1. The base icon is from the old internet radio station Radio Free Colorado. Back in the mid 00's it was a hoppin' place - the forums were full of classic rock fans and old hippies and just interesting people in general. The guy who owned/ran Radio Free Colorado was named Gary, and he also frequented the forums and was generally cool. Since it was a one-man operation (he did have an assistant named Amy) we all chipped in $$ to keep the station running. They were both funny and cool and the forums were more fun than the music, really.
As time went on, Gary got kind of paranoid and instead of playing music, he would go on long rants about the government. Then one day all of RFC fans tuned in to hear the Horst-Wessel-Leid* playing on a loop. Both he and Amy had disappeared from the forums. We RFCers on the forums were a-buzz...where was Gary? Was he okay? Where was Amy?
I had to dig it up, but here's my post about it from way back then: https://grayduck.dreamwidth.org/304939.html Anyway, he disappeared, it turned out that his assistant "Amy" didn't exist and all of the pictures were actually kind of blurry/unidentifiable pictures of Aimee Mann, lots of people had donated much more money than I did (I only donated about $30, I was a poor grad student) and over the next few weeks the story unraveled and it was very dramatic. Really good "early internet drama". Some people went to the station's office address and found nothing but an abandoned apartment. Years later Radio Free Colorado popped back up but there were no forums, no Amy (obviously) and Gary didn't seem like the Old Gary. Nothing lives on of old Radio Free Colorado other than my icon, which I just thought was a cool picture that kind of looked like me.
Anyway, that's the story of my icon. I've had it since (at least) 2006, when RFC went off the air. Long answer, sorry! I went down a nostalgia vortex.
2. I don't have one for use when I'm feeling angry or sad. The sunglasses one is kind of a "I don't want to talk about it" one, I guess. I started with just the base one and over the years added the others when I felt like it.
3. I chose this one because it's the base one. Some people love their icons, I couldn't be bothered with curating and finding the perfect one to illustrate my current mood.
Re: I'll squeeze three questions out of it any way
As time went on, Gary got kind of paranoid and instead of playing music, he would go on long rants about the government. Then one day all of RFC fans tuned in to hear the Horst-Wessel-Leid* playing on a loop. Both he and Amy had disappeared from the forums. We RFCers on the forums were a-buzz...where was Gary? Was he okay? Where was Amy?
I had to dig it up, but here's my post about it from way back then: https://grayduck.dreamwidth.org/304939.html Anyway, he disappeared, it turned out that his assistant "Amy" didn't exist and all of the pictures were actually kind of blurry/unidentifiable pictures of Aimee Mann, lots of people had donated much more money than I did (I only donated about $30, I was a poor grad student) and over the next few weeks the story unraveled and it was very dramatic. Really good "early internet drama". Some people went to the station's office address and found nothing but an abandoned apartment. Years later Radio Free Colorado popped back up but there were no forums, no Amy (obviously) and Gary didn't seem like the Old Gary. Nothing lives on of old Radio Free Colorado other than my icon, which I just thought was a cool picture that kind of looked like me.
Anyway, that's the story of my icon. I've had it since (at least) 2006, when RFC went off the air. Long answer, sorry! I went down a nostalgia vortex.
2. I don't have one for use when I'm feeling angry or sad. The sunglasses one is kind of a "I don't want to talk about it" one, I guess. I started with just the base one and over the years added the others when I felt like it.
3. I chose this one because it's the base one. Some people love their icons, I couldn't be bothered with curating and finding the perfect one to illustrate my current mood.