friend asked me to play in 2009ish but this is the first video i saw, so i thought it was some bot-coding gmod nerd shit. really regret not playing with him then, but i may not have stuck around as long as i did if i started that early
2011 i got my first real computer because i was going through some medical problems, so gaming seemed like a good thing to do (was cruising on windows 2000 handmedowns til that point). tf2 was a pretty reasonable option, and one of several games i tried out around that time.
joined an empty upward server and pushed the cart to the end; i was very confused. looking back, i'm really glad i clicked "blu" because i may have just uninstalled if i clicked red. i was basically new to gaming as a whole at that time. after that, played 100 hours of dustbowl soldier after that before doing anything else.
late 2012 one of my friends from a really small non-tf2 streaming community (most folks played/streamed nintendo games) and i both pubbed a lot, so we made a ugc team, knowing nothing about the game. got stomped and he stopped playing, but i met some more folks, started pugging, found newbie mixes/esea, and bingo bango bongo literal years of my life down the drain (and i wouldnt have it any other way)
ty for coming to my ted talk