#do YOU have club penguin membership

[chericherilvr]

"hey let's play some hockey video games" 'oh fuck yes!! let's gauurrr!!' opens up club penguin and goes to the stadium. ha. this loser doesnt know whats coming to him.

[inkskinned]

i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".

it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.

do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.

but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.

do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).

you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.

walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.

no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.

do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."

you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.

there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.

i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.

he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."

[aerequets]

randomly remembered the time when I was 9 or 10 years old and in a Huge online game phase (think club penguin, fantage, Poptropica, etc). my fixation at the time of this memory was fantage, which, for those who don't know, was basically a dress-up game where you could also interact with other players and play games and whatnot.

so I was Obsessed. like begging my dad for memberships (he finally got me one for one month. it cost $6) and beelining straight to fantage when I got home from school and acting like the pixelated clothing items I got for my pixelated avatar were truly treasure. like this was my second world guys. My... happiness? No, not my happiness, but maybe my sanity hinged on this online game.

now one thing about fantage was that they had censored words, like cuss words, because it was a game for kids. if you said something, it could result in a temporary ban, or, if what you said was REAL bad, a permanent ban on your account.

anyways, people found a neat little trick where if you said the word 'sexy' (not a cuss word but also not something you want kids to be using?) the game would automatically convert it to 'cool'. and I was ALL OVER this trick. For some reason 9 year old me found it the funniest thing in the world to see 'sexy' written in the chat bar (which, by the way, I didn't even really know what it meant) only for the word 'cool' to come up in my speech bubble instead. I even started experimenting. what if I wrote 'exy'? (nothing.) what if it was capitalized? (COOL.)

what if I wrote 'sex'?

probably because it isn't a bad word, the orange pop-up of doom only declared I was banned for 24 hours instead of forever. but I can still remember the sheer panic and horror 9 year old me felt at that sight. I was Banned.

i guess 9 year old me also didn't have any foresight, because instead of 1) considering it was only a day long ban, I could wait and 2) considering it was only a day long ban, NOBODY HAD TO KNOW, I instead ran straight to my mom with tears running down my face and loudly asked "IS S E X A BAD WORD?" mind you, I spelled it out S-E-X because I was under the impression that banned fantage words would somehow also get me banned from real life.

my mother, bless her soul, only looked horrified as her sniveling 9 year old stood there after asking that question. after asking the normal questions (where did you hear that, what happened) and getting a hold on the situation, all she said was "Yes it's a bad word" and left it at that. Im glad she didn't put any stock into my panic over being banned for ONE DAY because wtf was I actually doing.

anyways moral of the story?? practice safe sexy I guess idk I have no idea why I was like that

[awingedllama]

hey anna are the things you are currently making going to be up for early access? i can't wait to get my hands on it and im willing to spend the coin.

hi! i’m highly flattered by that :) people have asked before and i haven’t really explained, but i don’t do early access

because 1) i rather people support me bc they genuinely appreciate my time and effort, not because i dangled cc in front of them and said “want it now? lemme hold a dollar”

and 2) because there are a lot of kids who follow me, and i’d be paywalling content from them as they’re too young to have credit cards, or disposable income, or patience. as a former ts3 sims kid myself i can’t imagine if i had to wait a week for something during my summertime cc shopping sprees. let alone asking for my dad’s credit card for a patreon subscription, omg. it’s giving predatory club penguin membership

when i’m done with a set i post it immediately, and it gets posted for everyone for free! however, that being said, if there’s a specific WIP i’ve shared and you want it before it’s officially ‘released’, just send me a message or ask! i have been known to take quite a while on my sets so i have no problem sharing stuff early. just know you’ll probably want to replace it with the ‘finished’ version, as it’ll be more polished :)

[kagender]

do you think any of the frogs would have been into toontown or club penguin some other mmo

well i picked some critter mmos for them.... couldnt think of anything for giroro sadly but if uve got ideas u can send them to me. club penguin / moshi monsters / toontown / animal jam tamama is poppet's #1 fan. very dedicated to his moshling collection and he is very much prone to raging when he doesnt get the right plant color or moshling LOL kururu is a so-called elitist and is like scarily standoffish to anyone who doesnt play good enough for his standards. probably a semi hater zeroro has basically lifetime membership and is also stupidly rare. unfortunately he is also easily guilted into giving them away (projecting here. just a bit) i dont actually know much about club penguin it just felt right for keroro. probably a nerd about cardjitsu

[traversety]

okay so maybe i decided to draw soulsucker and starfucker as club penguin characters. so what.

also my sd card for my camera is missing. so uh. woe. laptop camera be upon ye.

