WHAT ARE USERBOXES

“Userboxes are boxes containing a little bit of information about someone! They originated from wikipedia and were meant to be put on people’s user pages, but here people either choose to reblog those that apply to them or put them on their about pages (or both!)”

—Definition stolen borrowed from Userboxed's FAQ

So, basically, Wikipedia had this little thing where NERDS would code* boxes of information and people said “HEY, THAT'S SO COOL WHY DO ONLY THE SMART PEOPLE HAVE THOSE” and said “IMMA MAKE MY OWN, SCREENSHOT IT AND PUT IT ON MY WEBSITE/PROFILE/PINNED POST”

*Zzz boring code (I have a website myself, I'm allowed to call it boring)

WHY I LOVE USERBOXES

✦ Most people won't read your pinned post in its totality, but will read the userboxes. ✦ They're colorful, have one or two sentences max per userbox and have an image on the side, so it catches people's attention more than just plain text. ✦ They get their point across: your personality, interests, sometimes aesthetics… ✦ MAKING YOUR OWN IS SUPER EASY!!

The standard size is 239px × 49px, but bigger/high quality userboxes can be found, always following that ratio, of course.

WHAT ARE STAMPS

Basically, just images/GIFs with a border resembling a real life stamp. These are called static or animated stamps, AND I'M IN LOVE WITH THE LATTER TYPE. I believe they come from Deviantart and serve a similar purpose to userboxes: decorating your profile.

WHY I LOVE STAMPS

✦ Collecting them is super fun!! It reminds you of which parts of the internet you have visited. ✦ Groups of stamps look super cool together. ✦ That thing about getting your point across but without text and writing AESTHETIC in bold red underlined text.

The standard size is 99px × 56px, but bigger/high quality stamps can be found, always following that ratio, of course.

BUT WHERE DO YOU PLACE THEM !?

You can have a couple on your profiles (Spacehey), pinned posts (Tumblr)… But where people COLLECT THEM is in

A CORNER ON YOUR OWN WEBSITE / NEOCITIES

EXAMPLES OF COOL NEOCITIES THAT WITH COOL STAMPS/COLLECTIONS

✦ Shishka ✦ Cinni ✦ Oddity Commoddity ✦ Ko's Crag! ✦ Cloud Cover ✦ Echo's Graphics ✦ silly zone ✦ Mad Paddington ✦ My own website lmao

THIS IS YOUR CALL TO MAKE YOUR OWN NEOCITIES !!

(Because it's my hyperfixation, topped only by TF2, and I MUST share it with the world) (I already convinced my light to make a neocities, YOU ARE NEXT.)

CONCLUSION

TL;DR: They're silly and cute BUT, they're also nostalgic and an important part of internet culture

I also recommend watching the next videos just because (you won't understand userboxes or stamps any better, but the culture around it)

✦ Whatever Happened to Profile Customization? ✦ Old Websites Were Cooler, Actually

(BTWBTW, we didn't actually talk with them, just mentioned it in our private call because like it would be super weird to go “hey, you have my love's name”. Super creepy HASHSj. Worst case scenario, they wouldn't believe I actually have a partner and think I'm hitting on them or something. And women and people who pass as feminine because of username/voice already suffer enough on FPS games with people either insulting them or simping for them and not seeing them actual players but objects. Like I'm not risking (potentially) making their day worse ykwim)

Anyway, they had pink cosmetics and I think I shot a rocket at them at some point because I thought they were RED AHSA *insert video about the problem with team recognition*.

[ID: Screenshot of the random player with their name obviously censored not because of them, but because it would reveal my love's name and, like, I haven't consulted if I can just say it in a random Tumblr post AJSAHJ]

There was also a Soldier who had all the batman cosmetics and dominated me because of course JHS (they were super good at rocket jumping). I sadly didn't take a screenshot (THEY WERE SO FAST AND KILLED ME, I COULDN'T TAKE A SCREENSHOT) </3

Also, yeah, I'm a F2P until MY BESTIE DECIDES TO PAY FOR MY FRICKING PREMIUM UEYDEUEHR (hopefully this or next week).

Hate that I'm mute for the time being, tho. Because Valve thought not letting F2P accounts speak would solve the bot crisis for some reason some years ago. SPOILER: It didn't work, it just made the bots more difficult to identify and ruined the experience of a bunch of players (kids, people who can't pay for TF2 like me, and people who just play for fun and don't want to throw money at a corporation, which is completely valid). Thanks, Valve.

But also love the fact I own the title of worst TF2 F2P, like, that way nobody expects anything from me.

My steam profile backs this up btw

[ID: My user says “world's worst tf2 player” and my description “I suck at tf2 it's not even funny”. Also, my pfp is the spongebob crying meme edited to have my OC's hair and Soldier's helmet and says “I PROMISE I'LL DO BETTER” in the funny impact font]

I'm genuinely bad (reason why I play Soldier) BUT I HAVE SO MUCH FUN PLAYING TF2, I LOVE THIS GAME EVEN IF I GET KILLED EVERY X SECONDS (x being equal to the time I take to respawn).

I want to meet more noobs like me and play with them while on a Discord call and learn together (would also help me with my English, probably, if they're not hispanophone).

Or maybe even players who know what they're doing and teach me (but they need to have patience with me because I'm a SLOW learner and barely know how to WASD lmao, my spacial awareness in videogames is just like in real life: 0).

Someone interested? 🤨

Haha I JUST LOVE THE SPANISH, MORE SPECIFICALLY THE CATALAN, EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Anyway, if you were wondering, my thesis is about ✨animation✨and I have to make a product out of it, which… guess what my final product is… yeah. An animation. I'M SCREWED.

And, YES, I wrote an entire page on skeuomorphs and how much I love the fact that the onion skin feature in most animation software is called “onion skin” (not even the origin of the phrase, that's explained like 10 pages earlier). CRY ABOUT IT.

[ID: Me yapping in my thesis, in catalan, about this one particular skeumorph which isn't even showing on the design, it's just the phrase “onion skin”]