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selfies back and forth with colleagues in the ’70s. When the commercial internet started to emerge in the ’80s, he encouraged my parents to get on the computers-talking-to-other-people train earlier than 99 percent of the rest of the population. And we thought we were soooo cool.
    There was only one commercial online company at the time, CompuServe, and it was not sophisticated, guys. It was the cave painting equivalent to Tumblr. I mean, you had to pay $10 an hour to use it. That’s right, in ye olden internet days, kids, people had internet cafés in their own living rooms! But, for the times, CompuServe had it all. It offered news, messaging, and bulletin boards covering every subject you’d want to chat about in a glorious “only text” interface. Oh, and tons of racy ASCII porn.

    For that, and many reasons, it was a long time before my brother and I were allowed to log online by ourselves. We could only pop on and off to get quick hints aboutvideo game puzzles we were too lazy/stupid to figure out on our own. (Conservative usage of CompuServe was more affordable than using the 1-888 hint line, which we previously used to run up $400 phone bills. We got very good at hiding the mail from my father.) But eventually, when I was about fourteen, my family graduated online technologies to a newer online service called Prodigy. Which was revolutionary amazing because it charged $12.95 for unlimited use. In addition, it had REAL GRAPHICS. Like, eight whole colors.

    In 1994, this interface looked like virtual reality.
    Prodigy had online GAMES and interactive bulletin boards, and did I mention it was a flat rate, so my brother and I could use it as long as we wanted and not get in trouble? This was like Prometheus rolling into town, “Here, humans, check out this fire thing.” It changed everything!
    As soon as I got access, I immediately went to the message boards to search the video game discussions and found a group called the Ultima Dragons. Browsing through the posts, I couldn’t believe it.I had finally found a place where people totally knew what I was talking about when I wrote, “OMG ULTIMA IS THE BEST GAME OF ALL TIME SORRY FOR THE CAPS!” My dreams about finding a place to create true, meaningful friendships around my fake video game world had come true.
    And my mom didn’t have to drive me anywhere!
    I joined the club and named myself Codex Dragon because everyone had a Name + Dragon theme going on, and a Codex was an object in the video game that represented the “book of infinite wisdom.” Are some of you feeling like it’s getting too geeky in here? You probably should have read the book blurb better, because I’m just getting STARTED.
    As a member of the Ultima Dragons, we didn’t just post about the games, although a majority of the stuff was, “How do you defeat the stupid gargoyles at the Shrine of Humility because I keep dying!” We talked about movies we loved and books we read. The people who shared my love of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time fantasy book series immediately became my closest friends. They were the first people I’d ever met who’d read them, too. (Although I was the only one who had all the hardbacks in first edition and did a yearly reread. Impressed? Well, THEY were.)
    It might sound dorky, but the Ultima Dragons gave me my first environment where I could express my enthusiasms freely to my peers. Hell, for once I HAD peers. And I mined it for all it was worth. Socially, artistically. In all ways. Even . . . with poetry.
    Yes, I wrote poems dedicated to a video game—shut up with the judgment (although it’s warranted). The following is a really special example. It’s an ode to one of the fictional characters in Ultima video game. A jester. His name was Chuckles.

    Hand me the Pulitzer. Dozens more where that came from!
    There was also a separate message board called the “Drunken Stupor” where we’d post what I now understand to be “fanfic” set in