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2000s Snacks

hell yeah childhood food

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2000s Childhood Forbidden Snacks

The forbidden childhood pocky

Forbidden gummy pasta

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Online Multiplayer Games You Probably Played in the 2000s

POPTROPICA

FANTAGE

WEBKINZ

MOSHI MONSTERS

HOT WHEELS ONLINE

BELLA SARA (The horse girl game)

NEOPETS

TOON TOWN

CLUB PENGUIN (obviously)

CHIMPOO

Please stay tuned for a part two + submit suggestions through my ask :)

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club penguin iceberg?

Shall I tip the iceberg by making a Club Penguin lore iceberg explanation? lol - Yeah, i'll definetely do this in the future!

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2000s Childhood Scents

How dare tumblr limit me to 10 images a post??

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2000s books you probably checked out in the library at school

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90s + 2000s School Things

I sound like a buzzfeed blog when I post things like this but I just miss my childhood

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2000s kid culture was these

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Remember these iconic kids toys? Part 2

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Remember these iconic 2000s toys?

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Old Barbie + Polly Pocket Websites (All working 2021)

If you remember these images you may be eligable for a seniors discount. Just kidding, but if you want to relive the nostalgia of the good old days of coming home from school and playing polly pocket dress up or barbie babysit baby krissy, you can! 

Let’s Babysit Baby Krissy!

Princess Erika Dress Up

Barbie Zoom and Groom

Barbie as Rapunzel

SuperStar Makeover

MyScene Nails

Polly’s Pool Party

Polly Pocket Hair Stylin’ Salon

Polly’s Flower Surprises

Polly Party Pickup

Polly’s Roller Coaster Hotel Hunt

Polly’s Beautiful Bedroom

Polly’s Kooky Kitchen

Polly’s Rockstar Makeover

Polly’s Wacky Wardrobe

Pet Grooming Studio

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The Webkinz Iceberg Explained

Introduction

Webkinz: a game that took the world by storm in the early 2000s. This game had it all from fun characters, virtual games and real life plushies. Known by kids all over Canada and the U.S, Webkinz was run by Canadian toy company known as Ganz. They produced stuffed animal attached with codes. These codes could be redeemed online for a virtual version of whichever plushie you bought. Webkinz was launched in 2006, gaining peak popularity during spring 2009. What happened that made Webkinz the way it is today? Is it still around? Let’s talk about that!

Plushies

The Webkinz plushies were a large part of Webkinz. They provided a way for children to play online and offline with their favourite pet friend. There were a few different types of pets such as the originals, Lil Kinz (which were smaller mini versions of regular pets) and signature pets (larger higher quality pets). Ganz would eventually “retire” certain pets, meaning they were no longer being produced. This made their value go up immensely. Here are two examples of these expensive retired pets.

The brown cheeky dog was produced in 2005 and then retired shortly after in 2006. While I was researching this specific webkinz I saw one sell on ebay for $250 USD! I went to get a picture of it but it looks like its been taken down since the item was sold. These pups are rare!

These cute love pups can go upwards of $100 US dollars because they were the very first in the valentines day collection and retired shortly after release. I used to have one of these pups so I’m going to look for it and try to sell it on ebay.

The Webkinz Killer(s)

There was a couple different versions of this story. Some believed it was a virus from neopets stabbed you, a penguin that infected your computer, or mrs birdie (the adoption agent) coming for both you and your pets. One thing was for sure, the gossip of some evil entity on webkinz was happening. I remember being a kid myself trying to see if the curio shop dog would kill my webkinz at 12:00am. Whichever of these previous Webkinz fans believed, most would recognize this image.

Some claimed clicking on the letters poster 50 times would make dr quack kill you with his chainsaw. Some said Dr Quack would give you poison to feed your pet. This strange phenomona had concern parents calling Ganz even after Ganz released an official statement saying it was all fake. 

Ganz Gets Greedy

Back in the gold old days, all you needed was a pet plush code and webkinz world was open to you. This was all changed in the 2014 update where a deluxe membership was announced. Webkinz fans were mad to see some of their favourite games, activities, chat options and items now locked behind a paywall. At the time, the plushies were already decently expensive, especially for kids. I remember in 2009 I used to get them for around $20-$25 per plushies.  This deluxe membership was often critiziced for being too expensive for previously free fans. This deluxe membership could easily be seen as the first step to the downfall of the once legendary Webkinz. It was around this same time that Ganz also released a special form of currency called estore points. These points cost $10 for 10,000 points (minimum purchase) and each even some of the cheapest estore items cost 3,000-5,000 points. The cherry on top was the ads. Webkinz, previously ad free, now did partnerships with brands and movies. There were constant pop ups or things floating across your screen to advertise Rice Krispies or a new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie.

Steady Going Down

A true era was ended when the beloved Dr Quack, a webkinz NPC, retired and was removed from the game. The user inferface changed and things weren’t the same. Webkinz was growing older, and so too was the users who once loved this wholesome site. The usage on Webkinz decreased and the last Webkinz plush was the Narwhal Webkinz of 2019.

Kiwi-pocalypse

There were some hardcore animal crossing players left, but many of them said goodbye after the kiwi bird incident of 2021. With a glitch of players being able to get unlimited virtual kiwi bird pets, players had to take advantage. (Check out this post for more info) Unfortunately, Ganz banned whoever took advantage of this and ended up pissing off a lot of long time players. Good job Ganz, way to piss off whatever fans you had left.

The Reboot

Much like Animal Jam, a fresh reboot of Webkinz has been released with new plushies and (somewhat disturbing) 3D character models. These new plushies are available in the US for about $30 USD each! Unfortunately, they look rather like knockoff Beanie Babies with their comically large heads and small bodies rather than the adorable original plushies. :( (maybe im just biased to the old ones though)

Will this be a successful reboot or will it crash and burn? I have a feeling it will crash and burn! Although these plushies are cute, nothing really sets them apart from the billions of other plushies. Webkinz was apart of a new era of kids internet games and only had a few other large competitors such as Neopets, Animal Jam, Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin. These games were all similar and suited to compete with eachother as the most popular childrens games. Nowadays we have games Webkinz can’t compete with such as Roblox, which consists of thousands of different types of games within it and Minecraft which has endless possibilities. Besides Pokemon which has a battle element, kids just dont seem as interested in taking care of their virtual pets like they used to.