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 worksCandy Canes in buddy icons show the striped candy-cane motif, usually as bright red-and-white arcs on green or red pixelated fields. The most useful detail is the candy shape paired with festive text or emoticons, which often shifts across frames and keeps the icon legible at small scale.
![Pixelated candy canes on green background with blue text overlays reading "*BEN*", "x9-10-07x", "!go bears!", and "happy =] christmas".](/image/4dbe61d2717efca8e49b27fc01cc6b76bc6f85eef7e10da2fca262fe8d46fc24){kind=small}
