(For maximum effect: have this playing in the background as you read.)

I've been thinking a lot about my digital footprint, particularly as I've gotten older. If you've been using the internet for as long as I have, you know that every so often you get hit with something I like to call a "digital time capsule." Maybe it was an embarrassing Facebook post, or you bore your feelings a little too hard on Tumblr and it resurfaced in your archive. Most of mine come from video games because I'm a huge nerd LMAO but I do like to reminisce about them from time to time.

Recently, my buddy from my FFXIV guild was feeling nostalgic and tried to get a group together to play the Halo Master Chief Collection. I was a bit of a Halo freak when I was younger and hadn't played the old ones in at least a decade (I dabbled in Halo Infinite a bit when it came out... it was fun but didn't hit the same). Having to log into my ancient Xbox account that gets used once or twice a year and hearing this fucking song immediately sent me back 15 years and I realized my Xbox account is probably the strongest digital time capsule I have.

Xbox 360 was a religion in my suburban Massachusetts hometown where the biggest thing to do outside of school or organized sports was loiter at the convenience store. Master Chief was the Father, Marcus Fenix was the Son, and my Rock Band 2 custom character was the Holy Spirit. Mass was celebrated in a finished basement with an old couch and the sermon was the trash talk my friends and I hit each other with during rounds of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

_{The Xbox in my parents' suburban finished basement.}

Video games to me have always been a social experience and I attribute that to all the time I spent playing games online via Xbox Live with friends and random people from school. This was a time when the concept of "hanging out on the internet" didn't exist. Social media was MySpace (which in retrospect I'm kind of glad I never used), very early Facebook that just started allowing non-college students to join and the on-life-support AIM. Texting was a limited resource. Xbox Live was a godsend - one of my first ways of getting onto the internet that wasn't the family computer to gossip with friends over voice chat and impress random classmates in Call of Duty lobbies.

I didn't know many people with an original Xbox growing up. It was the older brother console for most people my age. Everyone knew what Halo was though and of course when you're 13 it's the coolest thing ever. The Xbox 360 came out when I was in middle school and really started popping off around the time I entered high school. I was content with my Nintendo Wii, but the Wii couldn't play anything actually cool like Halo 3, which at the time was hyped up as being the most important piece of media ever released.

The excitement that surrounded Halo 3 was monumental and for someone who didn't own the console I was desperate to get my hands on it. Luckily, my friend who lived a few streets down had one and we spent tons of time in his basement with the other neighborhood kids playing it. A typical summer day for us might have been a bike ride to the store for snacks, a swim in the pool and hours into the night on the Xbox playing Team Slayers.

My brother and I got our own 360 a year later. Now being able to play games with our friends didn't necessitate a ride across town. We could link up basement to basement to get mad at each other over voice chat from the comfort of our own homes. Sessions would be organized at lunch at school, we'd talk about our best CoD Zombies strategies during track practice and all hop on for games after dinner. This continued all through high school - whatever games were popular would change but the people stayed the same.

Eventually, all of us logged off for the last time around the time of high school graduation and as we went our separate ways into the real world. I kept playing video games in college and beyond but I have to imagine many people stopped as we got older. Or maybe they just switched over to PS4 like me when new consoles came out.

When I log into my Xbox account now in the year 2024 at age 30, I am greeted with dozens of gamertags in my friends list in a perpetual state of offline. I still remember the names, the faces (the fun little avatars people made for themselves helps) and the games we played. Sometimes I poke around... seeing what achievements people got or the last games they had on their account, lots of early 2010s sports games mostly. You can comb through people's friend lists as well - seeing the accounts of friends' older siblings, names you remember from school, gamertags you recognize but can't remember who it belonged to - all forever offline. The most macabre thing I remember stumbling upon was a tribute in someone's profile for a guy in my town that got shot right after he graduated high school - over 15 years later still immortalized on an Xbox bio.

My gamertag is different these days (my old one straight up had my last name in it) but I wonder if anyone would be able to figure out it was still me if they were to see it.

