He truly is the heart and soul of the team.
Getty Images Jonathan Daniel
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I started navigating the internet — really, the earliest versions of social media — early in my life, and before most people even really knew what the internet was. I was 11 when I first logged on in 1993 — I'm 32 now — and I’ve spent the ensuing years invested in online communities at least as much as I’m invested in offline ones. I never understood there to be a clear line between the two. Before I ever even had a cell phone, I used the social web to document and reflect on my offline life. I’ve met wonderful people online, connected in much deeper ways to the friends I had, and I’ve used dozens of networks and platforms to figure myself out. The internet hasn’t been a way to escape, it’s been a creative outlet, a friend, a documentarian, and a tool that has made my real life better, cooler, weirder, and more fun. For me, the internet isn’t some distinct virtual universe, it’s just one part of the real world.
This is the history of my first 20 years online. It’s a happy story.
When I was 9, my parents chose to homeschool my older brother, Mitch, and me out of frustration with public school. I had just finished third grade and he, fifth. We were both doing fine academically, but my mom felt like our personalities were changing. My brother often came home from school depressed, and we started to complain about things like reading that we had loved before. Mom and Dad hated the focus on standardized testing, and felt that our teachers didn’t appreciate the creative curiosity they treasured.
A couple years into the great homeschooling experiment, we moved temporarily from Austin, Texas, a hippie college town with a growing secular homeschooling community, to Arlington, Virginia. I missed home and I had trouble making new friends in the Christian homeschool group there.
My brother Mitch on our Macintosh computer in the mid-'80s.
That was when Mitch told me about BBSes (Bulletin Board Systems) and saved me from my boredom and social isolation. BBSes were local networks where we could read and write on message boards, chat live, and play games. We were lucky enough to have the magic formula: a PC, a 2400-baud modem, and a second phone line. My dad had always been fascinated by gadgets — he’d bought us our (and the!) first Macintosh in 1984, when I was just two years old. The iconic modem sound that began any trip to my favorite BBSes still makes me feel urgently stoked. That sound means I’m about to arrive at the best party ever, and I still get to wear my pajamas.
I tried a few BBSes, but I quickly became devoted to one in particular called “International House of Kumquats.” IHOK was run by a chill teenager who went by the handle Surrealistic Pickle. I felt at home there. Everyone was young and smart and cool and they immediately became my friends. (Since the BBS was on a local phone number, I knew we all lived in the D.C. area.) I never really thought much about the fact that we had “met online” — the concept was too new to feel dorky or taboo yet.
The average age of people on the board was probably about 16, while I was only 12. “Star Shadow,” my earnest choice of an alias, was a dead giveaway that I was the youngest person on the board. Still, I fit in fine. The kids on IHOK shared my enthusiasm for the band They Might Be Giants and we discussed them constantly, dissecting lyrics and debating best songs. We also talked about our lives and anxieties, we made up recurring inside jokes, we quoted our favorite movies and TV shows, and recommended books. We developed real friendships.
Within a few months, Surrealistic Pickle made me a co-sysop (system operator), the official duties of which were slight enough that I don’t actually remember what they were, but I still listed it on all of my teenage resumes. It was the first time that anyone had put semiprofessional faith in me, and it was done purely because of the value of my contributions, without a thought given to my being a girl, a weird homeschooler, or an actual child.
When my mom first agreed to let me meet my friends in person, she dropped me off at the National Mall but then parked a few blocks away with a stack of books and an eye on our activities. Looking back, I’m amazed that the teenagers from the board didn’t tease me for my mom literally watching over us, and I’m equally grateful she was open to the idea at all. We couldn’t share photos on the BBS, so the first time I met my board mates IRL was the first time I saw them at all. That part seems weird now, but it didn’t feel strange at the time. We already knew each other’s sense of humor, feelings, opinions, and personalities — the rest was just wrapping paper.
A few months later, I went to my first ever show with my BBS buddies: NRBQ and They Might Be Giants (obviously) at Wolf Trap in Virginia. The Kumquat crew were splayed out on picnic blankets on the grassy hills. They were Manic Panic-ed, glasses-wearing, and trench-coated teenagers who probably didn’t fit in at high school. They were all, more than any other quality, ridiculously nice. I thought they were the coolest people in the world.
