In the Beginning:

Tracing the Early History of AwesomeDude

by

Rutabaga

rutabaga@awesomedude.org

Introduction

We like to read. That’s why each one of us is here at this site. We like to read, and delight in finding stories that let us experience the challenges of growing up or growing old, traveling through space and time, living in exotic places, and coping with life in general.

But note that it’s not so much the actual process of reading — looking at and interpreting little symbols on a computer screen — that we find so rewarding. Rather, it’s the story that those little symbols are conveying. As Lisa Cron tells us in Wired for Story, humans as a species are engineered to be attracted to and engage with good stories, however they are conveyed:

Story, as it turns out, was crucial to our evolution — more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to. Story is what enabled us to imagine what might happen in the future, and so prepare for it — a feat no other species can lay claim to, opposable thumbs or not. Story is what makes us human, not just metaphorically but literally. Recent breakthroughs in neuroscience reveal that our brain is hardwired to respond to story; the pleasure we derive from a tale well told is nature’s way of seducing us into paying attention to it. In other words, we’re wired to turn to story to teach us the way of the world.

Writers who know how to tell good stories tap into something fundamental for which there is always a strong demand. Cron continues:

Writers can change the way people think simply by giving them a glimpse of life through their characters’ eyes. They can transport readers to places they’ve never been, catapult them into situations they’ve only dreamed of, and reveal subtle universal truths that just might alter their entire perception of reality. In ways large and small, writers help people make it through the night. And that’s not too shabby.

An Idea Hatches

It seems as though AwesomeDude founder Mike was tuned into this dynamic. I am told he was an avid reader of other story sites, but became impatient when the site owners were lazy about updating the stories in a timely manner. Consequently, we read in the online journal post below that his major New Year’s resolution at the beginning of 2004 was to see what he could do about that. Writing in an online journal, he stated:

Well, so much of what I need to do this year requires me to be able to produce HTML documents. To admit in 2004 that I haven’t got a clue about the subject is like admitting that I don’t wear underwear or never went to high school.

Beginning my fiction career on the web, I want to do it right. I want to be able to produce something that is pleasing to look at as well as enjoyable to read … a balance of form and content. So it is a matter of knuckling down and learning something new, putting aside the distractions of my normally heavy reading schedule and limiting my chatting for a while.

In the next online journal post from February 8, 2004, we can perhaps begin to fathom some of the reasons Mike would have been looking for a project like AwesomeDude to throw himself into:

I wake up in the morning thinking of the things I want to do, somehow keeping the illusion that I’m still 19 or 20, with my whole like ahead of me. Then I look in the mirror and see this old guy with thinning hair. … Problem is, I still have the hopes, dreams and the desires of a 20 year old. The real problem is, I’m 20 alright … 20 three times over. But I am still optimistic.

The next online journal post from March 14, 2004 shows that his project is beginning to take shape:

Progress on the web site. I finally figured out how to carry on after catastrophic failure of my web site builder program. After building the site the third time from scratch, I found the feature that uploads a copy of the web site file to the web site as a cab file, which can be retrieved from the site folder and used to recreate all my previous work here on the production computer. Advice to myself and others: Read the instructions, stupid.

At about the same time, this “coming soon” page was captured by the Wayback Machine on March 20, 2004:

We don’t have any actual capture of the April 3, 2004 inaugural screen (assuming it went live on that date as promised). But we do have some indirect information from the “News & Views” pieces that Mike started posting in this era, which we will look at next.

This News & Views entry from May 2, 2004 is the earliest that could be found in the archive.

And here are the next two News & Views posts from early 2004. Only weeks after starting, Mike seems to be delivering a lot of stuff already:

We come now to the first actual screen capture of an AwesomeDude home page after the site went live, which the Wayback Machine states was taken on May 22, 2004 (only the top part of the page is shown). ()Note that in the home page images to come, there often seem to be discrepancies between dates reflected on the pages and the dates that the Wayback Machine claims that the snapshot was taken. There is no obvious explanation for this.)

We next have more News & Views information about the site:

It is clear that Mike has been devoting considerable time and energy to developing the site and implementing cool features.

