Before Discord, broadband, and gaming PCs that could practically launch a satellite, there were CRT monitors, tangled Ethernet cables, dial-up internet, Red Bull, cold pizza, and a bedroom full of teenagers disappearing into Azeroth.
In this story, I head back to the early 2000s—from covert high-school lunch missions in Kalvin’s GMC Jimmy to summer LAN parties and the day World of Warcraft entered my life on November 23, 2004.
It’s a story about friendship, terrible sleep schedules, Blink-182, Taco Bell, teenage freedom, and the strange realization that some of the things we thought were just wasting time were quietly teaching us lessons we’d carry for the next twenty years.
Welcome back to a time when the internet screamed before it connected.