Almost every month, a new "party" would take over the island with a predetermined theme.
After being purchased by the Walt Disney Company for $700 million, that became true for Club Penguin as well.Īt the time, one of the game's unique features was that it constantly updated. Today, there are virtually no online platforms designed for children that don't rely on sponsored content in some form.
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This clashed with Club Penguin's original mission to serve as a space on the internet for kids to play and interact safely, free from ads. In reality, the pivot offered a better way to cash in, as in-game purchases and more frequent advertising are a standard of the industry. The move was marketed as an opportunity to meet users where they were.
The basic idea behind the broader pivot was that kids today, always on those darn cellphones, would prefer a more casual, vertical gaming experience outside of the computer or console. There is no guarantee that your favorite corner of web will continue to exist a decade from now. By 2017, the digital decay had become an established part of the internet tradition. While the shutdown did garner many, understandably, angry reactions, others rocketed past the seven stages of grief and landed on acceptance. Unlike the rest of the internet, the comment section on this page is important. Only by using the Wayback Machine, a service that periodically crawls webpages for archival, are we able to see the original announcement, preserved in digital amber. Navigating to now redirects the user to Disney's homepage, greeting the user with an advertisement for the live-action Lion King reboot. That title belongs to Flappy Bird.įollowing Club Penguin's shutdown, even the blog post itself has been lost to the pixelated sands of time.
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Club Penguin wasn't even the first avian-based game to be taken offline with little warning. In recent years, media companies like Deadspin have been hollowed out and sometimes twisted into advertising farms. Vine, the short-form video app that was also shut down in 2017, can only be viewed through YouTube compilations and TikTok imitations. There has been an astounding loss of cultural information as the internet has grown, considering the data created and destroyed within a two-decade period. Many relics from an older internet, like Napster or Myspace, are no longer around. But this adage doesn't apply in every situation. The only thing that elementary school teachers in Computer Class loved to do more than correct your hand placement over the keyboard was to remind you that "the internet is forever." The phrase was meant to be a warning against making an inappropriate AIM status, out of fear that prospective jobs or colleges would one day see it. The internet doesn't always last forever.
The history and mythology surrounding the site was proof that it was more than a game. The rumor prompted users to constantly flood the chat with demands to work together and "tip the iceberg." Like all good folklore, it didn't matter if it was true or false. After Donald Trump won the presidential election in 2016, protests broke out on the island, with penguins letting out text-based chants of "not my president" and "my body my choice" on the snow-covered streets.Ī longstanding in-game conspiracy theory was that an iceberg in the corner of the map would flip over, only if enough penguins stood on one side. Club Penguin created its own ecosystem of inside jokes, traditions, and memes, at a time where the latter was mostly limited photos of an animal and two lines of Impact font. Like Neopets and Habbo Hotel, the site helped show digital-natives the impact that virtual worlds can have on our own. In the post, the owners gave users until the end of March to get their affairs and igloos in order.įor the younger generation, the shutdown was the end of an era. The shutdown wouldn't be immediate, allowing users to continue waddling, dancing, and throwing snowballs as sentient penguins. After accumulating hundreds of millions of users over its 11 years, the party was finally over. It often indicates a user profile.Ī little over two years ago, on January 30, 2017, Club Penguin published a blog post announcing that the game and social networking site would be shut down. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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