Back in middle school I was heavily involved in a #NationStates forum. Ditched that anonymous community for social media once Facebook came along. So far finding Mastodon a fascinating combination of those models
@jeffreymoro oh thank god sometimes I'm convinced I hallucinated that whole thing! Such an interesting corner of the Internet I've never seen mentioned. Is it still active??!?
@The_BFOOL ethan, you are hardcore not alone. the URL is still very much live & there looks to be a mildly-trafficked subreddit about it? I'm afraid to log in 1) b/c of it being a Proustian madeleine to middle school that I'm not ready for rn and 2) it might be all fascists? since the internet is a Different Place than it was in 2003.
@jeffreymoro my gf and I were talking about our AIM screennames the other day and I could not for the life of me remember what mine was but this has just jogged my memory that it was a reference to my NationStates avatar wowowow
Also it is 100% probably fascists, I am remembering exchanges now that middle school me was like whatevs, I'm just here for the role-playing, and in retrospect I'm thinking waaaaaaait a minute
@The_BFOOL yeah this sentence from the wiki about the novel seems to carry a looooot of subtext in 2017 https://mastodon.social/media/wRZQ8qUcpSK5keOM0_I
@The_BFOOL YES omg I have no idea what my old password to that was but I logged waaaaayyyy too much time there for a summer. Such a weird thing, too, that such a community emerged out of a book marketing tactic.