i have loaded these two with my personal soul and star headcanons as you can see :3

thrownin some headcanons for soul and star penguins here under the cut

soul is aqua and star is peach

soul would have The Most Luxurious Igloo you can imagine. he is pulling out all the stops. fancy time. star is like "fuck it whatever" and the way their igloo looks you'd think they don't have membership or they're piss poor

honestly star likes pretending they're piss poor just because it's funny but they do dress nice so it's kinda pointless. however they are REALLY fucking good at cart surfer you cannot convince me otherwise.

soul basically lives in the pizza parlor kitchen. he loves the pizzatron and is so fucking good at making the pizzas, regular and candy. also you KNOW he's aced bean counters 1000000 times

both of them love the puffles but star only gets black ones for some reason. soul has like every fucking puffle under the sun and THEN some.

star thinks the penguin band is really fucking cool and hangs around them when they can. soul is more interested in the epf. also he's best friends with rookie. you cant convince me otherwise

soul has this OBSESSION with the box dimension and i promise it didnt come from rookie ahahahahahhahahaha (/srs). star fucking hates the place it's way too insane for them to understand

[psiioniic-exe]

I miss the old internet :(

Something thats been on my mind a lot lately is how kids these days dont have anywhere safe to be, online or even irl(roads... fml....)

Like back in my day we had club penguin and neopets and barbie.com and tinierme and all these fun and safe wholesome sites for kids, and it really was safe. Club penguin especially! I just watched the burbacks vid on club penguin and the origins... the fact that pre-disney, new horizons REFUSED to advertise to kids, and thats why they implemented the membership (while annoying for us poor kids, it made the site safe and ad free) is so so respectable

But nowadays the internet is just ads amlnd social media, and neither of those are safe for kids... like do you know how many 14 or 15 year old girls i see online advertising nudes? I dont go into nsfw tags anywhere anymore bc of it. Like these kids are not safe, and its so scary and upsetting and i think another thing is that social media is normalizing things like this to these kids...

All social media is, is vapid, selfish, racist, and otherwise mean and bigoted "content" and kids are so impressionable... and the ads make it so much worse like i have no hope for their futures...

[crossover-enthusiast]

Do you think Skid and Pump would be Webkinz, Animal Jam or Club Penguin kids?

Ohhh that's an interesting question-

Personally I was a Club Penguin kid so I'm a little biased -- Pump definitely has a membership. Pump's penguin is orange and Skid's is purple, and the two have Puffles in each others colors

I feel like they would also have Webkinz! Little plush toys that come with cool stuff? They'd love that!

Also I feel like they would absolutely eat up all those dark Webkinz rumors from back in the day, like Dr. Quack killing pets

[sunsoak]

Ok old fart rant incoming. I think it’s actually a major problem that fun, not-overtly-educational websites for kids don’t really exist anymore in this era where more children are online than ever before. Are we really just welcoming the fact that 8 year olds are on instagram now? Literal elementary schoolers posting tiktok dance videos on a platform where anyone in the world can see them? It’s inevitable that children are going to be online but i really feel like they should be urged towards more kid friendly corners of the internet. The problem is they don’t seem to exist anymore! Club penguin is dead, moshi monsters is dead, poptropica is dead, webkinz and neopets are pretty much only used by nostalgic millennials. And any of these games which used to be so popular with kids that are still trying to stay alive are nothing but cash grabs now, like webkinz making you pay for a “deluxe” membership to do half the things you used to be able to do with a standard membership. Like yeah there’s always gonna be fucking cool math games or whatever but let’s be real, kids don’t want to be forced to only ever play obviously educational games. There is a big space between educational kids websites and adult social media and that’s where fun worlds like club penguin are supposed to live! Online spaces where kids can explore and play all kinds of games and talk to each other and personalize their avatar and have pets and, yes, learn some things along the way too! Do some puzzle based games, some trivia, be responsible for caring for a Little Guy, learn the very basics managing money with their in-game coins or whatever! In a space that is stimulating and fun while also age appropriate! I guess part of it is that laptops/desktops are less common now for kids to be using and most are just on their phones. And the phone is really most suited to apps, and kids want a big, social, fun online world to explore that most low effort ad-riddled app games don’t provide, so the logical step to take is getting on instagram or tiktok. It’s just so dejecting. I feel like we’ve gone too far to solve this problem now and these kids are gonna be developing mental illnesses that have never existed before

[ninootny]

talk about gary the gadget guy i am listening very intently

ninoo and gary documentary

"a flabbergasting and beautiful story about a kid who learned nerd exists" 8/10, -igm