Cool "Lion King" button + Slurpee T-shirt.
I was having an awkward adolescence. I liked talking to my parents way more than I liked anyone my own age. I wanted to have deep, intelligent conversations about my interests, which were Disney animated movies (I collected Lion King merchandise), horses, and cute boys. Not, for the most part, things that grown-ups actually wanted to talk to me about.
Luckily, Prodigy existed. Prodigy was a dialup service that predated widespread use of the World Wide Web. Like its competitor, America Online, Prodigy contained multitudes: shopping, news, weather, games, advice columns, and more. I was only interested in connecting with people, so I used the live chat, email, and discussion boards.
I joined a message board where other girls like me had invented an elaborate role playing game for made-up horses — we each “owned” dozens of fake horses, gave them names and attributes, and pitted them against each other in entirely arbitrary competitions that were just decided by whoever was running them. I kept my horse files in a giant binder full of descriptions like this:
People who I tried to explain the game to didn’t understand it at all. It wasn’t until I was introduced to the concept of fantasy sports a decade later that I thought maybe this all wasn’t as strange as I feared.
I was even more involved with the Disney Fans Bulletin Board, which was populated mostly by grown men and women who retained their interest in all things Disney well past the age when most people grow out of it. I loved them. Many of my DFBB cohorts lived and worked in Orlando, just because it meant that they got to go to Disney World whenever they wanted. To me, they were living the ultimate adulthood dream.
I got so involved with the Disney board that I was eventually given a “job.” The job paid me in a free Prodigy subscription and one free t-shirt. My title was “Teens Liaison,” and I did just that: liaised with other teens. Although most of the community was much older , I developed raging crushes on the handful of boys my age. I can still remember, in fine detail, a photo one of them sent me of himself dressed up as Prince Eric for Halloween. I had several Prodigy flirtations before I had figured out the slightest thing about talking to boys I knew offline. We talked about our feelings, which was impossible with the teenage boys I knew in “real” life. I was myself with the dudes of Prodigy — open and honest and weird — and they liked me for it.
I eventually met my Prodigy friends in real life too. My parents planned a trip to Disney World, mostly for my obsessive benefit, and let me bring my best friend, another homeschooler named Kate. I dragged Kate and my mom to a meetup dinner with the DFBB group at a fancy Disney-themed restaurant. Almost all of the attendees were closer to my mom’s age than to mine, but we had fun anyway. I got a purple tie-dyed DFBB staff T-shirt that I wore proudly to the park the next day. Soon after our meeting, people started to leave Prodigy for the wider world of the web, and I followed.
Editing my "Lady and the Tramp" fan site with a stack of Disney encyclopedias, 1995.
I made my first website in 1995, when I was 13, and it was dedicated to my favorite movie, Lady and the Tramp. It started with a short introduction: “I’m here to provide the major source of Lady information on the World Wide Web.” The page included an archive of tiny photos I’d been able to dig up or scan, random facts I’d strung together from my collection of Disney books, the title of the movie translated into several other languages, a character list, quotes, and the movie’s credits, transcribed from my own VHS copy.
I taught myself HTML to make the page, borrowing books from the library and reading tutorials online. Once I made the Lady and the Tramp page, I was hooked. I started expanding my website to include biographical information about me, terrible things I’d written, pictures of my friends, and more.
