Children of Club Penguin
It is December 19th, 2013. I am sitting in front of the family computer and my eyes are glazed over with wonder and absolute. unbroken. focus. Unrestricted Internet access at my fingertips, I am attempting to grapple with the sheer gravity of what I am witnessing. Up to forty million credit and debit cards compromised in Target’s worst data breach to date, according to the US Secret Service? Absolutely not. I am a ten-year-old Serbian child, it is the first day of the Club Penguin 2013 Holiday Party and the only thing I know about credit cards is that they can make me a member.
“I am a ten-year-old Serbian child, it is the first day of the Club Penguin 2013 Holiday Party and the only thing I know about credit cards is that they can make me a member.”
The early-to-mid 2000s marked the family-friendly MMO (massively multiplayer online game) era, and Club Penguin was one of its hallmarks – there was something in that post-economic-recession air making kids around the world go crazy for that Sweet Swirl Igloo. Maybe it was the recession, or maybe it was the recession plus the option to customize everything about yourself and escape into a world where you can have three pets, ten boyfriends AND the Sweet Swirl Igloo, all for the fair price of six USD per month. What started off as a simple chat room called Experimental Penguins around the year 2000 (where – you guessed it – you could chat with people through the beak of a penguin avatar), turned into a Disney-owned, elaborate virtual world by 2007. They had it all: multiple rooms, (vaguely penguin-themed) minigames and character customization options. And of course, like all of your run-of-the-mill MMOs, paid membership that would effectively turn you into a penguin one BILLION times cooler, better and more popular than those pesky non-members with their two outfit options.
The biggest appeal of Club Penguin for me was twofold. One, the parties – seasonal events with storylines (I didn’t understand because I barely spoke English), tasks (I didn’t know how to complete because I barely spoke English) and exclusive items (the Sweet Swirl Igloo transcends the language barrier). Two, the ability to talk to people. Considering how much I’ve emphasized that English is not my native language, this might sound counterintuitive, and I have almost been persuaded into sharing my password with strangers… once or twice, but you really don’t need a huge vocabulary to learn what ‘hru’ and ‘let’s tip the iceberg’ mean (and they mean that you’re cool and have an awesome grasp on social dynamics).
The Sweet Swirl Igloo in question
There is probably something to be said here about the appeal of MMOs and virtual worlds – something about how big corporations monetize coolness or rather, create coolness by putting it behind a paywall. Something about the ethics of manufacturing this kind of social dynamic in arguably the most impressionable audience. However, all that comes in retrospect, when your favorite games are long gone and the only way to reconnect with them is through video essays, dead Wikis and small communities of nostalgic adults who use Discord. It’s not something you think about logging on at the age of ten, or even when you realize that no matter how many emails to CEOs you write and no matter how many sad emoticons you put in them, all of your progress will still be lost when a board room full of old people decides it’s time to pull the plug. Instead, you think about time invested, items gained and connections lost, and it feels as real as anything else.
With almost all of my favorite childhood virtual worlds fading away either into obscurity or off the face of the Internet, and with who knows how many Winx dress-up games and Spongebob Escape Rooms lost with the death of Flash Player, I can’t help but think of parts of my childhood and feel a sense of displacement. Maybe it’s a deep lesson about how nothing is permanent, or maybe it’s one about what happens when new ways to earn money (from children) inevitably replace old ones. Either way, it is hours of effort, time and genuine connection irreparably and deliberately lost. All of my Puffles killed with the flip of a switch at some megacorp office. What remains is what little memories you have left of chatting (let’s be honest – e-dating) with people, decorating your igloo, getting your password stolen completely by your own fault and your first encounter with the Brazilian flag. Ah, those Brazilian penguins… they were always so passionate…
