![]() ![]() I couldn’t tell you exactly when I signed up–I spent the first few weeks of our newfound Internet access emailing school friends just because I finally could or reading smutty Star Wars fanfiction–But I do have an oddly specific memory of signing into Cybertown on a lovely October Saturday morning in 2000. Cybertown advertisement in Star Wars Insider The promise of having this life separate from all my real world apprehension, complete with my own little Internet house that I could decorate, a virtual pet I could program with special commands, and heck, even a job that paid in Cybertown’s currency, Cit圜ash or CCs, was one I couldn’t forget. The advertisements often gently emphasized how easy it is to feel isolated in the real world compared to the welcoming Cybertown, a marketing ploy that would certainly speak to me on the onset of my adolescent social anxiety. I’ve always had a fondness for the garish 3D models of the late 90s and early 00s–There’s something so inviting about the colorful, exceptionally saturated environments filled with an abundance of impossible chrome textures, gaudy patterns, and questionable representations of the human figure–And that single-page spread showing off Cybertown’s guide, Mina, with the backdrop of an admittedly highly idealized take on the town’s futuristic 3D world, ignited a curiosity and imagination that I hadn’t experienced before. It’d be another year before my family would have our own home PC, a purchase that would finally allow me to explore the engrossing digital community, but I often found myself flipping through Insider just to look at the advertisement and fantasize what Cybertown would be like. ![]() I first learned of Cybertown sometime in late 1999, when I saw an ad for it in Star Wars Insider. While it seems like most of my peers cut their chatroom teeth on social platforms like AIM or ICQ, my first foray into fraternizing with strangers on the web was through the now defunct Cybertown, Blaxxun Interactive’s family-friendly online community that boasted 2D and 3D chatrooms across an expansive and immersive virtual city. ![]()
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