![]() ![]() Not everyone there would have been getting their early internet education. Source: I am one.” Unfortunately, I failed to think about why this thread stuck in my brain so much for upwards of five years, but I like to think that the straightforward acceptance that bi people exist and you can just be one still helped me out in the end.ĭoll War closed down in 2008, but in the last Wayback Machine capture, the forum had about 450,000 members. It was called, approximately, “Do you think bisexuals exist?” I had no idea what a bisexual was, but not only did I learn, someone had also bluntly commented something along the lines of “Yes. Still, the Debates forum was home to a particular thread. The Wayback Machine doesn’t archive a lot of the forums, but in one snapshot the latest post is called “illigal immagrants Volume 2.” I can’t read it, but I’m positive nothing good happened in there. In hindsight, I have no idea why it existed. And I got to be a cringy tween somewhere online where my face and name weren’t attached, something that seems much rarer today.Īnd then there was the Debates subforum. I learned about lurking and getting the vibe of a community before jumping in. I learned about forum games and fandom, petty interpersonal grievances and how to avoid them. ![]() I never really made my OCs in Doll War’s actual game - I didn’t have the Fame for that - but there were writing prompts in the forum I could use to explore the characters. And not just with general conversation, but with creative writing, too. In a real way, using the forums to speak to strangers taught me how to communicate textually, making sure I was understood without the nuances of speech and body language. But I remember other, less petty things, too. I was offended enough that I still remember it now, as a 28-year-old. I know that I was 12, because I distinctly remember a 13-year-old saying that no one really had a life until they became a teenager. These became one of my first internet communities, and they ended up being an absolute crash course in living online. Maybe wanting to get my name out there for Fame is what first took me to the site’s forums. Video Game Fashion Week is Polygon’s attempt at covering the fun, silly, and highly important world of character style.
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