That's right everyone. America's favorite online voice chat service has officially died. Gamers everywhere are in mourning as Dolby Axon goes offline for the final time, effective 5pm Pacific time, December 5th, 2016. Grief is natural in these circumstances, and I'm having trouble mustering that old Bobby charm today, so this article is merely going to be gentle reminiscence and elevated worship of the chat we all know and love. Nothing more, nothing less. It's what Dolby would've wanted. I will give Dolby Axon the recognition it never received in its lifetime.
I remember when I first logged on to Dolby Axon. Who could forget? I needed a voice chat so I could talk to my friend who lived in Turkey while simultaneously looking up YouTube videos with less than 80 views, but I also needed a program that wouldn't strangle my bandwidth. That was directed at you, Skype. I'm not sorry, you suck, and you get people killed. I signed up for Dolby with my usual online handle of "chunkstyle94." I put 94 on the end so people know how old I am. You can get some pretty sweet messages that way. But enough about daddy; I was your typical college freshman, eager and scared. My college gave me a lot of great things, but a decent internet connection was not one of them. As I said earlier, Skype was very withholding of the bandwidth. It was either try to talk with Skype, or try to load Facebook to complain about the internet.
Dolby Axon was excellent in that it was so simply basic. I could use it to talk with folks and simultaneously harvest some scrubs in the gamesphere. That means to play video games for all you non-gamers. It allowed me to bond with people over the internet, because most of the people around me physically just wanted to drink alcohol and touch each other, which is fine, but not my kind of night. I'd rather go on a brony role-playing server and try to become their bald queen. That happened, by the way. An era of prosperity under the BronyBoy82 dynasty. Lotta memories in that chat. We read the rough draft for "Sausage Party." I talked with people who were otherwise out of my groping proximity, including distant dwellers of North Carolina, the unofficial ninth planet. I saw this video that is very hard to watch, not because the Wii has moves, but because of everything about it.
Dolby Axon helped me to discover the best (worst) of the internet. I was more or less a virgin of the net before my friends showed me what hell really is. I'm talking about the weird stuff that everyone has already known about forever, like furries, people who wear diapers for pleasure rather than out of necessity, and muscle and inflation fetishes. Before Dolby, my understanding of the internet was Homestar Runner, which is pure comedy. I was quite innocent and I like to think I still am. I somehow managed to grow up without being exposed to the fouler obscurities of the internet and my innocence was mostly retained until college. Now that my good buddies have shown me all this nonsense, I have adopted it into my sense of humor. My funny bone is now so broad that almost everything is silly to me. Everything except these articles, that is. My world has devolved to where the more unintentional something is, the funnier it be, like the Big Dogs clothing company or Joe Rogan. Life is wild now. There's no off button. I'm constantly giggling. A quadrant of my lungs suffer from a perpetual boo-boo and my upper cheeks hurt.
What I'm saying (yelling more like) is that Dolby Axon provided me with an outlet to talk with my close pals while we were in different lands and share gross images and stupid pictures immediately, creating a whirlwind of digital maturation that introduced me to what the internet really is: A dump of unsavory subcultures in which like-minded people can thrive together in harmony or hatred. Now I have my uninvited wit melded with a revolting knowledge of digital deviance that is growing every day. My fascination with the internet and the people who contribute to its weirdness, whether genuinely, ironically, or post-ironically (dat probably me at this point), has shaped my entire character. In just 3 years, Dolby Axon has been a major contributor to my sense of humor thanks to the wonderful friends I have talked with in our growing chat room. And now Dolby Axon is dead.
Don't you dare tell me I could've done all of this with Skype. I assure you I could not. Years from now, Earth will look back on 12/5/2016 and ask "Where were you when Dolby Axon got shut down?" And like you, I'll respond with a single tear and my Discord username. Thank you for your service Dolby Axon. You might not know it, but you made me and like two other people very happy. The rest of my friends were only tolerant and always asked why we used Axon over any other chat. They just don't understand you like I do, and now they never will. If you ever come back some day, just nudge me. I'm always down to Dolby.