By 1999, the earliest date that the web archive has for my site, it was basically a magazine. It included:
A 14-part “about me” section
Thousands of words devoted to describing each of my friends. Example: “Lots of people will tell you that I’m obsessed with Dorothy and you might say that’s true — I just happen to think she’s one of tha most beautiful, funniest girlies in that whole wide world. :-)”
Pages devoted to my opinions on religion, animal rights, curfews, Bill Clinton, and legalizing marijuana
A list of reasons that you should go vegetarian
A description of my imaginary perfect boyfriend, Jimmy Tony
Dozens of poems I’d written
My “future encyclopedia entry,” including the career description “writer, artist, entrepreneur, animal handler, actress, philosopher”; the titles of several of my future books about Shakespeare and hip-hop; details of the company I would found someday; the many books I would write; and my partnership with my imaginary husband Jimmy
A daily journal cataloguing the mundane details of my life
Book reviews
Comics I made with Photoshop
“Summer’s Spiffy Sendable Celebs,” a collection of about 30 e-postcards I made of my favorite celebrities
Capsule reviews of every episode of Dawson’s Creek
Commentary on my favorite songs and a list of my favorite CDs
A “shrine” celebrating Ani DiFranco
A collection of my favorite jokes
Desktop photos of celebrities and animals that I’d edited and made available to my “public”
An elaborate, multisectioned fan page for the character Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, including artwork, personal essays, historical information, and more
A lengthy acknowledgments section that thanked AltaVista, my scanner, my entire extended family, friends, and all of my pets
Making websites was my primary mode of self-expression throughout my teens, and it was also a huge part of my mostly autodidactic education. Over the years, my family’s approach to our education had grown increasingly radical, buoyed by the writings of “unschooling” proponents such as John Holt and Grace Llewellyn. I chose what to focus on and how to spend my time based on my goals, with fairly minimal oversight from my parents. My website became an obsession, and I had all the time in the world to devote to it. Most of the other creative things I did — drawing pictures, writing bad poems, and composing essays — were in the service of making a cool-as-hell website.
A version of my website layout, featuring a dog I found on the street and kept for two days.
Although my site wasn’t part of any specific social platform, there was an informal but intense network of teenage and young adult women doing the same thing I was, and we joined web rings, made link lists, and sent each other fan mail. I kept up with tons of other website makers, almost all of them women: from JenniCam to one gothy girl who I only remember as “Calliope.” I learned from them. I studied their source codes for HTML tips, copied their brooding photography styles, listened to bands they mentioned in passing, started taking moody selfies like theirs, and tried hard to impress them with endless tweaks and new features on my website. To some extent, I lived my life with my website in mind — do it for the dot-com! — but this was a good thing: It made me more creative, thoughtful, and adventurous.
Creating my own elaborate websites about myself was outrageously, hilariously narcissistic in hindsight. But building my own sites gave me the ability to tell people who I was in a way that I could control. It also allowed me to look at myself in a positive way, something that was missing when I looked in the mirror. I liked the me I was on the web. I still do.
I’ve always wondered about the assumption that our online personas are more fake than our physical ones. I often feel awkward and nervous in real-life situations; I almost always feel like I’m saying the wrong thing and am unable to articulate what I really think and feel. Online, I have plenty of time and unlimited space to consider what to say and how to express myself. It’s an advantage that makes me feel more like myself, not less so.
Can’t decide what movie to watch to get into the ~holiday spirit~? Your favorite celebrities have a few ideas for you.
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Getty Images Monica Schipper
Hackers threatened theaters that screened The Interview, forcing Sony to cancel the movie release.
-/AFP / Getty Images
On Wednesday, Sony canceled the release of The Interview following threats from hackers. The threats mentioned 9/11 and said that "those who seek fun in terror" would be "doomed" to a "bitter fate."
The FBI also warned theaters this week that they could face cyber attacks for screening the film.
What to get for the exerciser who has everything.
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
This smart basketball works with an app to analyze ball-handling and shooting skills and provide skill-based basketball workouts. ($174.95)
A great "rope" for experienced jumpers who travel and/or need something on hand for practicing in tight spaces. ($27.99)
You want your bod to get swole, not your household clutter. That's where this fully adjustable dumbbell system comes in, offering a ton of variety (from three to 24 pounds in three-pound increments) without taking up a ton of room. ($149)
The word does not fit the FCC definition of obscenity.
Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder.
Mark J. Rebilas/Usa Today Sports
In September, a petition was filed to designate the word "Redskins" as an obscene term, under the argument that the word "causes 'psychological harm, not only to Indian and non-Indian children, but also to Indian adults.'"
In today's decision, the FCC found that argument invalid, as the Supreme Court defines obscenity as language that "depicts or describes sexual conduct." It also rejected the claim that the word is profane, under citing the FCC definition as "language so grossly offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount to a nuisance."
