It’s been 18, yes, 18(!!!!) years since Crumbs. This independent collaborative online project with Adam, was partly borne out of the frustration we had working for a well-funded startup that was supposed to empower teens but was actually kind of really run by their parents. A lo-fi anomaly in the golden age of Macromedia Flash, Crumbs was pretty well-received and even got actual link-shares from websites which mattered a lot to me back then (Metafilter, links.net! God am old.)
What I’d give to have the same level of energy–and inspiration and delight in sharing small things that brought personal joy– that just flowed when tweaking things for this labour of love back in the day. It was our own way of presenting our stories, for those who’d care to read them. It was also a gushy pixelated showcase of various things that we chose to obsess about back then. I remember staying up all night with the most twee mp3s (Eggstone!) playing in the background while tinkering with bootlegged Photoshop files on a dying monitor (hence the strange washed-out color scheme for most of my graphics) and then looking for free Javascript libraries to mesh with Dreamweaver to create virtual magnetic fridge magnets that would pop out personal stories if you clicked on certain tiles.
Years after, I was tickled, okay, a bit thrilled to hear from afar that Crumbs had been studied academically as an example of Philippine hypertext literature in English, our own nifty little contribution to the digital landscape of that era when the world wide web was still a good place to be.
Related Links:
- Recidoro, Zeny May D., Works-in-Progress: Artistic practices and digital communities (PDF), Writing Presently. Philippine Contemporary Art Network
- Gonzales, Vladimeir B., Hyperwriting: Isang Walkthrough, Likhaan: the Journal of Philippine Contemporary Literature Vol. 3. 2009 pp. 206 – 216.
- Casocot, Ian Rosales. FutureShock Prose: An Anthology of Young Writers and New Literatures
My favourite WinAmp skin 
