boyshapedbox

Tagged by

excalibear!

The LJ name meme!

This is kind of a weird coincidence that I was JUST explaining this to

rampagebear last night!

It's not a funny story, and it's pretty "post high school dramatic."

Right after I graduated from high school I created a website.
http://www.geocities.com/boyshapedbox

It was right before blogs had a name, and right when online journals started to pop up everywhere. I had this problem where I would buy an analog journal, start to write in it, censor myself because I was afraid people would see it, and then after 4 or 5 entries forget about it.
I have about 5-10 journals that are 98% blank.
I figured an online journal, where it was public would be the best forum because I was always on a computer, I found if I MEANT for people to see it I wouldn't be scared if I was uncensored (which is a weird but true concept for me), and I could get a lot of what was going on in my head out.
My friend Miranda had an online journal, and basically because she had crohns disease, and spent a lot of time home sick, taught herself html. When the summer came, I spent WEEKS staying up all night, and sleeping all day, all night at the computer chatting with Miranda learning html from her and other online sources. Looking at the raw source code of others websites until it started to make sense.

So I learned enough to make my own site and I needed a name.
Right after High School Graduation I came to the realization that as popular as I was, and with as many people who knew me, only about 6 or 7 really "knew me." I was always socially outgoing (surprise surprise), and when you grow up in a small town where you dance in nothing but tights in front of everyone, people take notice (both negatively or positively).
There was SO much more to me than "that boy who dances and is funny."
Boyshapedbox was how I felt.
I thought of myself metaphorically as this package that everyone in my high school got in the mail over a 4 year time period (some as long as since kindergarten), and I realized that only 6 or 7 people took the time to get passed the wrapping paper that said "boy who dances and is funny" and look inside.
It's a weird metaphor but it fit perfectly. I felt like a gift you shake to hear what is inside, but you never take the time to open it and investigate what made those sounds.

Boy shaped box.

I started writing in my journal almost EVERY day. It got pretty popular and moved from geocities to redtear.net/boyshapedbox where I didn't have to deal with popups or banner ads and could handle the bandwidth of my readers. Then from there to overturn.net, and then finally I bought boyshapedbox.com and hosted my OWN site.
My journal was a way to get to know ME even if you weren't one of those 6-7 people I considered my close friends. I was (and still am) completely uncensored and wrote as honestly as possible. I had my story to tell and I was going to tell it to who ever would listen.
In senior year of college I realized that I needed a portfolio site with all my work, so I moved my journal to livejournal where it was easier to update AND keep track of other journals.

All in all I found out that the people from my high school missed out, because there WERE people that wanted to know me and not just the outside.

So that's the story!
So now according to the rules I need to tag one person for ever letter in my name.....
R-i-c-h-a-r-d

I tag:

dhbearguy

beg1n

smiley_kiley

nobora

pharmbear

rootbeer1

puremotion