As of June 2004 Mike says he is posting all new chapters as soon as they come in. (That probably did not last very much longer; it is hard enough doing weekly updates!):

June 20, 2004:

In July 2004 Mike inaugurated a discussion forum feature, using the free phpBB software platform. Unfortunately, very little of that early forum survives today – just a small handful of haphazard screen captures that the Wayback Machine took at wide intervals.

July 3, 2004:

July 11, 2004: This is where Mike announces that he will be moving his News & Views postings to the new forum, rather than the separate HTML page he has been posting, and it is not long before we mostly lose this source of site history.

We next reach the second screen capture of an AwesomeDude home page in 2004, which was taken on July 16, 2004. (The archive site unfortunately did not preserve the images on the page, hence the error icons.)

Next, a home page capture from July 30, 2004, showing further experimentation with the look of the page:

By this time, as noted above, Mike had started posting his News & Views messages in the newly established forum that ran on the separate platform based on phpBB. Most of these postings are lost; only in rare cases did they get archived. But we do have this from August 7, 2004:

Our next home page capture is from September 18, 2004:

The next News & Views installment comes from October 10, 2004:

Here is a home page capture taken November 30, 2004:

The next captured News & Views post is from December 5, 2004:

Here is a home page capture from December 28, 2004:

January 24, 2005:

We jump ahead to the home page captured on March 8, 2005:

Then we have March 27, 2005:

The Next News & Views capture falls on the one-year anniversary of the site, April 3, 2005:

Our next home page capture is taken on May 23, 2005, where a new home page look has been introduced:

Meanwhile, all was not smooth sailing with the forums, as we discover in this News & Views post from May 22, 2005:

Here is the home page as captured on June 30, 2005:

A similar home page capture from July 28, 2005:

Home page capture from August 28, 2005:

This contemporaneous News & Views post explains the technical issue with the forums:

This was the last News & Views post that I managed to unearth. Although the other home pages captured in the archive often include links to News & Views, clicking those links leads only to a notice that that page has not been captured in the archive.

The remaining images in this article are selected screenshots of the home page up through the beginning of 2011. You can see the evolution toward the general “look” the site has today.

September 24, 2005:

September 30, 2005:

October 25, 2005:

November 7, 2005:

November 30, 2005:

December 5, 2005:

December 13, 2005:

January 16, 2006:

April 26, 2006:

August 3, 2006:

December 5, 2006:

April 6, 2007:

October 2, 2007:

Following a significant gap in the archiving, we jump to December 10, 2008:

March 4, 2009:

January 28, 2010:

February 1, 2011:

At this point the site “look” had pretty well settled in place and the home pages were less chaotic and more dignified, if perhaps a bit daunting with the extensive listings. For purposes of this brief history, we have reached a good stopping point for screen captures.

Reflections

It seems as though Mike must have had some sort of epiphany in late 2003 or early 2004 that led him to embark on the adventure that was and is AwesomeDude. It didn’t appear to deter him that he would have to learn HTML in order to build the new site. Web site design and coding were still fairly primitive in 2004, and the products available to assist in coding — such as Microsoft FrontPage — were at best a mixed blessing. But Mike soldiered on and got the site on the air, and gathered a topnotch stable of authors to supply content and support one another. All this while working as a broadcast journalist in southeast Asia.

It is striking to note some of the authors who were present on AwesomeDude at the very outset. Many of these authors are still avidly read today. Sadly, a number of these authors are no longer with us, either having passed away or dropped off the internet radar.

Mike seemed eager to try innovations such as audio interviews and the “Midnight Dude” book project, along with periodic seasonal or themed story collections throughout the years. He also actively produced AwesomeDude Radio for quite some time, channeling his early career as a radio disc jockey. We continue to miss him, and continue to be grateful for what his New Year’s resolution in 2004 brought to life.

Meanwhile, for a unique look at another side of Mike, watch this video giving an inside look at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea. “Former ABC News correspondent Michael Wengert narrates and shares his personal reflections of visiting the area during his four-decade career covering news in Korea.”

The audio quality is terrible, but it’s an interesting further bit of history for us to discover.