"Sharing that with others is very meaningful." How it interacts with you," Lawhead said. "There's also a therapeutic aspect for yourself in knowing that you're 'building a friend.' You get to decide what kind of emotions it expresses. "There's also a therapeutic aspect for yourself in knowing that you're 'building a friend.'" Her post explains how she approaches designing them, emphasizing how surprisingly easy they can be to make. And that's why she hopes other creators will join her in making more of these digital toy friends, even if it's just a desktop buddy version of their video game or animated character. All that exists here is YOU and the impending urgency to be productive because that's what the space was designed for."īut taking back utility-only virtual spaces with goofiness is one way to help us stay sane. You definitely get that in most of the virtual spaces we're put into (like a desktop, photoshop, anything we work in). "Computers are really good at making us feel alone. Transforming our digital spaces into a fantasy world that we can actually live in matters a lot," she said. Which is why the desktop buddies need to come back ASAP in a big way.īest beginner-friendly video games for your coronavirus lockdown Now that the lucky among us are working from home due to coronavirus stay-at-home orders, we're faced with an even more severe version of that digital isolation of the past, often with only our screens for companionship. She's been making them since Neopets first became a thing, accruing at least a dozen of the most oddly delightful new versions of this old web tradition. In a recent blog post, Lawhead detailed a thorough history and love letter to the desktop buddy. Instead of running things that are only useful, you get this little goofy presence that makes occupying this space less of a lonely void." They kind of counteract the golden rule of productivity and 'maximizing output' that we're so used to when engaging with a computer. A way to humanize the cold digital space that you're constantly in. "Desktops used to be much more customizable spaces," she wrote to Mashable over Twitter. A way to humanize the cold digital space that you're constantly in."
Yet we can thank indie game and web art designer Nathalie Lawhead (aka alienmelon) for keeping the dream of desktop buddies alive over the years, reinventing them for the modern world, and leading a niche movement to bring them back. Sadly, most of the ones we knew and loved in the past died quiet digital deaths. It made the strange, isolating new world wide web we all found ourselves in feel a little more like home. Remember desktop pets? In the very early days of the web, they came in many forms ( cats, ants, cockroaches, even spyware), all of them cute little pixels who just hung out on your screen to keep you company.
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