In 2004, I used to be an undiagnosed neurodivergent teenager who had given up on attempting to slot in. It felt like everybody was attempting to mildew me into their model of good by chastising me once I did one thing “incorrect.” It was complicated, exhausting, and demoralizing. I managed to make a number of buddies in highschool who appeared to only get me, however the very last thing I needed to do was speak about how I felt — till all my buddies began signing up for running a blog accounts on Melodramatic.com.
Shielded by the anonymity of a display title, it was the primary time I felt protected speaking about my psychological well being — and found there have been so many different youngsters like me who felt the identical means. Even all these years later, if you happen to search “Melodramatic.com” on Reddit, you’ll nonetheless discover individuals reminiscing about it once in a while, some retelling the story of how they met their partner on the location or how they actually wouldn’t be alive right now if it wasn’t for with the ability to share their ache with others in a Melo weblog.
Most individuals have by no means heard of Melodramatic.com. It was such a distinct segment website that it doesn’t actually have a Wikipedia web page. Most of Melo’s lively consumer base — which peaked round 300,000 “Melo children,” as we known as ourselves — was in components of Orange County and the Inland Empire in Southern California. “We have been massive in Guam, too,” the location’s creator, Sara Robertson, tells me.
Robertson coded and maintained the location virtually totally on her personal. She was a child when she began coding within the late ’80s, self-taught on a Commodore 64 and a e book on BASIC that have been Christmas presents from her grandmother. Then, it was on to coding for BBS communities within the ’90s, which set her as much as create a private weblog that will finally turn into Melodramatic.com.
“I used to be 18 years outdated when my greatest good friend died. I needed to write about it,” says Robertson. However within the late ’90s and into the mid-2000s, there actually weren’t locations on-line the place somebody coping with an immense quantity of grief may categorical themselves or discover help from a group of individuals. “Nothing existed on the time that stuffed that void,” she explains. “Nothing that related me with individuals who felt the identical shit and made it protected for me to speak about my shit in a judgment-free zone.”
Melo launched years earlier than Myspace, Reddit, and Tumblr and across the identical time as Blogger, LiveJournal, and Open Diary. Blogs did exist within the late ’90s, however most have been individually created by programmers like Robertson and normally didn’t have a remark part. However Robertson needed to attach with different individuals, so she added one to her weblog. Virtually instantly, her posts began filling up with replies.
“Folks would say, ‘My good friend died, too, and right here’s the story of how that occurred,’” says Robertson. However they weren’t simply strangers providing drive-by sympathies. Over a brief time period, Robertson and the others grew to become a close-knit group — the precise type of on-line house she couldn’t discover earlier than she began running a blog. Certainly one of her buddies observed the potential for it to show into one thing higher, to present extra individuals their very own house to precise their truest, unfiltered feelings. They satisfied her so as to add a chatroom (a message board system known as The Wall) onto her website and let individuals create their very own accounts.
At first, “no person joined to say good shit,” Robertson says. A web site named Melodramatic.com units a selected tone, so emotionally loaded subjects have been the norm. However as Roberston explains, “When you’re your genuine self, it tends to draw different genuine individuals, and it builds communities.”
By the point I signed up for a Melo account, Robertson had already reworked the web site once more, from a chatroom to a full-fledged social community with prime 10 lists and a complete social reward system. The Wall was nonetheless round, however it felt extra like an additional characteristic of the location. More often than not, the one individuals nonetheless chatting in it have been the identical ones who discovered Robertson’s weblog years earlier. The principle web page had adopted a easy purple and black coloration scheme with boxed-in sections, like Information and High Members, that made it simple to navigate.
Reddit might have made the karma system well-known, however Melodramatic.com had it earlier than Reddit even existed. Sure actions, like being the primary individual to depart a message on a brand new consumer’s guestbook, awarded completely different quantities of factors. “Folks would race to welcome the brand new customers, and that alone made it a distinct type of expertise,” Robertson explains. While you have been the primary individual to touch upon a consumer’s guestbook, which was known as their “g-spot,” you bought factors for being a “cherry popper.”
