Bone Thugs. "E. 1999 Eternal"—a deep cut. That's someone who actually listens to full albums.
My fingers hover over the keyboard. In #mp3 with 487 people, I'd never try to chat up an operator. Too much noise, too much risk of looking stupid. But right now there's forty-seven people and the channel's dead quiet.
I type before I can second-guess myself.
Three seconds pass. Five. Maybe that was too obvious. Maybe—
My heart's beating faster than it should over a conversation about music.
This is it. This is where I can actually contribute something, not just agree.
Something warm spreads through my chest. But then reality hits.
Line-in? Cool edit? I understand the individual words but the process makes no sense.
The net split ends.
Names flood back into the channel. Forty-seven becomes two hundred, three hundred, four hundred and climbing. The chat explodes back to life—people complaining about the split, asking what they missed, demanding file server access.
Kaos doesn't say anything else in the channel. The moment's over.
I go back to watching the scroll, but my palms are sweaty.
Then a new window pops up on my screen—a private message. A PM. One-on-one conversation, separate from the channel. Just me and Kaos.
[Kaos] hey man. that was a solid conversation
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
[Kaos] this channel's way too big to talk music
[Kaos] you wanna join our private channel? just the crew. way more chill
I read the message three times to make sure it's real.
My hands are shaking slightly as I type.
[SKa] yeah definitely
[Kaos] cool lemme invite you
A line appears in my status window:
* Kaos invites you to #kaos
An actual invite. To a private operator channel.
[Kaos] just /join #kaos
My cursor hovers over the command line at the bottom of mIRC: '/join #kaos'
I hit enter.
The new window opens. Twelve people. I recognize some of the names immediately—operators I've seen in #mp3 with @. They're all operators here, except for me.
The vibe is completely different from #mp3. Nobody's begging for files. Nobody's arguing. It's just people talking. Someone's discussing a new file server setup. Someone else is complaining about their day job. It feels less like a chat room and more like... a room. A place people actually hang out.
I watch for a few minutes, trying to get a sense of the flow. Kaos is explaining something about DalNet's services to someone named TeKNiQue. NickServ and ChanServ—protection services built into DalNet that remember who owns what. Nicknames stay yours. Channels stay yours. On EFNet, there's no protection—everything's constantly being fought over.
They chose DalNet specifically because it's more stable, fewer takeovers, more protection for the channels they run.
These aren't the aggressive takeover crews I've read about. They just want to run their file servers and hang out without drama.
The question catches me off guard.
The conversation flows easily. Natural. Like I actually belong here.
The question appears casually, like she's just making conversation. Getting to know the new person. That's what a/s/l is for—age/sex/location. Standard IRC greeting.
Several lines of other conversation scroll by. Someone's talking about a movie they watched. The question sits there, waiting.
My fingers rest on the keyboard.
I could type the truth: 14/m/chicago.
And I'd be gone. Maybe not kicked immediately, but the vibe would change. They'd be nice about it—"oh cool man, good luck with school"—and then they'd stop talking to me. I'd become the kid who got invited by mistake.
I know what these people are. Adults with jobs and lives and actual technical skills. Kaos probably assumed I was at least college-age when we were talking about the Chicago rap scene. Nobody's going to take a fourteen-year-old seriously in a channel full of operators.
The cursor blinks.
I hit enter before I can change my mind.
And just like that, the conversation moves on. Nobody questions it. Nobody asks for proof. It's just accepted.
I'm in.
But my hands won't stop shaking.
I've been on IRC for a few weeks now. I've learned how to navigate channels, how to read power dynamics, how to talk to people without immediately looking like an idiot. But this is different.
This is lying.
Not exaggerating or leaving something out. A direct lie about who I am.
The conversation continues around me. Kaos is explaining the Bone Thugs thing to d0pe. Aimee69 is talking about the weather in Florida.
My homework for tomorrow is still sitting on my desk, untouched. Downstairs, I can hear my mom making dinner.
The conversation on screen has moved on to file servers and upload speeds. I watch the text scroll by, learning the rhythm of how these people talk, what they care about, what jokes they make.
I'm in the operator world now.
I'm fourteen years old, sitting in my bedroom, pretending to be twenty-two to a group of adults I've never met.
I just have to make sure they never find out.