Anil Dash on Prince’s secret life as a computer nerd

Prince at a Mac in Graffiti Bridge

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A special bond exists between Prince fans online — especially those who have been congregating, sharing their love of the Purple One and interacting with the man himself through his decades of digital evolution, from AOL’s early chatrooms to the modern-day hum of Twitter. Much like Prince would gather his die-hard fans IRL at Paisley Park for last-minute, late-night dance parties, he spent the last 20-plus years finding the most cutting-edge ways to connect his art to his fans online.

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Prince was an early adopter, it turns out, and the tech journalist and entrepreneur Anil Dash has been following him online from the very beginning. I knew Anil would have a lot of insight to offer about Prince’s online life; what I didn’t expect, and was delighted to learn, is that he’s even traded a few AIM chats with the man himself.

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When Anil Dash was visiting the Twin Cities recently, we got together to chat about Prince’s secret computer nerd life and our shared grief. Find a transcript of many of the highlights of our chat below, and check out the Prince Remembered podcast for our full conversation.

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Read entire interview here:

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http://blog.thecurrent.or...uter-nerd/

[Edited 6/29/16 17:12pm]

first!

cool interview. i remember back in the AOL paisley park chatroom on sunday nights, circa 1996. there was someone i thought might have been prince who IMd me once, but i don't think i actually put any real thought into this could be prince... ironically, i defended him against a bunch of personal chatter and discussion about him and kim basinger i think it was.... and i said something how we should talk about the music instead. but, here i am now. years later i'm all gossipy about his life and.. stuff. i guess i didn't grow in the right direction after all

XxAxX said:

cool interview. i remember back in the AOL paisley park chatroom on sunday nights, circa 1996. there was someone i thought might have been prince who IMd me once, but i don't think i actually put any real thought into this could be prince... ironically, i defended him against a bunch of personal chatter and discussion about him and kim basinger i think it was.... and i said something how we should talk about the music instead. but, here i am now. years later i'm all gossipy about his life and.. stuff. i guess i didn't grow in the right direction after all

I thinl it helps us to have a sense of humor at this time. I'm seriously wondering if I ever exchanged words with P. at some point though...

"instead of doing what i usually do ..i check my computer for a site..."

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"Prodigy was one of them. It was one of the first places there was a weekly Prince fan chat."

I worked for them for five years (until Prodigy shut down, that is. I ran lots of those chat sessions but dammit, not that one!

Now I have to put on my thinking cap and remember who the moderators were in that area. They would have stories, for sure.

If I can dig their names out of my data bank, I'll contact them.

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[Edited 6/29/16 18:10pm]

I watched Shameless Maya's youtube on P and she said that while she was at PP he had her watch the computer during a performce to see the comments from fans in a chat. Said he knew them by name and was asking her what 'so and so' was saying. I wonder if it was this site.

CROWNS1 said:

Kara said:

CROWNS1 said:

I watched Shameless Maya's youtube on P and she said that while she was at PP he had her watch the computer during a performce to see the comments from fans in a chat. Said he knew them by name and was asking her what 'so and so' was saying. I wonder if it was this site.

I wonder whose comments he was interested in?

I can't remember if she said. She said there was a chat with about 20 people in it and he knew every one of them by their screen names and was very interested in what they were saying.

CROWNS1 said:

Kara said:

CROWNS1 said: I wonder whose comments he was interested in?

I can't remember if she said. She said there was a chat with about 20 people in it and he knew every one of them by their screen names and was very interested in what they were saying.

Old news to me. I was always surprised by how regularly he logged on. Almost like clockwork. Even if there had been a concert or something at Paisley. When he was out of town, you wouldn't see him online. But within a day or two of something overseas, Prince would fall right back into his routine. He wouldn't stay on more than an hour or so. He'd often hang up and call back (dial-up people) later when a new idea occurred to him. He would say 'We' a lot and at the time I was unfamiliar with his tendency to refer to himself as 'we' so I pictured Mayte or some other beautiful women in the room with him. He didn't really respond well to being told how great he was, or people asking to write him a song. He went off on us for refering to him as 'The Artist Formerly Known As Funky'. Speaking of TAFKAP, my contribution to that was the word 'Artist' as in the symbol should stand for Artist, because he was the world's greatest Artist. The rest he got from other suggestions. Honestly, Prince got A LOT of ideas from Prince boards and chatrroms over the years. Quite a few were things I suggested, but he rarely implemented them without changes and so they never worked out as well as they might, had he not felt the need to improve upon what we were asking for.

I was telling someone the other day, Prince was probably the easiest music superstar to reach online, because he was basicaly always wherever his fans were. That's one of the sadder parts of the opiod overdose: he is no longer lurking about the org.

Thanks I enjoyed that read. I was on Prodigy back in the day but I will be honest I remember very little of it. I mostly

Well we all knew he was a sexy nerd but Im glad he found time to interact with us from the weird orgnotes to Princestagram...loved it all Nice story

bookwomen said:

Thanks I enjoyed that read. I was on Prodigy back in the day but I will be honest I remember very little of it. I mostly

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Collectibles II bulletin board leader, chat moderator, and "America" webpage developer here. I remember online fights over Beanie Babies...and the more they talked, the higher my commissions.

Remember the non-graphics and lousy layouts?

Probably safe to say there isn't another artist and won't be another artist that was so 'engaged' with fans for so long.

CROWNS1 said:

Probably safe to say there isn't another artist and won't be another artist that was so 'engaged' with fans for so long.

This is incorrect. Lots of artists actually post on their message boards/groups.