glitter pile ai

I’m a little embarrassed to say that I’m totally new to Discord. Since I was 15 years old, I’ve been playing in online forums, writing blogs, and sharing things online. Which is kind of normal I guess because I’m a millennial who spent my pre-teen years in a pre-Internet/cell phone/social media world.

I got my first cell phone in 7th grade, and it was a bright blue, semi-transparent (remember when that was THE thing to do with tech?) Cingular Wireless* phone. It was chunky and had a little black antenna on it. The year was in 1999.

A few years later, in 2002, I got my FIRST ~personal~ cell phone (the Cingular one was shared by me and my brother). It was the black Nokia “brick phone” aka a flip phone that was so durable you could probably throw it across a hallway in school and it wouldn’t even dent. That thing was awesome. The introduction of this, dare I say, historic cell phone, introduced the bane of many teachers’ existence before social media – the snake game. Do I sound old yet?? Haha.

Anyway, I’m learning how to navigate Discord for the Lonely Octopus program and it’s been really fun. It reminds me a lot of early internets for some reason. While it has A LOT MORE functions than the early chat rooms had (yes, I’m referring to AOL), at the foundation, it’s still about chatting with somewhat-strangers and getting to know each other in a sort of safe space (unlike AOL…don’t get me wrong, I had no business talking to all the random people in the early 2000s as a teenager).

Long story long – I’ll keep this blog updated with my triumphs and embarrassments as I navigate Discord.

*Cingular Wireless was bought by AT&T in the early ’00s.