My generation may be the last to fondly recall the concept of a family “computer room.” In our case, it was more accurately described as a computer nook — a perpetually dim and narrow corner, crammed with a chaotic mix of tangled wires, ancient plug-in speakers, forgotten trinkets, dusty dishes, and tumbleweeds of dog hair. This cluttered space became my sanctuary.
As I strained my eyes against the harsh glow of our bulky PC, I poured my heart and soul into what I envisioned as masterpieces born from an underappreciated genius. With my hand cramping around the mouse, I would lean in close to the glass screen, channeling all my focus into every pixel. Yet, when I finally leaned back to wipe the sweat from my brow, expecting to feel the satisfaction of Michelangelo after revealing David, I instead faced a grotesque mess of crisscrossed black lines forming indecipherable blobs, interspersed with jarring bursts of artificial color. I would save this monstrosity as “Untitled.bmp”, closing Microsoft Paint and retreating for the day, knowing my creative journey was far from complete.
MS Paint was the canvas of my adolescence in the early 2000s. The “art” I ambitiously crafted on this rudimentary software — a blank slate equipped with basic tools like pencil, brush, and eraser — ranged from satirical imitations of my favorite cartoonists, Berkeley Breathed and Nicholas Gurewitch, to reflections of the hostile landscapes found in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and Hiromu Arakawa. I particularly enjoyed constructing imaginary city maps — intricate, brick-and-iron-laden municipalities distinctly divided into commercial, industrial, and residential zones. After years of admiring bland topographic models of cities and states at highway rest stops, engaging in board games like Risk and Omaha Beachhead, and poring over my brother’s worn atlases, I aspired to become a cartographer of new worlds using Paint.
The results of my endeavors — such as employing basic copy-and-paste techniques of three-pixel-wide buildings to convey urban sprawl — rarely mirrored my initial vision. Yet, Paint captivated me not because it was a hidden gem, but due to its glaring crudeness. My creations became commendable due to the sheer effort poured into them. Crafting rain clouds from trapezoids or hairstyles using spray-can bursts only amplified the sense of accomplishment. If you could manage to depict it in Paint, you could adapt that creativity to any medium. Above all, there was the rare joy of genuinely attempting something.
Recently, I visited Best Buy, where bemused employees observed me as I used a $2,000 top-of-the-line Lenovo desktop to once again pull up Paint and recreate those uneven grids and awkward stick figures. Nearly a decade had passed since I last opened the program, having finally succumbed to the pressures of adulthood and transitioned to Adobe Photoshop on my company-issued MacBooks. I expected the software to feel foreign and sophisticated now. To my delight, I was greeted by the familiar simplicity of its tool bar.
Within minutes, I sketched an imperfect outline of a rough cube, which quickly evolved into an even rougher depiction of a house. My curiosity piqued when I stumbled upon a couple of buttons I didn’t recognize, including one labeled Image Creator, powered by OpenAI’s text-to-image A.I. Microsoft touted it as a tool to “help you unleash your creativity.” Intrigued, I prompted it to generate “a map of a city on a river.” The result was a technically proficient yet utterly generic graphic, reminiscent of artwork you might find hanging on the wall of a Days Inn. It unleashed my creativity about as much as purchasing a Twix bar from a vending machine would transform me into a master pastry chef.
