In November 2023, Neopets.com celebrated its 24th birthday. A week and a half later, so did I.
At seven years old, I was, in a word, precocious. One day at a friend’s house, her mother asked me if I played Neopets, saying, “I can’t get Olivia off of it!” I had never heard of the site, but that night I went home and booted up my parents’ computer, a bulky Windows XP-based system complete with a CRT monitor. The archaic system was sufficient for my purposes, and I made my account.
I was hooked immediately. My first Neopet was a Mynci, a blue monkey-like creature. The Mynci, which I named AquaYellow for his coloration, accompanied me on my journey through the labyrinthian website. A product of the 1990s, Neopets was not made to modern user interface standards. Features were found through illustrated maps, drop-down menus, and by researching on fan-made websites. The hours I spent in front of that old monitor were filled with a sense of exploration and discovery. Neopia was an elaborate fictional world with dozens of strange and interesting characters to meet, all illustrated in a consistent, unique style.
One of my discoveries was The Neopian Times, a newsletter hosted on the site full of user contributions. It was my first encounter with user-generated content, a fascinating new idea. Anyone could draw or write about Neopia, submit it to the Times, and potentially have their work “published.” I soon began to draw my Neopets as well, making crude representations of each in pencil. At the time I had no idea how to scan anything, so I never did make it into the Times, but it was a good enough start for me. I began to develop an intense appreciation for the arts.
Meanwhile, as I grew older, things started to change for me. Something was off. I was different from the others, but I couldn’t tell how. All I understood was that there was some “normal” for my peers that decidedly did not include me. I couldn’t quite understand how they socialized, regardless of my attempts, and I grew more and more excluded. There was something about the “other girls” that didn’t make sense, and I didn’t stand a chance of interacting with the boys.
By now I was in middle school, but my enjoyment of Neopets continued. As the years passed, I also took interest in another part of the site: its customizable profile pages. Each user’s profile could be customized with basic HTML and CSS, the languages which form the basic structure and style of all webpages. Following the Neopets HTML tutorial, I made a profile featuring Van Gogh’s Starry Night that was likely pretty garish but was also an accomplishment. My eyes were opened to the possibilities and power that code could provide.
By the end of middle school and going into high school, I began to experience depression in earnest. The Internet — mainly Neopets — provided solace as things got harder. I continued to use the site religiously, spoiling my virtual pets, drawing pictures of them, writing stories, and coding their pet pages. Slowly, my skills and interests solidified, with art and computers becoming my main passions in life. When I was busy drawing or learning about my computer, I didn’t need to pay attention to all the problems I couldn’t solve. The site also provided a forum and messaging functionality, which allowed me to socialize when doing so at school wasn’t possible. I made close friends online whose distance didn’t make a dent in our friendship.
High school and college saw me spending less time on Neopets, as I became busier and social media became more and more relevant to my life and the larger culture. By then, Neopets had also lost its grip on its original target audience, children, who had moved on to easier and more exciting games and apps. Those of us who remained on the site were mostly adults, a fact that its owners were slow to recognize!
During my time at CSU, I finally began to understand myself a little better. The reason I was so different from others, why socializing was so difficult, was autism all along. And I didn’t fit in with the “other girls” because I wasn’t a girl at all. After transitioning to male, taking hormone replacement therapy, and undergoing top surgery, I finally had the chance to breathe. A literal and figurative weight was lifted from my chest, and I felt like I was just starting my life.
In the couple of years since, many kind people have supported me, from strangers asking my pronouns to friends encouraging my growth to professors praising my work. Now, I’m lucky enough to be working on a dual degree in computer science and art history — interests which started all those years ago on Neopets.
In the background, behind all the turbulence as the world and Internet evolved, Neopets just kept going somehow. It struggled to maintain relevance over the years, but it still managed to do so. Like me, it overcame some tough odds to remain here today. Now, under new ownership, it’s taken a look at its user base and decided to work with it, implementing features that users have wanted for years. A small but dedicated community keeps the site afloat, and it seems ready to keep going for years to come. At last, so do I.
