i've spent my whole life on the internet, and i have a strong love for the internet i grew up with (and what came before me.) my dad was an IT tech, and he built a computer for me that i was using at 8 months old. i have the most vivid memories of the internet from the late 2000's to early 2010's, but as a little kid, i grew up playing pirated PC point-and-clicks.

i LOVED dress-up games! i played a lot of the many, super creative dress-up games of deviantart, and spent countless hours browsing and playing every game i could find. my older friend showed me this lolita fashion website (called poupéegirl) that allowed you to maintain a customizable avatar and upload photos of your clothes and accessories to a community of people with the same fashion interests. i also loved sites like dressupgames.com and girlsgogames.com, which hosted all sorts of flash games, including the roiworld dress-up games, the avata star sue flash games, devilish hairdresser and kill time in the office. i loved pixel doll maker games, such as the makers on thedollpalace.com, and the elouai candybar doll maker. i also played stardoll, and lost my child mind when they added an emilie autumn doll lol

the internet was such a utopia for me as a child, and it had so many great flash games everywhere! build-a-bear.com, barbiegirl.com, disney.com, nickelodeon.com, and basically any other commercial site catering to a child audience. it interests me to think how this was a calculated marketing effort on behalf of these companies, but looking back, my experience with much of these games and their websites was just free gameplay that didn't often result in me begging my parents to purchase some new doll. li speaks has many great videos revisiting and discecting the many flash games of this era. i also explored my sexuality at a young age, and played a fair amount of dating sims catered to men, where you could date a cute anime girl.

i was also a lover of pet simulators! i loved neopets, although i was a little too young to get into it the way mall shops with pimped out pages did. i also really enjoyed webkinz, and a handful of other sites - many of which i can't even remember the names to now. but i had a million pet and avatar based accounts!

i found a lot of great music that i still enjoy today! some of my first artists were daft punk, eiffel 65 and crystal castles. i had a big gay crush on emilie autumn, but truthfully, her music was less interesting to me than her style and platform

i was exposed to a lot of interesting fashion that i still appreciate today, such as lolita fashion. although i don't wear lolita anymore, i was completely enamoured with it as a child, and begged my mom to buy me bodyline. japanese streetwear inspired me quite a bit too, and by the time i stated college, a lot of my personal style had some influence from this fun style. i began making and wearing kandi in 6th grade, despite being too young to have ever gone to a rave. it's been interesting for me to watch younger gen Z-er's fashion evolve, as it takes so much influence from what was inspiring me at this time - so many deviantart dress up games emulate current trends, like those slouchy legwarmers.

i was HIGHLY invested in gaiaonline for many years, and i can't get into my old account now, which is absolutely devastating, but i spent a lot of time in virtual hollywood. i played zOMG!, and actually maxxed out my levelling, and i spent some time in the chatterbox forums too. my family was kind enough to fuel my addition and buying me gaia platinum (premium in-game currency, which allowed me to build wealth within the increasingly-inflated economy. i would regularly try out new profile themes, and i would build mock avatars in order to change up my look within my budget (i think with tektek? same for my themes.) i also played toontown online! i never had any premium features, but it all worked out because now i play toontown corporate clash and everything is free >:•)

i had a relationship that started on gaiaonline and lived outside of the internet in my highschool years, and lasted for almost a year and a half! i ended up staying at his family's home in san fransisco, CA over the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, and we had a few short visits to eachother's homes via plane before that. he got sad when i flew back home after summer, and that turned into not talking to me, so that ended our relationship. it wasn't a relationship that i look back on the dynamics of fondly (and tbh, every relationship i got into as a younger person was pretty toxic), but it really highlighted the power of the internet and its' ability to connect people to me, and gave me a great opportunity to explore different places in a way i would have never been able to otherwise.

i also had a week-long internet "relationship" with this german guy that was 16. unfortunately for him, i was lying about not being 12 years old, and my friend accidentally outed me to him. understandably, he immediately ghosted me. i'm glad he wasn't a creep, and i feel bad for freaking him out now!

i'm choosing not to elaborate on the negative memories i have from being a young girl on the internet in the late 2000's and early 2010's. if you were also a young person on the internet around this time, you probably know how predatory certain environments were, how many horrible memes were popularized, how easy it was (and still is) for minors (and anyone, really) to access harmful and inappropriate content, how often and casually racial slurs were thrown around, and how quickly the internet was starting to become just a handful of websites all owned by the same few companies. i don't think any time in the past has or will ever be perfect, but i do feel that the internet has dramatically changed, largely due to profit-driven incentives.

learning to make a website: i was lucky enough to go to a technical vocational high school, and learned interdisciplinary multimedia skills. i currently work in communications, but i picked up some coding experience from gaiaonline, tumblr, and my highschool, so i sort of know what i'm doing here (but not really.)