Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant: An Analysis of Social Media Discourse on A Once-Great IP
A grand title that matched my grand aspirations; in the end, this would more appropriately be titled �a thematic analysis of comments on the Neopets IG over 6 months,� but I liked it too much not to use it.
1. Pre(r)amble
This began as a simple idea: analyzing the comments on the Neopets IG to quantify the demand for a "UC potion" or equivalent. I batted the idea around with @(you need an account to see links) and that conversation snowballed into the fascinating potential of a comprehensive scan of Neopets-related social media content on Twitter, Tumblr, IG, /r/neopets, Neopets Nation and #neopets hashtags far and wide. However, having decided that that way lay madness, for this particular post I have settled on something more manageable: keep the analysis focused on IG comments per my initial idea, but broaden the scope of the analysis to all comments (not only those focused on a UC item). Six months of data because more is too much for my limited spare time and less is not enough meaningful data.
None of this project would have been possible without @(you need an account to see links), who scraped TNT�s IG for the comments for me, and to whom all gratitude and rep should be sent. She also did her own analyses of some social media data, which she is going to share too!
This is an exploratory analysis, put together to identify what users are communicating to The Neopets Team through one specific platform, in one specific period, through public comments. Take it as a snapshot of the Neopets community's demands, as expressed through IG comments. Having conducted this analysis, ideas for further study came fast & frequent (th-that�s what she said). See �further study� section below for a non-comprehensive list.
This analysis was done purely out of curiosity and should not be subject to the rigors of interrogation of this kind of work in a scholarly or research context. In other words, �I did a thing about Neopets with my hands in my pants, hope u like it�
I think that as Neopets users we have a general idea of where the recurring pain points / frequent asks / long-dead-horses are, but here are the numbers. Do they confirm or refute your expectations?
Theme
#
%
On-topic
775
76.7%
Ticket help
90
8.9%
General complaints
81
8.0%
General customer service query
31
3.1%
Bring back Keyquest
15
1.5%
Bring back UCs
10
1.0%
Fix the Battledome
9
0.9%
Totals
1011
100.0%
On-topic (775 comments)
Nothing too special to note here. Most of the comments fall into this category, as they relate directly to the IG post. Kitty was playing with sentiment analysis tools and will hopefully share her findings but from my several read-throughs, lots of generally positive or neutral stuff here. So much nostalgia to capitalize on. So much.
Ticket help (90 comments)
TNT�s support system � submit an email query, receive a ticket number, then post that number on HTH or social media to skip the queue � leaves a lot to be desired. This, we know. Over this six month period, 90 users requested ticket help publicly through IG�s commenting system.
On July 9, Neopets posted an update on (you need an account to see links) and Twitter asking users to DM their ticket numbers, instead of posting them in the comments. A good move because not only is the ticket spam OT and unsightly, frustrated users post far too much personal information in these very public spaces, in an effort to get their ticket resolved as soon as possible. Birthdays, names, email addresses, and, of course, links to their personal IGs. Really far from ideal from a privacy protection standpoint.
Did that move have any impact on ticket #s being posted in IG comments? Prior to July 9th, out of 767 comments, 73 were ticket requests (9.5%). From the July 9th post onwards, out of 244 comments, 17 were ticket requests (6.9%). So, tentatively, yes. Hooray! They definitely need to push that �DM us your ticket numbers� messaging a few more times on all platforms, but it�s a step in the right direction.
General complaints (81 comments)
As you may have guessed, a total grab bag of things that people are unhappy about. So why are Neopets users unhappy? Predominantly, poor customer service in various forms (unfair freezings, unprofessional staff, perceived poor decision-making by TNT, frustration regarding pet deletions, frustration regarding lack of content, complaints about outdated website, etc.). Additionally:
Why isn't there a Neopets app? (x13)
Why did you take away Petpet Park? (x3)
Various hashtags for whatever the day's drama was (#FreePrinceCocky, #justiceforlou)
� and one guy who was extremely upset that Meridell didn�t win the AC (x23!).