"my favorite fanfiction, wait, it's a documentary? even better!!!" 10/10 - club penguin times

gary is like so special just look at him he's so tiny idk, he's a friend!!! i wish i was able to get gary stuff when i was younger but i never found club penguin stuff in stores (even if it was pretty popular in france) he really did something to my brain when i was playing club penguin everyday back then (at least when i was at my mom's place/work because for some reasons (child of divorce) i became chronically online around 8). i would just do on loop the psa missions because i loved him, and my dad put the club penguin epf ds game on my r4 and yeah, obsessed.

since i'm (breaking my silence) i'm a nerd i think i related to him + he has glasses + he's creative, i just had a huge kin moment i think. I stopped playing club penguin after operation blackout, and then i came back a few years later with a few friends because we were going on every old kid mmo to have fun (we were roleplaying/trolling in a nice way, like we were just like "we're about to hack the epf silly penguins.... and steal all your pokemons" (because pokemon go was popular and we loved it a lot) and i saw him again. and i was remembering how much i love that guy. i would love to find my old drawings of him but i moved a lot sooo a lot of drawing are lost-

i remember when they announced island i didn't understand club penguin would shut down. and I didn't saw the website closed, I learned it maybe a week after the terrible event and I was devastated. my friends from this era didn't care a lot about it because they never played to club penguin when they were kids, i cried about club penguin shut down and not being able to see my silly penguin again (Nella02, a cyan penguin who never got the membership because my parents didn't understand that i needed a yellow puffle so bad), but also, not being able to play the legit version of club penguin and knowing I'll never get new EPF events, no more gary content.

the void

but hey!! we can find some!!! tweets!!! from my new twitter acc because the old one is gone (got banned for lying about my age)

after this event gary just came back in my head sometimes and i would be crazy for like. a week maybe.

"love"

but this time it's getting very long, i really want to focus on other characters like Cadence and Rookie because i loved them too as a kid (I wanted to cut my hair very short but my parents were pretty much against it because they were like "you need to keep girly long hair" 💀 and seeing Cadence as a kid made me happy I think) but gary is too strong idk

in 2020 i thought about rookie and gary at the same time it's crazy

"clearly the best huh"

"i really want to play to club penguin but i'm at work" (heartbreaking)

also i think it's because of him that all my favs are blue pathetic nerds who never sleep (tsumugi aoba from ensemble stars my dearest wife)

"gary from club penguin i think about him evry day of my life amen hes just the type of person i love sorry blue nice pathetic nerd who wants to be useful to others"

"its the saem character"

sorry i needed to talk about my relation with club penguin and i think in a few years i'll just. i'll just look like my gary gijinka. my hair is blue and i really want a lab coat BECAUSE OF THEM ALL

have a nice and beautiful day

[misguidedlavender]

happy birthday, toontown rewritten.

time to get sappy!

on a warm, sunny day, on august 20th, 2013, i booted up my familys ancient windows vista PC to redeem my 1 month membership card for toontown online. after going to the main website, as id done a thousand times before, there, in small white lettering, on a bold red background, i read the most earth shattering words that could have ever shaken my small teenage self. attention, toons! toontown online will be closing on september 19, 2013. i, along with many other kids and adults, felt our souls be crushed. i ran to toonbook to see if anyone else had seen it already. the heartbreak was palpable. our precious game, our fun little paradise, our home away from home, was going away in just a months time.

i remember playing nearly every day from that point on, doing everything i possibly could, holding hard and fast to what little time i had left before toontown shut down for good. i remember the communitys desperate pleas to disney to not close the game in the form of many change.org petitions. i remember the fiery anger at the original blog post, stating that disney wanted to divert resources towards club penguin (which was quickly edited out, of course). but so it goes, in the normal course of business, the cries of hundreds of thousands of children went ignored.

on the morning of september 19th, 2013, i woke up early to gather in toon valley of toontown central to bid farewell. my goodbye was not even remotely clean or graceful. i was booted out maybe an hour or so before the game officially shuttered at noon. and that was it. no fanfare or final words. there was silence, and there was sadness.

but in the midst of our collective grief, whispers began to spread around toonbook. did you hear? this guy on mmo central forums says hes gonna revive the game. no way, thats not possible, the games dead, obviously. but in a few days time, a proof of concept was revealed. from the cynicism, a different tune emerged. the sound of hope.

toontown wasnt coming back. it was being rewritten.

