It sounds crazy and scarcely believable to even type it but few images encapsulate both personal nostalgia and a wider cultural resonance quite like the now-iconic photograph of John Linneman's turn-of-the-century gaming corner desk. A personal snapshot from the archive, John's photo has since morphed into an internet meme, swiftly becoming a welcoming symbol of a bygone gaming era. We've reached the point now where the image has proliferated to the extent that people with no knowledge of Digital Foundry recognise it, while even regular viewers of our content are aware of John's vintage set-up without knowing the origins of the photo.

Unusually for YouTube, the comments on our recent DF clip are a joy to read: "This reminds me of the PC corner me and my brothers had from 1998 to early 2000s," posts tibelchior. "I loved our Compaq Presario, we played so many games with it."

"I miss the days in which we enshrined our PC. Often dedicating the entire room to it to show our respect," chimes in ZappBranniglenn.

"I had no idea this was John's. I have this picture with many others in a folder dedicated to old PC and home entertainment setups," adds metro9640. "I'll never understand why wooden office desks and warm lighting went out of style for most people. The new minimalist era of monochrome furniture and RGB lighting is so soulless."

Kopenshei sums up the whole situation rather nicely: "This is somehow pretty wholesome."

But before it was a meme, it was just a corner in a room in John's home. "That was my basic setup from about 1999 until I left that house," he says. "So that was back in my parents' house. That photo was actually taken after I'd been away. I lived in Japan for a year and before that a little bit in Michigan... So that's like a time capsule of the room circa late 2004 and then when I came back, I took this photo before moving again in 2006."

This static set-up actually encompasses one of the most dynamic periods in the history of PC gaming hardware. "I had that corner desk for a long time. When I first got it, I think I was using a Pentium 2 system and I continued to upgrade that through the years. I went from a 17-inch to a 19-inch Samsung monitor. I still have it in my parents' basement. It's cool... I could do 1600x1200 on there, which was nice at the time."

This wasn't just John's set-up though. It was a lived-in gaming space, shared with family. "It wasn't just me. My younger sister was super-hardcore into games as well," he says. "At the time, she was the one that put thousands of hours into Morrowind and I remember when Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines came out, I would go to bed at midnight, wake up at 5am and she's still at my PC playing that game."

The fringes of the image reveal a convergence of gaming platforms, including consoles and the origins of John's big physical media collection but it's the corner cabinet desk with PC, CRT monitor and slide-out keyboard tray that is the focal point of the image. And as social media discovered and circulated the image, it took on a life of its own, reposted widely and even watermarked by outlets with no claim to the photo whatsoever - like "@millenial_misery" here.

The nature of memes is that - inevitably - the original owner of the image has to relinquish such quaint concepts such as ownership and copyright as it becomes part of the fabric of the internet, but there are aspects of the photo that define John's life in gaming to this day, over 20 years later.

"One of the things about my setup that's interesting is that I actually did keep older consoles in the mix. You see the Dreamcast there, but there's also a Sega Saturn down there. But in addition, my PS2 is set up vertically, sitting on an Acer box, which would have been the laptop from my work. It was an Acer laptop, and I - for whatever reason - used the box that it came in as a PS2 stand, which is funny. And something else about that setup: that old silver PC case I used for many builds, the wires under the desk are a nightmare. Like, good lord, yeah..."

The photo may be decades old, but the key components of the image are still around in some way, shape or form. "That room is still in the family," he explains. "My sister bought that house, so she's still there. Amazing. But the desk is long gone, sadly, and the PC is in my parents' basement somewhere. All the electronics survived, basically. And I have all the games here in Germany. None of that stuff got thrown out or sold. So, it's all still around."

We can't help but smile every time we see John's old set-up resurface on social media. It's so widely shared not because it's a wildly extraordinary or extravagant image, but because of how ordinary it looks. It's a snapshot of a specific time in gaming history that a certain generation of gamers can readily identify with. Today it's a meme but the more it's shared and the further away from the turn of the century we get, the closer it gets to becoming a cultural icon.

The YouTube audience seems to agree. "Had that furniture setup in all three of my son's bedrooms! All had Dell monitors and towers. Good times," shares mikek92.

And NetYarozePerez has a brilliant idea: "It's clear that the only course of action for the newly independent Digital Foundry is to send John on a pilgrimage to the US to recreate this photo to the best of his ability for the modern day. Yes, even if it means having to source a replacement desk from the depths of Craigslist and to reverse any changes done by his sister to this room after she took over the house."