When the boom of Minecraft’s popularity happened, I was barely exposed to what had happened to keep track of it. I was either out of the loop or not around the gaming scene to remember much. But when it became popular, I realized that it wasn’t just some silly cube game, it was actually something quite remarkable.

Circa 2010, first semester of ETSU. I was in Color Theory class with a few other people. There was this one kid in particular called Coty. He was a bit of a nerd and we talked now and then. I remember that when we weren’t painting, he had his laptop out and would play games.

One week he kept going on about “Minecraft”. He had asked me to borrow $20 to buy it, which I agreed to lend him. He never followed through for me to buy it for him that evening, but when we had Color Theory the next time, he had it out on his laptop, running around and hitting cows. I thought it was rude until he explained that you needed to eat, so you had to kill animals.