Images and graphics from early social media networks make a comeback

By
Dan Manglinong
-
July 9, 2018 - 6:02 PM
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One of the popular webcomics of Jeff Thomas' "Pon and Zi" series (Artwork by Jeff Thomas/Ponandzi.com)

Some twitter users have sparked social media nostalgia by bringing back to life some once viral graphics and webcomics from the early days of social media.

“If you remember this image…”

One Twitter user has revived a popular image that once graced the early days of social media.

Filipinos on Twitter have taken note, sharing the memories from the time the graphics made their rounds online.

For some, the memories come with the hit music of the late 2000s.

And for some, the image recalls to memory the advent of social media.

The images are from a webcomic series called “Pon and Zi,” created by Jeff Thomas and originally made popular on his DeviantArt account.

The series chronicles the many heartwarming and sometimes tear-jerking adventures of the eponymous Pon and Zi.

Snippets from the webcomic were commonly used to adorn the profile pages of adolescent users of social media platforms such as Friendster and Multiply.

Pon and Zi regularly made appearances in fan-made music videos of classics of hit songs from the ’emo’ genre, such as this one dating back to 2006 made for the song  by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus’ “Your Guardian Angel”, one of the anthems of that age.

Short for emotional or emotive hardcore according to some sources, ’emo‘ and its more cacophonous relative ‘screamo’ are distant relatives of the post-hardcore genre that branched away from the hardcore punk family of loud music.

A brand of emo and screamo that was more melodic and more marketable to mainstream audiences than its traditional form became popular in the late 2000s, influencing a rising subculture that found a niche in emerging online circles such as Livejournal and Myspace, considered the progenitors of social media.

Bands such as My Chemical Romance, Panic! At the Disco, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, and Taking Back Sunday popular in the mid to late 2000s are among the acts considered to be the poster boys of this genre.

This new subculture was often associated with dark clothing, romanticized notions of sadness and emotional vulnerability, and membership in online forums and the early social media platforms. ‘Emo‘ became a term used to deride people who supposedly partook in this lifestyle.

Since then, other images from that bygone age have been revived by way of Twitter threads.

Interaksyon