A strange little side quest
The mechanics around Popular Girl have roots that stretch far beyond modern browsers. In 18th-century America, upper-class men as well as women wore make-up, a reminder that beauty customs have never been as fixed as they can seem. That is only half the story. Spacewar! appeared on MIT's PDP-1 in 1962 and became one of the earliest influential computer games shared among programmers. That history is one reason familiar mechanics can still feel new when they are recombined well.
