Unlikely Origins
23 Jan 2020Introduction
I don’t talk about the origins of my interest in software engineering because they are unequivocally childish. I first encountered HTML on MySpace, which I’m sure is true of many people who, like me, grew up in the infancy of social media. I learned (through my simultaneously rebellious and trendy cousin, who was obsessed both with MySpace and also which eyeliner made her look the most “emo”) how to doctor the layout of profiles with some very rudimentary HTML skills. I played around with fonts, with text size, and with tiling backgrounds. It was love at first type! I could do magical things with a few keystrokes.
Pictured left: the now defunct (I think) MySpace editor of my childhood.
Past
Strangely enough, as I grew older, my online interests seemed to become more childish. I was constantly searching for some creative outlet where I could dump my thoughts – mediocre, unfinished stories, poems, and drawings. I wanted to exercise my left brain. I’m the child of an artsy musician and I seem to have inherited my dad’s gene for creative endeavor (although I don’t seem to have inherited his adeptness for guitar-playing). Somewhere along my journey of searching for the perfect creative outlet, I met my perfect match in (dare I say it) a virtual pet site. Maybe it was my lack of a real pet (not for lack of trying), or maybe it was my reluctance to talk to people in real life… whatever it was, I wound up pouring all my creative energy into a virtual site akin to the Neopets I knew and loved as a child. My middle school and (early) high school days often consisted of me spending hours making up fictional stories for my pixel pets and working on designing their “profiles” with whatever basic HTML/CSS I could garner from peeking at the code on the pages of others.
Pictured right: one of my digital drawings.
Of course, for many years I kept this fascination with a site meant for children completely confidential. I thought people would laugh at me for it. But looking back, I have this site to thank for teaching me (or should I say, inspiring me to learn) so much about HTML and CSS. I have such a “childish” thing to thank for teaching me so many skills that have transformed and benefited me and will continue to do so in the future. This site was the driving force behind my passion for learning how to set up a web page by tinkering around with code and, later, learning how to use Photoshop to create backgrounds for those pages. It opened up an entire world of graphic design and elementary CS skills I never anticipated would stick with me for so long.
In the space of just a few years worth of casual playing, I learned enough HTML and CSS that I was able to create web pages which seemed to look nicer with every attempt. I became good enough to freelance my rudimentary web design and graphic design skills for $10/piece. In retrospect, spending 4-5 hours creating a layout on Photoshop then writing code to align the right text and features to the right place for no more than $2 an hour (sometimes not even in REAL currency, but in virtual pet site currency) is absolutely heinous, but I was making money for something I was really passionate about. (I later increased my prices to $20, still a steal for time-intensive graphics and code, but in my defense, there weren’t many users on the site and therefore there wasn’t much demand in the first place.) I did manage to make a name for myself in that niche pet site graphics community. I had regular customers, I had a following, and my skills improved quickly. It was a microcosmic business, but a business nonetheless.
Pictured left: a profile commissioned by another user, which I believe I made for $15. I made the layout and coded the text and images to go in the correct place. It also features drop-down tabs which hold more information and divs.
Present
Now, instead of being embarrassed and ashamed of all these things, I happily show whatever personal pages or “commissions” I’ve worked on to close family members, and I’m happy to share them here. I’ve come far in my understanding of code because of this site. It’s enabled me to discover new passions while fueling my old ones (writing and drawing, which has turned into enthusiasm for graphic design). Most importantly, I have this site I was so embarrassed about to thank for really sparking my passion for computer science. Although I barely go on that beloved site anymore, my origins there will stick with me my whole life, in my career and forward.
Pictured right: one of my most recent personal profiles. It features additional hidden text divs accessible by the tabs on the right, as well as a layout made with free textures and graphics. I bought the art from another user.
Future
I look forward to developing skills that will give me a deeper understanding of web design. My virtual pet site taught me a lot about how to create an aesthetically pleasing page, but not always with the most efficient code. The code I learned was patched together from many different pages I inspected, in the styles of many different coders, and I hope to develop my own style. I’d like to learn more tricks with CSS and HTML in the future and apply what I’ve learned so far to my studies in other languages. Perhaps one day I will be able to pass it forward and create some kind of website, application, or program that will inspire people as this site inspired me. As Chekhov once said, “Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.”