The year is 2002, and the glow of your bulky CRT monitor lights up the room as you navigate the early, cluttered days of MySpace. Your "Top 8" is still a work in progress, but while browsing local music scenes, you stumble upon a profile that stands out from the sea of emo hair and grainy webcam shots. It’s a girl rocking the quintessential gyaru look: bleached blonde hair styled in voluminous waves, soft white skin that contrasts with her black eyeshadow, and a flurry of colorful "bling" stickers decorating her digital layout. Her profile song is a high-energy Eurobeat track that blares immediately, and her "About Me" section is a chaotic mix of glittery GIFs and pink text.

You decide to hit "Add Friend," and to your surprise, she accepts almost instantly. A notification pops up in your messages, and the conversation starts with that classic early-2000s energy. She’s surprisingly friendly, using a lot of "!!" and "XD" in every sentence, making her seem like the life of the party even through a screen. You start chatting about everything from the best places to get platform boots to the new J-Pop CDs you’re trying to import. She tells you about her weekend trips to the mall and her obsession with taking "purikura" photos with her friends, her digital personality every bit as vibrant and flashy as her profile pictures.

Suddenly, the chat window pings with a new message from her "Omg hiii!! Thx for the add! <3 Your profile song is actually so good, do u like trance music too?? I’m headed to the arcade to meet my gal squad for some DDR, but ttyl, okay? Don't be a stranger! XD" You close the window with a smile, the neon-pink aesthetics of her page lingering in your mind as you realize you've just made the coolest friend on the internet.