I grew up in a time where I saw the birth of the Internet. It was like the wild west back then. My first taste of the internet was on a 56k modem dial-up, AOL CD's were given out like candy, and I immediately got hooked, I spent most of my time in AOL chats, while learning to program, Visual Basic and HTML, I programmed quite a few VB programs to run inside AOL chats, like Spammers, text faders, and trivia bots that the whole chat could participate in. I also created a P2P chat that worked with network sockets to create a connection for one on one chats, along with a few different image gallery programs.
I met my now wife in an AOL chat that I was a regular in. We've been together ever since, and have two kids. She lived in Pennsylvania at the time, and she moved in with me in Florida after about a year of dating online.
I continued with HTML through the 90s, 2000s and present. I taught myself HTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL. PHP was a huge gateway for me, and I went on to create my own image upload sharing site, blog software, news systems, counters, bookmark catalog, and even a RPG PHP game, where you would level up your character and skills with quests, it had a huge database of loot, and some pvp mechanics. I eventually gave up on PHP because the language was flawed with security issues, and I had to constantly keep up to date to fix vulnerabilities, cross-site scripting exploits and database leaks. Today PHP is still used, but feels dated, and I'd rather just use HTML, it's familiar, and easier.
My middle school years were pretty lonely, had no friends, and was shy and kept to myself. I hadn't quite found myself at the time, I wasn't always a metalhead, in middle school I listened to a lot of rap, and booty rap [Uncle Al, Uncle Luke, Splack Pack, etc.] This eventually lead too gangster rap [wu-tang, mobb deep, ODB, Master P, etc.] Once I hit highschool, me and a friend decided to trade CDs, so I brought all my rap, and he brought alternative, and punk. I traded for Nirvana, Bush, and NOFX.
Once I traded, my music tastes shifted dramatically, I dropped all of my rap CDs for alternative and punk. I was introduced to Deftones in an AOL chat from a friend, he shared the song "7 Words." And I have been a lifetime diehard fan ever since. My style changed to wearing JNCO jeans, band t-shirts, and adidas. I bleached the tips of my hair, and spiked it. I wore cuban-link rings on every finger, 2 ball-chain necklaces, and 2 hoop earrings in each ear, as well as an eyebrow ring. I had 2 long wallet chains that hung to my knees.
Eventually alternative and punk just wasn't enough, So one day at the mall, I went to a CD store, and picked up, the first Cannibal Corpse album, and just listening to the raw emotion and growls hit me hard, like it unlocked all these feelings, like this music was speaking past my depression, and expressing everything I felt in raw screams. This formed a pathway into different genres, Nu-metal became a thing, and I remember watching Limp Bizkit's first ever song "Nobody Loves Me" on MTV. It was the most intenst and raw feeling I had ever experienced, the hairs on my arms and back of my neck stood up hearing the lyrics, screams, and riffs.
My genre of music went straight to Nu-metal, I was a huge fan of Limp Bizkit, Korn, and a few others. But this eventually changed as well once, Metalcore became a thing, and it stuck, it became my favorite genre, and still is to this day. I do however still listen to the rap, punk, alternative, and ska and emo that I greew up on, but metal is always my goto.
My high school years were ok, I had one best friend, that I had met in 6th grade, and were still friends today, he's a brother from another mother. I had one real-life girlfriend in highschool, she broke up with me over the phone after a month, because her mom didn't like me. I'll admit, it hit me hard, because things were going good. About 6 months later is when I met my wife in an AOL chat, and the rest is history.
Today, I'm a vastly different person than I was in high school, I've learned to manage my depression without meds, I've learned to take life as it is, I keep calm, and don't let shit get to me. I see no point in worrying about things I cannot change. I am a very friendly person, and I will help anyone if the need arises.