indiegeek/1998 >>in 1996, we got a family computer (an IBM machine running Windows 95) and an AOL trial disk. i am not at all exaggerating when i say that the internet changed my life. it opened up an entire universe for me, a lonely outsider kid trying to navigate the social landmines of middle school. online, i found kindred spirits: fellow sad girls and underground music fans. using the free web space that AOL allotted to its users and a simple page builder, i published my first website: a fanpage for james iha, guitarist for the smashing pumpkins. i called it "distortion: the james iha experience" and through it i met a group of like-minded fans who inspired me to learn how to code in html and carve out spaces of my own on the seemingly-vast world wide web. this is all that remains of my first website: an archived wayback machine version from december 3, 1998 which lists links to all of the other websites i maintained/contributed to at that time.