From the archivist
It started with a game that needed a few authentic AIM icons. Then I had 1,000. Then 10,000. At some point, I had a buddy icon problem.
Read how this happenedYou made it this far
You have scrolled past 1,024 buddy icons, so I have some suspicions. My blog is where the other shiny digressions end up.
Subscribe to Shedletsky.comA language of tiny pictures
A picture barely 50 pixels wide, sitting beside an AIM screen name, could announce a mood, a fandom, an inside joke, or who someone wanted to be that day.
Read the short historyRecovered from the early web
Buddy icons survive in old directories, fan sites, downloadable packs, and web archives. The archive preserves the original files, groups known copies, and records where each one was found.
How the archive worksBlocky buddy icons are built from hard square geometry, with visible grid-aligned edges and little anti-aliasing to keep forms readable at tiny sizes. In Blocky compositions, masks, faces, or text blocks often separate into chunky regions, so silhouettes stay clear even when the icon is reduced.
![A cyan background displays two side-by-side pixelated text blocks with identical dark blue text reading ':]<3: " Dylan And Alysa = Love<3', where the right block lacks a pink heart symbol.](/image/ed4ca4af2e9e024c15de4143158bc6f64321d0a7c63cf41712261f4f469c1cb0){kind=small}
