bacon Numbers. Old-school dial‑up veterans called it the first time the web felt like magic, a site that actually thought and answered you — not just a static page. Others reminded everyone it wasn’t mysticism, it was math: the average Bacon Number is 3.1, proving how tightly connected Hollywood is, not that Kevin Bacon is the universe’s sun.
A mini‑fight broke out over whether this would be labeled “AI” today: some say yup, it’s dynamic computation with a database; others shot back, “AI my foot, it’s a clever query.” Folks linked the whole thing to the “small world” idea and the nerdy Erdős Number (a math‑world score for co-authors), while jokers suggested a modern Taylor Swift Number or Marvel Number because “everything connects through cameos.”
Nostalgia purists begged for the return of the Hall of Fame (retired in 2001), while chaos agents posted alleged Bacon Numbers via their cousin’s dog. Meme chefs served “Proof of Pork” and “Degrees? I take mine crispy.” And yes, it’s still alive: you can ping the Oracle of Bacon right now — and watch the comments fry
Key Points
- •The Oracle of Bacon launched in 1996 at the University of Virginia, led by Ph.D. student Brett Tjaden, automating the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game.
- •It became an early example of dynamic web content, performing server-side computation to generate user-specific results.
- •The site went viral in the dial-up era, with a Hall of Fame for high Bacon Numbers, which stopped taking entries in 2001.
- •Patrick Reynolds has maintained the Oracle since 1999 and highlights its role compared to the mostly static web of the time.
- •Average Bacon Numbers are around 3.1, illustrating small-world connectivity, linked to antecedents like Karinthy’s “Chains” and Milgram’s experiments.