If you frequent the Neopets boards (or cK, or reddit, or any of the auxiliary discussion spaces), none of these complaints are new to you. Users continue to be frustrated by the same handful of issues and TNT has made little headway in addressing most of the issues. If TNT monitors their brand health on social media (she said, knowing that they don�t), this is the data that is the most useful � the low hanging fruit, the quick wins, capturing the userbase�s frustration and discontent and pointing to some extremely obvious and actionable conclusions.
General customer service queries (31 comments)
Basically, �help me with [thing]�, but the commenter didn�t have a ticket. Purchasing issues (NC, Premium), account recovery, when is [thing] happening (daily dare, CC, new merch), etc.
Bring back KeyQuest (15 comments)
Essentially, �we want this game back and some of us are even willing to pay for it.� Of all of Neopets� pulled games, this is by far the one that users mentioned the most. Habitarium got a few mentions, as did Petpet Park.
Bring back UCs (10 comments)
The point of curiosity that generated this entire post! And it�s only 10 comments! And so, I grow achingly aware of my own biases, since, if you had asked me prior to the number crunching, I would�ve said that I easily see one mention of old art every other post. I am offended that people want KQ more than UCs, based on this specific data set, but I accept it. Shoutouts to the cute commenter who was really excited about her �Original Paintbrush� idea, as if TNT hadn�t heard a variant of that 6,000 times since 2007, as well as the person who was �so sad when Elephantes stood up� because same.
Fix the Battledome (9 comments)
Generally: fix the BD, fix item stealing, fix HP increase, bring back DoN, fix bugs, holding Premium renewal hostage until you fix it. Another category that I thought would�ve been much higher up, but only 9 comments in this specific data set.
4. For further study:
There exists a whole field of social media analytics and this post is just barely scratching the surface. Various areas of further study:
Twitter is much more analytics-friendly and merits its own deep dive (Kitty is playing with some of that data and I have gotten sneak peeks of word clouds and other exciting things!)
Data over a much longer time period than 6 months (but it won�t be me)
CC2020 specific comments would be an absolute riot (my data cuts off in August 2020 so we miss the fireworks)
Analysis of editorial questions (con: pre-filtered by TNT, pro: just call it an enquiry into what TNT considers the safest questions)
Comparative analytics: it would be so fun to look at the social media of the competition (idk even who Neopets is most closely comparable with but) � how does their breakdown compare to this one? Who complains more?
Maybe one day I will truly lose my mind and write the actual Ave Imperator article, including analyses of the subreddit, tumblr, the Neopets Twitter, and the #neopets hashtag wherever it shows up, but it is not this day
Finally, I leave you with my absolute favourite post/comment of all:
- Fab
P.S I'm telling kitty to get FTP so that she can be thanked/repped by the two whole other people on this forum who are interested in this kind of meta-meta & share her own findings because THEY ARE SO COOL
you know when someone asks "why are you so dressed up"
and you have to literally explain to them that this is who you are
asking the important questions
thanks @extraterrestrial for capturing my essence
anyway here's my petpet
The Following 40 Users Say Thank You to Fabulous For This Useful Post:
My main job here was data collection and then passing it off to the fabulous @(you need an account to see links). But she mostly worked with the instagram data and I tooled around with the twitter stuff. When it comes to data analysis mostly all I'm good for is following tutorials, but that doesn't mean I didn't find some interesting things worth sharing!
Twitter posed some hurdles in that the free version of the API only lets you get seven days of tweet history, and the middle version which allows for 30 days is more than I wanted to spend to play around. Still, having started this at the end of August/start of September, and actually saving data for the first time a few days in, that left me with a serendipitous cutoff: September 12th.
[edit] I noted this on the site but forgot to say here.
