what's in my room? featuring k.d. kemp⋆˚꩜｡

the archivist, writer, and analog Web 2.0 lover fills us in on how the early days of the Internet seeped into her teenage bedroom

Apr 22, 2026

welcome back to what’s in my room? an ongoing series where I ask my fave writers and artists around the web what was in their teenage bedroom.

The Internet brings me so many kindred spirits and one of those is certainly k.d. kemp, digital archivist, writer, and lover of all things analog, physical media, and Web 2.0. I discovered K.D. when she unearthed the original, unaired pilot episode of Gilmore Girls and uploaded it to her website (seriously, you can watch the whole thing right here).

@k.d.kemp I recently acquired a VHS copy of the original unaired pilot of Gilmore Girls and digitized it for you all to enjoy! This pilot has never been released in full commercially which is a prime example of why physical media and preservation is so important. Thank you for 1,000 followers and I hope you enjoy! #gilmoregirls #physicalmedia #rorygilmore #lorelaigilmore #vhsedit #unairedpilot #pilotepisode #CapCut

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And then I continued to poke around her brilliant website which, modeled after her family computer room, is a nostalgic digital archive and blog that catalogs everything from her CD collection to pressed pennies and reminds me of the kind of websites we used to build on Geocities or Angelfire in the 2000s. I could literally spend hours in K.D.’s little corner of the web, which feels so much more personal (and fun to explore) than a social media profile. So I am super hyped to find out…

k.d., what’s in your room?

a fandom collection

In the final months of 2001, something major happened. No, not that. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was released in theaters in November, and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring followed in December. While Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace’s 1999 release laid the groundwork for fandom in the new millennium, Harry Potter and LOTR were really the first fandoms of the Internet era. They were also the first that I started actively participating in. It was the beginning of online communities blending with the real world. I plastered my bedroom walls with collectibles and fanart made in Microsoft Word, spent hours making Expage and GeoCities websites dedicated to them, and my friends and I wrote angsty fanfiction about Harry & Draco or Frodo & Sam during lunch and then shared it through LiveJournal and AIM.

about two inches of paint

From middle school through my senior year of high school, I painted my bedroom almost every year. The first was a blue, purple, and green sponge paint to mark my transition from being a kid to becoming a teen. In the height of my emo/punk phase, I painted my bedroom black and splattered it with neon pink and white paint which wound up all over the popcorn ceiling. My favorite room was a soft pink with cream-washed walls and a floral crochet bedding set that I lost to time. hangingwithdes helped me locate the set in one of her vintage J.C. Penney catalogs a couple years ago, and I’ve been slowly acquiring pieces ever since to try and recreate this room. My final room was inspired by early 2000s Starbucks and its global village coffeehouse aesthetic before I even knew what the word aesthetic meant. Different jewel tones on each wall, gorgeous Ikea Leksvik pieces, and Putumayo world music CDs scattered all over my floor. I’ve been a renter since moving out of my childhood home 20 years ago, so I haven’t gotten to paint with that much freedom since!

not in my room: a computer!!

I didn’t get my own computer, a hulking HP Pavilion laptop, until my senior year of high school. Before that, my parents had a tower PC in their office and going online meant going into that physical space and using the internet for a set amount of time. There were times I spent hours on the computer, making one of those GeoCities fanpages or updating the HTML and CSS on my MySpace, but there was always a point where I logged off. I’ve been experimenting this year with kicking the Internet out of my bedroom to try and reclaim my focus, but I’m currently streaming Pluto TV and scrolling through Instagram while writing this, so it’s been a tough habit to break.

pets

From a black and white tuxedo cat I got for my 14th birthday (and who lived for nearly 20 years) to a duckling I hatched and raised for an animal behavior class in junior year, there have always been pets in my bedroom who would probably argue that it’s their bedroom.