- Mar 4, 2011
- 11,395
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Everyone, I am your model Anandtech forums member. I'm not even joking. Hear me out.
As I'm getting older, I'm starting to have a suddenly bizarre soft spot for Anandtech Forums. I guess it's dawning on me that I'm not exactly young anymore (36). For the first time in my life, my memories span across more than 3 decades. I can spend a long time just remembering every stage of my life now. I used Anandtech Forums for 18 years. That's so old I can legally fack it.
Where did the time go? 18? I mean 10, I can accept - it feels a long ago. But another 8 on top? 18???
ATOT was really popular back then. It was a different time. Before reddit and mass social media, the entire teen/20s generation joined boards. I was a HS senior when I joined. Boards ruled back then. If you were a techie, you used techie boards, and chances are mainstream teens/20s knew Anandtech.com.
If you pressed F5, you'd have a front page of entirely new threads, every 5-7 seconds. That's how popular this site was. All my life, I thought I was cooler than my actual actions. I thought being a ATOT user was dorky as hell (well still is today), I was above it.
Today, I embrace that Anandtech Forums has been a small (or larger) part of my every week life across 18 years. It has made impact in my life over 18 years:
Look at all the things Anandtech has done for me. All forum mods should read this and be proud of what you have done. Hell, Anand should read it, that balding bastard, he's like my age LOL.
I'm proud to admit it.
@Perknose I'd like to formally propose that you grant me a custom nickname below my avatar as 'The Model AT Member' or 'A Model AT Member'.
Thank you all for reading. No, I'm not high.
As I'm getting older, I'm starting to have a suddenly bizarre soft spot for Anandtech Forums. I guess it's dawning on me that I'm not exactly young anymore (36). For the first time in my life, my memories span across more than 3 decades. I can spend a long time just remembering every stage of my life now. I used Anandtech Forums for 18 years. That's so old I can legally fack it.
Where did the time go? 18? I mean 10, I can accept - it feels a long ago. But another 8 on top? 18???
ATOT was really popular back then. It was a different time. Before reddit and mass social media, the entire teen/20s generation joined boards. I was a HS senior when I joined. Boards ruled back then. If you were a techie, you used techie boards, and chances are mainstream teens/20s knew Anandtech.com.
If you pressed F5, you'd have a front page of entirely new threads, every 5-7 seconds. That's how popular this site was. All my life, I thought I was cooler than my actual actions. I thought being a ATOT user was dorky as hell (well still is today), I was above it.
Today, I embrace that Anandtech Forums has been a small (or larger) part of my every week life across 18 years. It has made impact in my life over 18 years:
- Thank you to Anandtech Hotdeals, I saved tons of money. Hotdeals also showed me Dreamcast for $20 sale at Target. My roommate and I drove to our nearby Target and bought 9 on them with my credit card. I still have the picture of my stack somewhere in my C: drive.
- Then I sold the Dreamcasts to Anandtech FS/T to few for a cheap price of $50~ shipped. I vividly remember shipping USPS Priority with delivery confirmation to Heavnsent or Heavensnt.
- Thanks to Anandtech Free section, I signed up for a focus group marketing group. They sent me surveys and based on my answers, they brought me out for a video game focus testing. There were 12 HDTVs (all the rage back then) set up with Xboxes. I signed a contract by 2K Games. I was paid $150 for a 2 hour playtesting of Bioshock 1, long before release. We were in a stereotypical one-way glass & after each play sessions, the moderator asked us questions.
- Here and there I visited Politics and even back then it was a good social-media news outlet. It influenced my shaping political views with my pragmatic ways.
- Again and again, I bought & sold numerous items via Anandtech FS/T. I don't even remember my old heatware. That section is so relevant, I recently bought i7 there few months ago.
- This places shines for career advice, resume critique, etc. The forum was huge back then, but it never felt crazy public to share your resume. Thanks to the things I read here, I've always been using the advice of never accepting the first offer in my life. I always asked for more. Anandtech probably made me $100,000 ~$150,000 in total increased difference thanks to all those little raises.
- I wrote many relationship threads here, especially long long ago. Again, AT was always generally sensible. I literally mentioned this forum about what kind of advice it gave me regarding spousal relationships (not by name though).
- I was largely an immature kid basically. I was even banned few times and created alt accounts- all for silly things like harmless neffing. I think this account's my permanent one after Perknose kindly reinstated me. He told me to keep this down-low 7 years ago, but this forum is a dead horse dust today. No one cares.
- People got so heated back then - fueled by fiery youth of most members, and sheer size of the community. People used to actually flame here with bitter hatred towards each other. Get your game back on ATOT! We're old ass farts now with no such energy/strength to do it anymore. The point of this bullet is that Anandtech actually got me upset IRL. It bore a difference to my IRL mood!
- Again this forum was an online mainstream back in the days, my college mates & friends all knew Anandtech if you're nerdy. geno, aleksandr (what's your AT name, LOL), etc.
- Likewise, I also met complete Anandtech strangers IRL. KeyzerSoze and I have been friends for SO long, we feel like we went to same college or something. Our family have met, we videochat, I was his wedding photographer. I also met Karen in Boston. Her handle was Kaeren or something similar. It was a friendly hanging out and we gossiped about eakers being uglier IRL. LOL so dorky. You can dig up the thread here about people flaming eakers for myspace angles.
- Anandtech actually made a considerable impact on my social life as you can see.
- The funniest thing is that I don't remember clearly how I came across Anandtech. I'm pretty sure it's my friend from my club that told me about AT Hotdeals. He and I have moved to different areas. I messaged him just now, all thanks to Anandtech.
Look at all the things Anandtech has done for me. All forum mods should read this and be proud of what you have done. Hell, Anand should read it, that balding bastard, he's like my age LOL.
I'm proud to admit it.
@Perknose I'd like to formally propose that you grant me a custom nickname below my avatar as 'The Model AT Member' or 'A Model AT Member'.
Thank you all for reading. No, I'm not high.
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