How Neopets Changed My Life
Recently a couple of my friends have started writing on Substack, and I had so much fun reading their articles that it inspired me to write this blog post. I guess I did used to write these kinds of posts on Tumblr, but they were all lost in a sea of re-blogs. I do also write in my YouTube descriptions sometimes, and this post will be probably be similar in a rambling, stream of consciousness diary entry way.
I started reminiscing about Neopets during my shower today. 작심삼일… I know motivation disappears in about 3 seconds, so I immediately jotted down points I wanted to touch on while blow drying my hair, and now I am writing in bed. 🤣
I guess I’m in a nostalgic mood! I messaged my childhood best friend group chat about listening to Keep Holding On in the car today. Then I listened to Avril Lavigne and Simple Plan’s new song. I started watching Love O2O for the first time yesterday, and the main characters meet through an online game. I was shook that even though it seemed to be a fighting/battle game, they even had elaborate in-game marriages and I thought it was so nerdy. But then I remembered Neopets.
I think I first started playing Neopets in fourth grade, back when we still had to use dial-up internet (Wild! Feels like a fever dream!).
Back then I wasn’t allowed to play computer on weekdays, so before I went to school my dad would always do my Neopets dailies for me: collecting interest from the bank, spinning all the wheels, trying to take treasure from the Snowager, getting a slice of the Giant Omelette, Healing Springs, Advent Calendar in December… He was so good at Faerie Bubbles, he even scored high enough to get the secret avatar for both me and Carols. Later in college, in my Intro to Game Creation class, I coded a Pokemon version of Faerie Bubbles as my final project.
Neopets got me through my turbulent middle and high school teenage angst years. I spent hours chatting to my guild members, my internet friends. Internet friends didn’t seem scary/creepy back then. I remember Prin, Loren, and Ghostie (Ghosty?). We were even close enough to log into each other’s accounts to help each other get avatars (such as the ones that required high scores in a game). This was a big deal because hackers were SO common. We spent time recruiting for our guild on the Neoboards (the online forum section of the website). I never had as much school spirit as the spirit I had for my guild. And of course, it was a guild focused on avatar collecting. :)
So many memories! I remember feeding kadaoties together. I even got a confession from a childhood friend over Neomail. I used to send my dad a NeoGreeting instead of an e-card on his birthday! Neopets strengthened my real-life friendships as well.
When I finally got my own computer in middle school, I spent probably a minimum of 4 hours on Neopets every day. And during summer break, I would literally spend ALL DAY online. I even got my first symptoms of carpal tunnel back then LOL whoops. What was I doing on there, besides dailies and playing games for Neopoints? Collecting secret avatars, chatting with my guild members, lurking/chatting on the Avatars/NeoSignatures Neoboard.
Oh my gosh, Neoboards! NeoSignatures! I forgot all about those until just now. And now I actually know HTML, so I would be able to create my own NeoSignatures now… and profile layouts. Wild!! And people used to make free layouts and signatures for other people! I guess that was a version of open source back then. :)
Collecting secret avatars was BIG. I think it was also the cause of the one and only “fight” I’ve ever gotten into with Carols. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I think it had to do with me not waiting for her before getting another avatar (having more avatars than other people was a big deal hahaha).
Neopets is probably also the reason that at a young age, I was cognizant of scammers/hackers/phishers. You really run into a lot of those people when you’re trying to collect secret avatars. Does anyone remember Jazz Invincible? I think he was the most famous user on Neopets, for being the first person to reach X number of secret avatars. I just logged into my main account to check, and I collected 310 secret avatars. I remember the days when people would put junk items (like a Pile of Dung or Old Rotten Left Shoe) up for trade in hopes of receiving a Neopoints donation. This might also be a fever dream, but I remember sending Jazz Invincible a fan Neomail, and later he offered whatever was the maximum allowed Neopoints amount for my item!
I think Neopets was also the catalyst for me to decide to major in Computer Science, even though my idea of CS was completely wrong. I thought it would just be HTML/CSS and making games. I remember back then Lizzie knew HTML and CSS to code profile layouts for us, and I thought it was magic. Although I don’t have to do any styling at my current job, I did spend 4 years doing it at Spiceworks!
In elementary school, starting in third grade, we learned to type with bandanas over our hands so we couldn’t see the keys. I excelled at Type to Learn. I think my accuracy and speed were further improved from chatting with my guild members all day and being on AIM all day. I also played so much Typing Terror because that was a difficult avatar to get. This skill has helped me so much, from being able to take notes quickly during class to helping me during my job since I have to write so much documentation, communication, and code. I just took a 1 minute typing test for fun, and my result was 109 wpm with 100% accuracy. I think it also helped me learn the Korean keyboard quickly, and I can also type in Korean pretty quickly (for a foreigner) without looking at the keys. This was so handy when I had to type up essays for Korean in college, and communicating with my colleagues and students during my Fulbright. I loved Type to Learn so much that I created a similar game to learn the Korean keyboard for a hackathon.
I know I have a bad view of gamers. Which is kind of ridiculous because I spent so much time on Neopets and Pokemon. And as a high schooler, I used to set my alarm for 3am so I could harvest crops on Farmville (before I made myself quit cold turkey). But maybe it’s because the gamer stereotype is playing super violent games all night and not sleeping, and not having jobs. The stereotype that gaming = unproductive, a waste of time. I suddenly wonder if my mom had these thoughts about me, since I spent so much time on Neopets hahaha. And I definitely remember playing Pokemon on my GameBoy while practicing violin too. I wonder if she thought I was wasting time. So I definitely feel a bit guilty sometimes if I’m playing too much. I had an amazing time playing the BTS World mobile game during COVID. It was SO well made, and you could tell that the creators really loved and knew BTS well. But I also deleted that from my phone once quarantine was over. Now, the only game I have on my phone is Rummikub, which I play without feeling guilty because I feel like it’s training my brain LOL. But I’m currently watching a C-drama (that’s another recent development, I’ve suddenly watched so many in the past month) called Love O2O, and I think it’s helping me remove this prejudice.
Also Carols, Lizzie, Kathy, and I were all playing Pokemon ORAS and we had SO much fun reviving the group chat with it. And we’re having our first group hangout in YEARS this summer, where we will be relaxing at Kathy’s family lake house, playing/watching Pokemon, and reading fan fiction. I am so excited!
As someone that always has my email tab open, always has zero unread messages, and religiously unsubscribes from newsletters, I still have not unsubscribed from Neopets emails, even though I don’t really play anymore. It’s a nice little inbox greeting every once in a while. :)
Neopets has changed my life for the better, and whenever I think about it, it makes me think I had a good childhood. Growing up with the height of Harry Potter, AIM, Neopets, Pokemon, K-pop, and COVID not hitting until after graduating from college… we were born at the perfect time.
Connie Feng BLOG