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 worksConflicted points to mixed emotional imagery, pairing affectionate symbols or words with tense, painful, or contradictory text. Spot the blend of heart cues and darker wording as the defining contrast rather than one clean mood.
![Red pixelated text on black background reads 'i [heart symbol] hate how much i love you boy' with identical repeated text below.](/image/5b895fe9b942122ff82091ec749065730f10b93735c82c2024760533794ab82b){kind=small}
![Four display 'I [heart] YOU' variations with pink hearts, purple text, and a small heart detail](/image/9a8ee4dc3f21a9bcaaf5f1e7df58ac54a2be3cacc896d45cefbe0c0f21fa1840)