For as much as I can still see from that era of my life through the internet, there's still so much of it that was lost to time. I moved out of my parents' house a number of years ago, so my brother and I had to divvy up our game collection. I got the PS2, and he got the 360 - which he unceremoniously deleted my profile and all my saves at some point after I had left - something I unfortunately discovered while house-sitting and wanting to fire up some Marvel vs. Capcom 2 for old time's sake.

As I think back though, maybe it's for the best all that stuff is gone. As much as I would love to see my Rock Band high scores and Modern Warfare 2 stats again, I have to remember that I was an awkward, nerdy, and most importantly, extremely closeted high school kid. I'm not sure if I want to see saved Kinect photos of me with zero style and zero swag. I'm assuming (and praying) at this point any cringey messages I would have sent or AIM away message-tier profile customizations are lost in Microsoft's servers forever. The few screenshots that I have that did survive were taken on my Nintendo DS's camera. Clips and other screenshots me and my friends took on our cell phone cameras are no doubt gone forever.

_{A screenshot of a Rock Band 2 high score circa 2010, taken on a Nintendo DS.}

Oh man, back to the subject of being extremely closeted in high school... when I look back to some of the games I played I think it makes a lot of sense. Gears of War is a game about beefy muscular men rolling around on the ground and chainsawing equally beefy alien men. I was completely obsessed with it. When the third game came out I very dutifully saved my paychecks from my Chinese takeout counter job and preordered the Epic Edition that came with a MASSIVE statue of Marcus Fenix with his muscles out. I finally got around to selling it on eBay a couple weeks ago, actually. How tastes change...

And of course I have to mention the game that got me permanently addicted to fighting games forever, Tekken 6. My mains in that game were the cuntiest women like Lili and Julia, and Craig Marduk - someone who bears a shocking resemblance to a certain Final Fantasy XIV character. Of course I played endless dress-up with them and just happened to keep Mr. Marduk less clothed then the girls. My love for Tekken turned into a love for Super Street Fighter IV and all I have to say for that is... Zangief.

Nowadays digital footprints are much bigger, particularly in the world of video games. My PlayStation 4 has about 8 or 9 years worth of screenshots and video clips saved to its hard drive. I even found a 15 minute long clip of me playing Fortnite on there during its first season. I have over 50 gb (!!) of FFXIV screenshots on my computer too. Of course I've been sharing these on Twitter and Tumblr over the years too, so they're out there for the world to see.

_{I lied, I found another Rock Band screenshot in my iCloud from 2012.}

All that and I still can't help but think if I'll be feeling the same way about the games I'm playing now in 15 years. Nothing is permanent, especially on the internet (to the contrary of what people may tell you). The servers for Halo 3 have been shut down for a few years now, so even if I wanted to relive it for a day I can't. My current game obsession - Final Fantasy XIV (a game I have EIGHT THOUSAND hours logged) - is an MMO and won't be around forever. My digital alter ego has a massive footprint in that game. How will I remember it years from now? Will my screenshot folder survive all the machines I'll inevitably be transferring it to? Will I still be in contact with the people I play it with? Will I even care about it 5, 10, 15 years down the line?

Everyone has digital time capsules of their own. Maybe it's emails you sent. Maybe it's a high score on a leaderboard of some 20 year old computer game. They're deeply personal and it can feel a little indulgent to talk about. A lot of the people I played games with back in the day may read this and be like "So what?" Time marches on. We all grew up and moved on with our lives.

I still do like to feel a little wistful about them though. Logging into my Xbox account feels like driving back to my hometown to visit my parents. My friends' houses are still there but they've long moved away. I still have all the memories of the time we've spent, and I may still be in touch with them, but it'll never be the same as it was back when we were kids.

Video games have been a part of my life for so long, but when I look back at little time capsules like this, I realize it's less about the game itself and more the moments you share with your loved ones playing them that really stick with you. Do I remember much of the plot of Halo? Not really, but I'll remember a half dozen bikes parked in the driveway of my neighbor's house and all my friends lounging in the basement passing controllers around. I wonder how they're all doing these days.

Might hop on MCC and play a round of Infection tonight, just for old time's sake.

_{My last can of Halo Mountain Dew, for a rainy day.}