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 worksText Based is a buddy icon category where the image foreground is explicit writing, from declarations and initials to full phrases in pixel type. Repeated captions, animated line changes, and companion symbols make the lettering itself the feature to inspect first.
![Cyan pixelated text repeats 'CAN'T HELF ALLING OF CHAIRS' with two ':]' emoticons on black background, arranged in mirrored vertical layout.](/image/2a790af7658131d627068479361a8ee95abf06f7fa2db09fa8ff61e83660d999){kind=small}