*Subjectivity is scaled on a -1, 1 range, with -1 being the most factual, but the no comments ranked below 0 (eg. nothing that leaned towards objective statements). I cut the table off at -.1 for the sake of vertical space.
[/edit]
I guess to wrap this all up with some mean/nice tweets.
MEANEST TWEETS
date range
tweet
Sep 13-20
@ neopets this sucks respect your users neopets!! this is so cowardly evil!!
Sep 13-20
@ neopets Thanks for ruining the event guys. Awful.
Sep 13-20
Wth @ neopets you slash the snowball points and take away the boon for stupid prizes! You just PISSED off your player base to the point your going to lose some.. #killingneopets
Sep 5-12
@ neopets why does ur team hate trans ppl just wondering
Sep 13-20
@ neopets what�s with the beyond disappointing charity corner this year? Absolutely off base and out of touch with the payers on this one, really sad to see. Might as well have skipped it this year.
@ neopets 2/2 You need to start worrying more about customer service and not this stupid ass marketing thing you are doing on twitter. Hardly any new players joining your site and you can't keep your old and dedicated players happy. GG. Again, fix your shit #neopets
Sep 13-20
Since we're here.
You've told us repeatedly in editorials that unconverting pets is impossible. But, this pet exists. Explain, please.<(you need an account to see links)>
Sep 13-20
@ neopets You've told us in numerous editorials that de-converting pets is impossible. Yet, this pet exists.
Interesting! you'd get a lot more ticket/support comments on their FB page, which has a ton more comments on each post as well. Would be interesting to analyse
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I really love seeing the breakdown of this. I honestly would have thought that ticket numbers and complaints would've been the highest, not the on-topic posts!
It kind of makes me think, like - I wonder, if you did this for each social media site that on which Neopets has a presence - do you think it would be different? I think it would be - mostly for demographics reasons. Reddit would probably have more passionate players, yelling "Bring back KQ/Habitarium/Petpet Park" - which could ALSO mean that they skew older, since they remember those. Facebook I bet would be younger and more ticket numbers. Twitter could be anything.
I would be really interested to hear your thoughts on that and/or see more of this if you continue this endeavor!! Awesome work!
Thank you!
I definitely think looking at the different platforms could be really cool, but ultimately went with what was easy to grab (twitter for API, instagram for scraping third party sites that use the API), and like Fab mentioned, that could be rabbit hole that's really difficult to climb out of. Thinking about the potential of that is still...is definitely an itch. For some places I wouldn't even know where to begin.
Nice research(?). Very thorough. I think one way they can address tickets better is to do what a lot of companies do and have a live chat system where they handle these sorts of inquiries. Though, often times, this sort of service is usually outsourced to a third world country. A popular game developer Nexon utilizes Zendesk for their customer help. Previously, they had a notorious reputation for bad customer service. Recently, I've had to deal with them and they've been super.
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� and one guy who was extremely upset that Meridell didn�t win the AC (x23!).
I dunno why but this made me fucking laugh.
This was really interesting, I would have thought the tweets would have been meaner though. For sure the fb page is mostly bitching and ticket inquiries but I think its because people were told to post tickets on fb for results all the time.
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You two are in so deep.
I am very much here for it, and this post and research is amazing.
TNT would be very smart to hire the two of you as consultants to try and determine what users want fixed (we been knew, and we been telling them)...
I have so much to say about this data, and it's all swirling in my mind, but I think if I started typing it all, ya'll might assume I was having a stroke.
this is incredible, highly respect the thematic analysis
interesting re: low numbers of uc requests, but I guess if we're controlling for the population that post on their social media vs. the boards (i.e. players who know posting there will get there ticket answered/casual players) vs. hardcore players, often those who spend quite a bit of money on nc/premium etc., I would still be listening to the requests if I was tnt.
Also I can't help but feel the site is majorly fuelled by nostalgia - I wonder if bringing UC pets back would bring back a wave of old players who recognise the old art.
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overthink.exe 
*hair toss*
