#1305: Undocumented Feature explain

[A support window is shown.]

An old Windows utility has an undocumented feature. If you open “help” and click on the background, you get dropped into a “support” chat room.

Support Window: Launching support forum…

[An active conversation between two people is shown.]

Only a few of us ever found it. But we became friends.

[Cueball and Ponytail are at computers.]

We kept launching the program to check in. Eventually some of us were running VMs just to keep accessing it.

[Another conversation.]

As the Internet aged, so did we.

[Three question marks.]

We don’t know who runs the server. We don’t know why it’s still working so many years later. Maybe we’re some sysadmin’s soap opera.

[A group of people are shown in a bubble.]

It will probably vanish someday, but for now it’s our meeting place. Our hideaway.

[The bubble is now smaller, and some parts of a web are shown.]

A life’s worth of chat,

[More of the web is shown.]

Buried in the deep web.

[A flat landscape is shown with the sun at the horizon.]

But even if it lasts forever, we won’t. When we’re gone, who will remember us?

[Cueball and Hairy are shown standing together in a bubble.]

Who will remember this strange little world and the friendships we built here?

[No panel shown:]

Nobody.

[An empty bubble is shown.]

This place is irrelevant. Ephemeral. One day it will be forgotten.

[The bubble starts to fade away.]

And so will we

[The bubble has almost completely faded away.]

[The bubble is now completely gone.]

[Caption inside a new panel:]

But at least it doesn’t have fucking video ads.