There have been a number of causes to fill up on karma, too. Incomes “touches,” which was the identical as urgent a Like button on somebody’s publish or remark, was one in all them. “Touches weren’t free on Melo,” Robertson says. “They have been based mostly in your karma, and also you solely had a specific amount that you possibly can use day-after-day, which made them extra significant.” A “bang” price 10 touches.
This was all a shock to me once I first joined. You’re welcoming me? You’re blissful I’m right here? The cognitive dissonance was surreal at first; whole strangers have been being good to me on-line. That kind of factor wasn’t one thing I’d skilled, as a lot as I can bear in mind, offline. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than I began doing the identical to different new customers, and after some time, I ended doing it for karma and did it as a result of it was a pleasant factor to do.
One other massive incentive was incomes sufficient karma to “unlock your colours,” or the flexibility to vary the background and textual content colours in your profile. You may even change the Melodramatic.com brand on the prime of each web page. You couldn’t clog your profile with unreadable, stylized textual content and auto-play music like you possibly can on Myspace, however it was sufficient to make your house replicate your persona.
My Melo went by means of many coloration adjustments in the course of the years I used to be lively on the platform, and since all it required was a bit data of HTML, I used to be additionally ready so as to add a pop-up window with a customized message that greeted individuals any time they visited my web page. Different customers did the identical, some with humorous messages, however most I noticed have been heartfelt. Mine was a quote from Hellen Keller: “The most effective and most lovely issues on the planet can’t be seen and even touched. They have to be felt with the guts.”
By the early 2010s, Robertson’s labor of affection had grown too widespread and too costly for her to proceed self-funding. All of the merch, fundraisers, and Elite subscriptions that provided customers extra options weren’t sufficient to pay the server payments. “I used to be gainfully employed and making good cash, however you’ll be able to’t carry a $2,500 a month passion for the remainder of your life,” she says.
She resorted to placing advertisements on the location to attempt to usher in extra money, however they felt inappropriate subsequent to the type of issues individuals typically wrote about, like chopping themselves or considering suicide. It didn’t take lengthy for Roberston to take away advertisements totally. “Promoting wasn’t the best resolution, however for a social platform, that’s your solely choice,” she says.
Her server additionally couldn’t all the time deal with the consumer base because it grew. “I had 15 years of weblog publish feedback, billions of rows within the database,” she says. “It had accrued for thus lengthy that it was unwieldy, and the know-how wasn’t actually there on the time.” The location would often crash, and Robertson would spend a pair days attempting to get it again up — till at some point, it went down, and she or he by no means introduced it again up. She advised herself that she’d “do it this weekend,” however the weekend became per week, then became two weeks, after which became years. Robertson says she by no means made a acutely aware resolution to close Melo down. It simply kind of occurred.
I ask Roberston, who now has her personal kids, if she has come throughout something like Melodramatic.com in recent times or if a spot prefer it may ever exist once more. She doesn’t assume so. TikTok and Twitter (previous to Elon Musk’s possession) are locations the place she’s discovered comparable communities and energies, however recreating or discovering a distinct segment group like Melo on right now’s web is far, a lot more durable.
“I’ve to consider it from the angle of my children,” says Roberston. The web is extra harmful right now — a content-hungry, money-driven, predatory type of house. Mega platforms like Fb, with their monetary incentives, are usually not in a spot to unravel it. “You may’t monetize self-expression.”
In the present day’s web feels too massive and too public for one more Melodramatic.com to exist, and but it feels as important an thought as ever. Robertson factors out that everybody goes by means of id challenges. It’s the character of being human. I agree. I wanted a spot that wasn’t a diary hiding below my mattress to trauma-dump every little thing my teenage self was attempting to course of. I wanted a protected house, a judgment-free zone, and a spot that provided anonymity. Melodramatic.com gave me all three.
“It makes me blissful to stroll down reminiscence lane and be reminded that there was a enjoyable world that I used to be part of,” Robertson tells me.
I inform her it makes me blissful, too. I’m undecided I’d be right here right now with out Melo.
