nostalgia | Pomelo girl thoughts

JumpStart lays off most of the old Neopets staff

Posted on March 8, 2015 by elemonated

Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in my peer group who cares about this, but I’m going to write out a little timeline anyway because it cuts to what’s left of my childhood nostalgia.

Back in 1999, Adam Powell, a programmer and game designer, and Donna Williams, a web designer and graphic artist, started Neopets as a way to “keep university students entertained, and possibly make some cash from banner advertising.” (Source) It soon garnered more than 600,000 views per day, and those working on the site reached out to investors to help cover costs. I probably joined in 2001 when I was about 9 when they had become a serious gaming site, and had taken off a lot of the non-Neopets jokes and branding. It was, at that point, almost totally converted to a children-oriented site where swearwords were monitored and personal information couldn’t be shared, but there were still themes of dark humor (murder mystery complete with decapitation!) in some of the content put up, and some of the female characters of the site were perhaps more scantily-clad than on a regular kids’ site.

In 2004, the team developed a premium membership in place of banner ads and some virtual perks. I never personally took advantage of these because I was still school aged, but I did take advantage of the free trial once!

In 2005, Adam and Donna sold the site to Viacom for $160 million (Source), and by 2007, a lot of the site was completely redesigned. The site itself, the pets, the shops, the worlds, etc, and some of the changes were made to make customization of pets (namely clothing and backgrounds) feasible, which opened up the possibility of pay-to-play features that they launched later in the year. Neopets was promoted through Nickelodeon at that time with lots of different types of merch and gift cards and a minishow. Some people were disgusted that TNT (The Neopets Team, as they are collectively referred to as) had sold out, and along with their demographic aging on them, the site became less and less popular. Users who were still on it however were more or less accepting of the changes as the function and core of it was still the same. Myself included, though I started to use the site less frequently.

In 2014, Neopets was acquired by JumpStart (Source), and basically everyone hated that shift. Server lags, glitches, didn’t add anything new– and on March 6th, nearly all of the Neopets staff were laid-off for unknown reasons. (Source)

It doesn’t look good. I think I may have to say good bye to a huge chunk of my childhood, and it is not a nice feeling.

15 Songs This Former Emo Kid Will Never Forget

Posted on October 22, 2014 by elemonated

http://www.buzzfeed.com/candacelowry/songs-every-former-emo-kid-will-never-forget-crying-to

The quintessential hot emo guy looked like this. If I recall correctly, he’s some DeviantArt chick’s younger brother and he probably has a mortgage now.

So I didn’t like Buzzfeed’s list. I’m going to make my own, shorter list instead. Not in any real order, and I tried to keep the list to one-band minimum, even though I used to have the whole Ocean Avenue, Riot!, and A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out. Mitigate the bias just a little, ya know?

1. I Will Follow You into the Dark – Death Cab for Cutie

2. My Immortal – Evanescence

3. Emergency – Paramore

4. Famous Last Words – My Chemical Romance

Alex Day

Posted on October 7, 2014 by elemonated

No one who cares is going to see this because I don’t have a tumblr and I’m don’t have a presence on Youtube, so I’m just going to write.

I missed Alex.

I grew up with Alex and Charlie and Brotherhood 2.0 and Phil and and Shane Dawson and Dave Days and a few other people who have since gone inactive. While I love the new vlog/show/skit deal, I miss shoddily-shot vlogs that were just random ramblings about stupid things that helped me pass the days of cringey pain and depression that was my middle school days. I had no exposure to sexuality except for Youtube until half way through high school, and I really do credit Youtube for a lot of my current values and the ones that are still changing and developing today.

So I watched the entirety of Alex’s new video.

And coming from someone who has many, many sins to repent, who has done and gone through more than I would wish on anyone, and even that is miniscule compared to some people out there, someone who’s been accused of being manipulative herself and am still questioning and going through that journey of figuring out which parts of those allegations are true and what I need to change, well.

I was appalled months ago when everything started. It just kept getting worse and no one and everyone was listening and everything was raw. And it opened up a lot of channels of discussion and completely shut other channels down. I had no idea who to listen to. There were lots of reminders of behaviors I’ve faced that made me uncomfortable, and a lot of reminders that the people I look up to are not special because I like them. What I failed to recognize back then were the behaviors that I had done. Ones that I cringe at now because I know better and ones that I forgave myself for because I was young and stupid. Ones that people around me constantly make, in fits of passion or frustration or confusion or simple ignorance that others have forgiven since.

And that’s the word I haven’t heard as often as I’d like. Alex Day is a person, maybe a stupid, inconsiderate person who happened to make the mistakes a lot of people make except he happened to be someone big in a huge community. And in an internet community, where a lot of people like to solve problems by simply making them disappear and forgetting about their existence. There’s little redemption, and little room for correction, and that’s sad. Because I know what it feels like to be a stupid, inconsiderate person, but I can’t imagine what it feels like to be taken to task about it by thousands of people whom I have never talked to me my entire life.

I can’t imagine being friends with such shitty people that would publicize their grievances to a reactive crowd, that want to make him disappear for mistakes so many people make and have to go through. To be vilified for being human.

Well fuck all that. I want to see him grow. I welcome his return.

Anyway, I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore. My roommate’s guests have music on and I can’t concentrate so I’ll end this here. I think I got everything out? I’m sure I just sound vague and incoherent, but whatever. I’m going to bed.