Nowadays, Neopets seems like a relic of the past. You may have had an account back in the day, possibly doting over a wolf-like Neopet with a name like xXilovederekXx or greek372274 or BigCheesejojo. The joy was of feeding your pet, buying it useless objects, and playing minigames to earn a miniscule amount of Neopoints, with which you would buy more useless objects.
These were simpler times. Eventually, the site was bought by Viacom (AKA Nickelodeon’s parent company) and re-tooled into a money sink. The art of all pets was altered to accommodate the newly-created customization/clothing options, making pets who were “unconverted” into a rare commodity. A couple video games were released, a truckload of merchandise was dumped into places like Justice and McDonald’s, and options to pay real money for virtual objects was introduced. At the height of its popularity, Neopets was killing it… until suddenly, it wasn’t.
The community dwindled. Neopets was a fad; the children who had played the site grew up and moved on. The situation got so bad that Viacom sold the site to JumpStart (remember those Hooked on Phonics kind of games?) All seemed lost.
One would think that was the death knell for the site, but somehow, it held on. On Reddit and on the Neoboards, players with an interest in keeping up their accounts and not abandoning their pets rose from the ashes. A small community of committed members remained. This demographic was mostly women. As of the current years, the average Neopian is a woman in her early or mid-20s.
A poll on Reddit, which is notoriously male-dominated, found the community to be 69.7% female, 21.1% male, and 9.2% other/prefer not to say. If performed on the site directly, the number would likely be even higher. We were taking back the reins.
Now, there are places like the subreddit r/neopets, the Neoboards, the Neopets Discord, and Jellyneo where Neopets are thriving. Giveaways are held and Neo-Inktober is well on its way. The site’s newspaper, the Neopian Times, still gets regular entries of both new and longstanding writers and comic artists.
But on this site, we have power. We are with our kind, playing these games and complaining about any number of things wrong with Neopets. Among all the other male spaces on the internet, especially in online games, Neopets stands as a beacon and a safe haven for women to gather.
And yes, of course men and non-binary people play too. They’re just as welcome. But it feels nice for once to have a site where I’m very unlikely to be talked down to or sexually harassed. Beyond the fact that we’re mostly women, the whole community is welcoming and warm, and it’s easy to get involved or ask questions. The moderators of the site don’t generally allow adult topics at all, as it’s still technically a game for kids, but that does help cut down on abusive language and behavior.
I played Neopets. No, I PLAY Neopets. I logged back on sometime two years ago and realized that I really missed playing. So, I gathered up my humble stash of Neopoints and basic-colored, malnourished pets and got to work. I submitted a short story to the Neopian Times and got in. I finally hit 1 million Neopoints in the bank. With inflation from the player-run economy, that’s really not that much now, but it still felt good to reach a goal that 7-year-old me could have never even dreamed of. I painted all my pets fancy colors and finally got my hands on my dream pets. It was a long trek to get where I am now, and there’s still more to go.
This is my love letter to a game I never thought I’d come back to. It was just waiting for me all these years.