in the many years ive played this game and been a part of its community, ive made so many precious memories and friends that have become core parts of my soul. it has served as an endless fuel for my creativity and introduced me to so many incredible and colorful people. heck, i married the guy i met through this game. ttr was there throughout my most formative years. even in my darkest moments, i never strayed too far from the trolley. i would be such a vastly different person without ttr. i will never not be grateful for all the opportunities, memories, love, and happiness that ive experienced because of this game.

with all the warmth i can afford, happy 10th birthday toontown rewritten. against all odds, you have survived—no, lived—a full ten years powered only by the love of community who refused to let their home disappear. your persistence in the most unlikely of circumstances is emblematic of why its worth it to keep striving. in the face of despair, what most would see as a stop sign, you saw as a giant green light. you radiate an infectious passion that makes me smile even when i dont want to. you are a happy respite in a world that is difficult, dark, gray, and full of cogs. you taught me that, no matter how old i am, silliness and fun arent something to grow out of, but essential to our existence.

geez, im getting a little misty eyed. i should stop here. thank you for everything ttr. heres to another decade of happiness.

[magicstar16]

I miss kid friendly MMOs

I mean, webkinz is still around but the site is being held together by duct tape, prayers, and deluxe memberships (I mean the membership thing was around when I was a kid, but you didn’t need a membership to do like, 90% of everything).

I played neopets once as a kid after Petpet park shut down, but it lost my attention as quickly as it caught it (sorry 90s kids).

Club penguin, build-a-bear’s Bearville, Petpet park, LPS online (I only played it like once, I admittedly had been playing MMOs since before I could read so I don’t have many memories of playing it) Beanie Babies 2.0…

And monkey quest, God I loved monkey quest.

I was considering animal jam but then drama happened.

Also I never once played Fer.al. (Think I dodged a bullet though) and it’s potential was lost to greed and NFTs.

I want those kinds of MMOs back.

[lookslikethatsallthetimewehave]

I know it’s uncertain rn, but I highly doubt Poptropica would quietly pull its plug. The fandom is small but still existing, and trying to keep the website up despite everything is a feat they take pride in.

If *knock on wood* the game does shut down, they would give an advance notice because they KNOW they can’t get away with silently doing so.

Personally I think membership has probably become unprofitable (since they already sell islands on Steam, which is more appealing to the active returnee fanbase). If not, they have some glitches with the system they have to fix. But I’m not a developer, and that’s just me talking by the seat of my pants.

I also do think Club Penguin’s sinking startled everyone and probablyyy (not definitely) the devs don’t want Poptropica to go down the same way.

When you mentioned that Club Penguin thing, I was like "Yeah you're right."

They silently pulled Poptropica Worlds because they knew nobody cared about it or played it. But people actually care about Poptropica original. So I can't see them quietly pulling that.

[neroposting]

i remember there was a mobile version of club penguin that was out after the original one “was kill”

i remember to get literally any sort of cool thing you had to pay for some kind of membership or something (never got that …)

but a few days before it would shut down, every account had free memberships and you could basically do anything in the week or two before it shut down

i made a couple of friends.. i remember talking to one on the day the game would shut down and i miss them. i wonder where they are now?

but the whole reason i made this post was something that happend to me a bit earlier in the games life

so one day some random dude comes up to me and says “hey girl”

it wasnt very obvious that i was a girl but i guess they assumed it since my penguins colour was pink

then they say something like “wanna see my 1 inch duck?”

(i assume that duck was used because of the chat filter, but even younger me knew what that meant)

and……. anyways i just blocked this person and moved on with my day

i just wanted to say this because this stuck in my memory and its a weird memory that i have anyways … so yeah

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 4/5

Book Blurb: A glitzy YA thriller set in New York City elite social circles, filled with backstabbing and blackmail, twisty secrets, and a dead body, from New York Times bestselling author Jessica Goodman. Perfect for fans of Euphoria, Holly Jackson, and Jessica Knoll. Old money. New secrets. One killer party. Scoring an invitation for membership to the exclusive Legacy Club in New York City is more than an honor. It gives you a lifetime of access to power and wealth beyond any prep school doors and guaranteed safety and security as Legacy Club members always look out for their own. That is, after you make it through a rigorous week of events and the extravagant gala, the Legacy Ball. So it’s not surprising when Excelsior Prep seniors Bernie Kaplan, Isobel Rothcroft, and Skyler Hawkins are nominated as Legacies; their family pedigrees have assured their membership since birth—even if they're all keeping secrets that could destroy their reputations. But scholarship kid from Queens Tori Tasso? She’s a surprise nominee, someone no one saw coming. Tori’s never fit in this world of designer bags, penthouse apartments, and million-dollar donations. So what did she do to secure her place? The night of the Legacy Ball is supposed to be the best night of these seniors’ lives, a night of haute couture, endless champagne, and plenty of hushed gossip. Everyone expects a night of luxury and excess. No one expects their secrets to come out. Or for someone to die trying to keep them hidden.

