Agatha Appears, weird art that i like
Oh hey hi
If you knew me for any ammount of time, you probably know that i like discovering things on the internet, a niche MMORPG that averages 12 players on peak hours, a blog that kept on posting since 2009, barely legible fan sites where the webmaster just yaps about the thing they like
There was something i remembered fairly recently, something that my brain has been intermittently obsessing over, it's not really a game, it's not a website either, it's more of an interactive artpiece
You probably know about Silvagunner, a channel that only uploads high quality videogame rips except for when it doesn't, it's a channel that i really like checking in every so often, maybe listen to a few rips if they catch my attention, either because they're from a game that i know or because there's something in it that catches my attention
One day i noticed an upload that was fairly different from the rest, the thumbnail, instead of being a lively promo image of a game was just a picture of a man and a woman in a black background, wearing what seemed to be windows 9x screenshots
Apart from that thumbnail activating my old internet autism, there was also the name, Goodbye Song - Agatha Appears, i thought it would be just a normal horror/mystery game or something similar, the title does remind me of titles like The Roottrees are Dead or Gone Home, but it ended up being something really, really different
Y'know Agatha.
Internet is not compters, applications, scripts...
Agatha Appears was created in 1997 by net artist Olia Lialina, probably more well known for My Boyfriend Came Back From The War which came the year prior, it follows a sysadmin recently fired from his job and a woman named Agatha from a small village
When told by Agatha that she was lost, the sysadmin offers her to be uploaded to the internet, where she'll be able to teleport and never be alone again
After trying and failing to be uploaded to the internet, the story can take one of two turns, either Agatha disappears, appearing in different websites with the trail going cold on the third one, or she can improve the world, helping people teleport around the internet
It's not a technology, but new world, new philosophy
I feel like Agatha Appears encapsulates really well the feeling of the really early internet, not really with the classic nostalgia beats of old chat apps, personal sites, and stuff like that (nostalgia that, for transparency, i also indulge in)
It's more, what the internet meant when it was just starting, the open floodgates to a world where you could speak with someone from the other side of the world with the same ease that you say "good morning" to your neighbor with
It's impossible for me to truly comprehend what something like that must've been for society, since i was born when the internet had it's bases already set, but works like Agatha Appears are, i think, an excellent way to see the viewpoint of the people from that time
this world is dangerous
but beautiful and huge
Of course, the internet ended up changing the world, both on how the most powerful people on earth operate to how every living person lives their day to day life, but that optimism of the past, that vision of the internet making our lives easier, was little more than a carrot on a stick guiding us to a cliff
And even then, even after social media tipped the foundations of democracy in my country and many others, even after hearing horror stories of stalking and bullying, even after everything you can think think of, i still can stand here and say "i love the internet" and mean it
While it's true that the internet has caused damage, it's undeniable how it achieved it's goal of connecting people, helping those who for one reason or another couldn't reach their peers, aiding in the self discovery of those who would've never even started asking about themselves
I wouldn't be the person that i am today if it wasn't for the connections i made with people on the other side of the ocean, and i'm eternally greatful for what the internet was able to help me with
Yes, right now things are dire, the old world still languishes, and news about the rights of vulnerable groups being violated invade my feed every day, but for as long as i have access, as long as i can create and share and improve, i'll keep making what i love, i'll shape this me-shaped piece of world to my heart's content, and i'll improve this reality little by little
I believe in a better world because, in my own way, i'm shaping it