Did this image and sound combined dredge up any memories for you? Let me take you on a small walk down memory lane, because I’m feeling nostalgic.
The year is 2003, and you’re playing Kid Pix on your mom’s Windows 98. Spongebob is playing on the TV behind you, and your little sister is just learning how to walk. You get a ping on Yahoo! Instant Messenger. It’s your dad, calling you into the family room – “You’ve gotta see this!” He always sends you silly jokes and shows you the best chain emails, so you know it’s gonna be good. You jump off your swirly computer chair and run into the family room.
You’re greeted by the smoothest animation early 2000’s Flash could offer – it’s HomestarRunner.com! You’ve seen some of these before. Today, your dad clicks the “email” button, and shows you a silly guy in a luchador mask replying to emails, loudly clacking away on his keyboard. That’s not what you expected!
You don’t know it now, but you’re never going to forget about these moments. You’re still going to quote these silly videos, even while you pay taxes, go to grad school, and work in your cubicle. And you’ll always want to thank your dad for showing you the cool and fun parts of the internet early on.
A Small Postscript
A few weeks ago, I got my 9th tattoo. Are you familiar with Trogdor the Burninator? January 13th, 2023 was the 20 year anniversary of the video. You can find it here on YouTube. It still makes me laugh!
When choosing a tattoo to remember someone by, you have so many types to choose from. And I think it only made sense to get a fun one to honor my dad.
Hey! I accidentally responded to the wrong post of yours. It’s definitely Monday. This post and the combination of the colors/objects in the photo plus the sound of every keyboard in the 2000s sent me right back to the early days where things felt so much simpler. I wish we could just turn back time to the era of forums and Myspace. There really isn’t and won’t be anything quite like back then. Now you have to actively go looking for a keyboard that clunks like the soundbyte you have in your post. Also, I’ll never forgive Adobe for discontinuing their flash player; it feels like a whole era of internet is just lost to time now.
I’m also still mad at Adobe!! But I’m glad that internet archivists and historians make an effort to save this kinda stuff.
Hey Alex on my first initial look and listen at your post I had no idea what to think about it! I was very taken aback by the combination of the luchador masks and loud clacking of the keyboard and couldn’t imagine how the two were linked. Separately, I have a general sense of what luchador masks are, what they are for, and where they come from. However, I did not immediately recognize what the noise was before looking at the description of the the audio and how it may have tied into the picture. With that being said, I think the audio transforms the meaning of the image once I read your PS note.
As for creating an interesting meaning to the image, the audio memory that immediately came to mind was from the intro song of an early 2000’s show called Mucha Lucha. It was a show about young luchadores with strange powers wrestling one another. But I’m willing to bet you know exactly what I’m referring to!
OMG, I totally forgot about Mucha Lucha!