The FCC did not find the word "Redskins" to fit that definition, but did mention that the Commission tries to tread lightly on matters of "racial or religious epithets."
The Washington Redskins are currently appealing a decision by the United States Patent and Trademark office to strip their exclusive rights to the name.
The petition to remove the team trademarks to the name was filed using similar arguments as the petition filed to the FCC.
Who knew Christmas had so many phallic-looking decorations?
Via funnymama.com
Via epicfail.com
And how old you’ll feel today.
NBC
ABC
(He was 14 at the beginning of the show in 1989.)
NBC
(His character was supposed to be "in his thirties" at the beginning of production in 1989.)
NBC
Not everyone had the skills to go pro (or get flow). But it was fun to dream.
You poor unfortunate soul.
Ira Madison III for BuzzFeed / Via Disney
D.J. Tanner and Urkel hanging out together kicks off this week’s #Throwback Thursday.
The Red Chapel doesn’t have stars, but it does have a bitterly funny and far more complex view on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea than the Seth Rogen and James Franco film.
The Red Chapel
René Johannsen/Kino Lorber
Sony Pictures has killed The Interview.
The James Franco–Seth Rogen comedy about an airhead celebrity journalist and his producer who travel to North Korea to interview and possibly assassinate Kim Jong Un isn't coming out on Christmas. It may never come out — Sony's yet to make a final decision on the fate of the film, which has been pulled from its release worldwide. Fellow studio Paramount's reportedly feeling so jumpy about the current tension that it's gone ahead and canceled screenings of Team America: World Police, which has as its villain a puppet version of Kim Jong Il, that some theaters had planned as replacements.
Luckily, there's one comedy involving North Korea that everyone can and should watch right now, and it's sharper, darker, and more empathetic about the surreality and awfulness of life under the dictatorship. It's called The Red Chapel, it's currently streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime, and it needs no exaggeration for comic effect — it's a documentary.
Kino Lorber Films
It might serve a purpose other than being the cutest.
Popular Science offers one answer: It's an involuntary protective response. That also means they might not necessarily like it.
The reflex emerged as a way for pups to help shield them from potentially harmful irritants like bugs, veterinarian Lore Haug told the publication.
luxmitges / Via youtube.com
Parts of your dog's skin, typically the "saddle" region, have neural pathways connected to his spine, according to Animal Planet. When you rub these nooks, your dog involuntarily reacts.
sanjagrujic/sanjagrujic
So if a mosquito was hobknobbing around your dog's fur, the tickling would initiate the leg to bat away at the itchy source — except you're providing both the itch and scratch.
Whether or not they like it can easily be discerned: If he's loving the tummy rub, keep going, but if he scoots away, it might not be a nice feeling. Try his chest instead!
sweeneyde / Via youtube.com
Yik Yak provided BuzzFeed with their list of the most upvoted statuses of the year. Here are this year’s diamonds in the rough.
Everyone wants a baby grand piano.
David J. Bertozzi / BuzzFeed
David J. Bertozzi / BuzzFeed
David J. Bertozzi / BuzzFeed
David J. Bertozzi / BuzzFeed
And Steve Harvey was in awe of their genius.
You’re nutty as a fruitcake.
I know a lot of people profess to not liking it. But there are some good reasons for giving it a chance. Hear me out:
Bee / Rasa Malaysia recipes / Via rasamalaysia.com
It's admittedly not the most photogenic of treats. It is, as the French say, "jolie-laide."
Alex Alvarez / BuzzFeed / Via Michele / Creative Commons / Flickr: spotzilla
Pretty, right? You can get the recipe for this boozy cake right over here.
tumblr.com / Via flourishingfoodie.com
Because flirting is HARD.
youtube.com / Via http://4gifs.com
There might be coal under your tree…
Winter is coming…in April once a new season finally starts.
It's not a problem, so much as a thing that will alienate everyone around you.
HBO
Like, maybe you want to live your life like Cersei, and that's OK.
Can we just meet and rewatch Seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4?!
"I did Iron Scones last week, what the hell is this Sunday going to be?!"