Review:

A elite society, secrets, betrayal, and more. You can only get a membership at the Legacy Club in New York City if you are invited and nominated.... it gives you a lifetime access to power, wealth, connections and so much more. Every year new members are picked at the Legacy Ball and the winner  receives money, not that they need it.... but this year’s ball ends with a dead body... time to figure out what happened. Students at Excelsior Prep are nominated as Legacies, their families pedigree assuring their membership since birth.... but these students: Bernie Kaplan, Isobel Rothcroft and Skyler Hawkins all have their own secrets that could destroy everything. Another nominee is the scholarship student Tori Tasso.... and she’s the surprise one, because no one from her “world” has been picked before and now she is dropped into a world of wealth and secrets. Each of these students has a secret, and each of them will be connected to one another and the dead body by the time the Legacy Ball is over... but who died and was it an accident or a murder? This was a fun read! I liked the mystery and I liked the cut from past and present. I really liked Bernie the most out of all the characters. Her main concern throughout the book is finding out where her mother disappeared and what happened to her, but her friends are all hiding secrets and everything she knew about her mother might be wrong. Overall, a really fun read if you like mysteries with an elite school/society setting!

*Thanks Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group, Razorbill for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[daughter-of-sapph0]

please stop reblogging this my notification tab is dying

this post has been edited. here's the original text:

apple completely censoring tumblr to the point where you can't even say words that aren't even sexual like soap or pipe is the beginning of the end for tumblr’s usability and user experience. the process already started with the Dec 17 ban and recently with the overexposure of ads. but pretty soon, apple is gonna make tumblr unusable. it's not like virizon cared about making the site functional when they owned it, and automatic/wordpress (current owners) definitely don't give a shit about tumblr now.

everywhere else on the internet, content is heavily monitored and censored. you'll get banned if you say anything that's against tos. sometimes that's good, as it gets rid of all the nazis. other times it's terrible, when people abuse the reporting ai to ban normal people. the whole banning system is unpredictable, so to be safe, people need to censor themselves on twitter and tiktok and facebook and ig and youtube. they can't say "kill", they have to say "unalive". they can't talk about violence, so they have to sugarcoat real world events. they can't swear, talk about racism or sex or history, or even acknowledge that the world is a fucked up place, because "kids use this app". tumblr was one of the last safe places on the internet where you could threaten to kill the president without having the fbi show up to your house.

but with this new apple shit, tumblr is becoming more like every other site online. any post that contains a word on a constantly expanding list is hidden from ios users. any blogs marked as "explicit" (which is also a huge issue btw) are unaccessible by apple users. not straight up banning people, but still preventing access to the real tumblr for those users. now over a third of tumblr’s userbase is either stuck on a completely sanitized version of tumblr, has to use the web browser version on their phone, or just cut off from tumblr entirely.

the internet used to be a place of togetherness and inclusiveness and content sharing and entertainment and fun. now it's mostly corporate garbage and ads. companies love ads. and to run ads effectively, they need as many people as possible to see them. and to do that, the places they advertise have to be family friendly so everyone can use them. that's what all of these sites are doing. banning creativity and expressiveness so they can force you to watch more ads. I understand that there's server costs. I understand that the employees need to eat. but there are so many bugs that haven't been fixed in years that it seems like @staff is getting paid to do fuck all, and instead wasting their time making stupid design decisions to distract us from them selling out.

what does this current situation say about the future of tumblr and the internet as a whole? I don't really know. if things continue as they are, more people will leave tumblr for newer sites, or twitter once tumblr becomes just as unusable as it (might as well use the more popular shitty site if they're both equally shit). eventually, within 5 or 6 years, tumblr will shut down after server costs are too high, and unless users take the time to archive everything, nearly two decades of internet history will be erased forever. I'd give it until 2035 before the internet (and by extention the vr world / metaverse / matrix) becomes so riddled with ads that it becomes completely unusable. unless, of course, something changes with how advertisements work. whether that be a new law that makes it so ads have to be less distracting or optional, or even just some sites refusing to run advertisements at the cost of user membership fees. one of those seems extremely unlikely, and the other sounds equally shit.

the internet sucks ass. I just want to return to 2010 playing club penguin and browsing early tumblr and early watching minecraft youtube videos and playing flash games on newgrounds.

the world would be a better place if literally every single ceo and billionaire immediately died right now.