I heart plaid.

On Tuesday, Ben and I attended the Weblogger User Group meeting in Mountain View.

Although I hadn't attended a meeting for an organized club in quite some time, I was amused to discover that meetings in the "adult world" do not seem to differ much from any sort of high school or college club meeting.

I think all clubs have basically the same attendees with just different names and faces. There, of course, is a clear range of members with two different types of people being on either end of the spectrum.

Those who take notes and those who make jokes.

After an incredibly long stint at trying to be perceived as an adult, I'm pretty happy to report that I reverted to a very watered down of my seventeen year-old self just for one night.

During the meeting's baffling thirty minute discussion on what to name the Weblogger User Group (How about Weblogger User Group?), I was reminded of a pathetic story that really captures the mood that surrounds any sort of club.

When I was thirteen or fourteen I would frequent Prodigy's club message boards. While the memories of the actual interface are really sketchy — I simply remember a lot of yellow and a sort of BBS/Message Board — I do remember that the club areas covered a range of topics but seemed to focus mostly on movies, musicians and hobbies.

Let me preface this story by mentioning that, yes indeed, I was a dork. Being online at thirteen in 1991 is a whole lot different than being online at thirteen in 2001. Throw in being a girl, and you've got a train wreck of awkwardness (which perhaps has never quite left the station).

Anyway, while on Prodigy, I'd search for newly-started clubs in the hopes of being a charter member and, if I was early enough, a member with a position and title. Like their counterparts in the offline world, most of these clubs took themselves a bit too seriously and had members who were desperately hoping to take on the roles of president, secretary, treasurer, publicity etc.

Give a thirteen year-old girl a title and she'll be quite happy.

Unfortunately, for me, I was always a tad behind in joining most every club and was usually nothing more than a lowly member.

One day, however, I found a club with untapped potential. Hardly any members (yet!) had joined and the much-coveted "secretary" position was available.

I knew my chance had come.

So, I emailed the club's president and within a couple of hours, I was an elected official.

To avoid further embarrassment, I should probably refrain from mentioning that the club was about plaid.

Yes, the fabric.

No really.

It was the "I Love Plaid Club."

Within a few days, the club had exploded in size. The majority of the members joined for no other reason than to be part of a club. No one really knew what to talk about once they joined and quite often, you'd see an awkward post mentioning plaid for the sake of well, mentioning plaid.

People LOVE being in clubs — it's a sense of belonging thing, I guess. And, on Prodigy, this fact was constantly being demonstrated by the sheer silliness of club topics and the sheer volume of members.

This is important to note with regard to my story.

You see, one day the president and founder of the plaid club decided to let his members onto his little joke and posted a note on the club's board. It basically read something like this:

"I can't believe how stupid you people are! Who wants to talk about plaid? I formed this club to see what losers would join. I mean, really!! You're all a bunch of dorks. Get a life."

Now consider how stupid you'd feel if you were a member of this club. You didn't really like plaid that much but just wanted to be a part of something.

Now think how stupid you'd feel if you were the club's secretary.

Comments

[paula]

LoL!!!!!!!

LoL!!!!!!

Oh, Mena. You crack me up. :-)

(Ok. I'll stop with the annoying emoticons, silly abbreviations and numerous exclamations points...)

[Bell Rocker]

Damn! I *do* love plaid. I'm smartin' for tartan. I was hoping I could join. But I'm not so into clubs. I'm one of the anti-club types, I think. Don't feel comfortable in organised groups of people. I agree that most people get a lot out of them though. I sometimes think I should join *something*...btw, very nice page. I love the layout and keep coming back to have another look!

[Kristin]

ya, i'd feel pretty stupid.

although, plaid is somewhat in right now. maybe you should start the club up again. and this time you can be the president. actually, i think i'd rather join an "i love plaid club" than a "i love 'hot star's name here' club." plaid is a little more attainable.

[Kristin]

actually, now that i'm thinking about it, the plaid club isn't so bad of an idea.

you could make a plaid webpage with different tartan prints. and you could have a plaid of the day with the history of it. of course you're not scottish, but you can borrow ben's scottish background. and people can make plaid skirts. and long plaid coats.

it would be a blast.

[Melanie]

Oooooooh that brings back memories. Prodigy did use a lot of yellow. And pink. And bright blues, and dark blues.. It had a really blocky interface, like something out of a DOS game.

I remember the BBS's. My fav. was the Jane's Brain board (sponsored by Jane's Cosmetics - until the boys complained, and despite a valiant email campaign to the then pres. of prodigy (got his email addy, mwhahaha) that saved it for a few more months, they closed the board; it was a nice couple of years while it lasted though...).

Do you remember the 'plus' features? Like the chat rooms? It was the best when the chat area had a glitch and the word got out that the chat area was 'free'. The teens would swamp the place, creating and holding open rooms for whole weekends (or until their parents needed the phone, which ever came first). During one of those weekends I stayed online for the whole time, keeping the room I made open, ticking off other people who thought I ought to close it just so a space could be freed up so they could make a room (pfft!).

Ahh... those were the days... (miss lots of stuff, but not my 2400 bps modem!)

[Daniel Talsky]

I'm an old bbs'er myself. No prodigy or big services, just local 1-line to 16-line BBS's and at 1200 bps no less.

I met my first girlfriend at an ice-cream social for local online people. Everyone we met online was local, and met pretty frequently. I met most of my friends in Rockford, IL that way when I was in High School. The perfect thing for a geeky young boy who loved to write.

God bless online.

[Ilsa]

Um. I was on Prodigy when I was 13, and I'm a girl.

Did Prodigy send you one of thier fanny packs for being of the first umpteen users? I used to wear that to school. It was cool having friends on alternate coasts.....

[mark]

holy shit! this is too funny! i just snarfed some of my industrial strength coffee though. but completely worthwhile. rock on.

[Lester Nelson]

When I was a Junior in High School, I started a club called Gabba Gabba Hey, after I had just seen the incredibly inspirational movie Rock-n-Roll Highschool. It quickly grew into a huge phenomenon at our school, with kids being outraged when they didn't get accepted, and kids overjoyed when they got their certificates. It was really much more of an experiment for me though, kind of a game. I'd never join a club, but I had no problem starting one, to see where it would go.

We once had a giant party in the lunch room, where we all crowded around a table, mixed every kind of candy we could get our hands on in a big bowl, along with bananas and chocolate syrup, and marshmallows, and then we all ate it; it was surprisingly tasty. Then a member would shout out "Gabba Gabba" and the whole group would thrust their fists towards the sky and shout "HEY!", which would get repeated far too often.

We also had an embarassingly long secret handshake.