Default Petpages: An Archive (or. "Oops! ...We Did It Again)

[kittyray]

I think the best way to start this story is visually.



(you need an account to see links)

"I'd be down" - famous last words, kitty 2020*

It's funny. Fab and I lamented that we weren't on the same team for DocK because we thought we'd collaborate really well, which turns out we do, but we've come to realize that our month-long rivalry was a blessing in disguise because had we been paired up we absolutely would have lost our shit.

Fab mentioned that the beta-revamp of petpages is long-needed, but might result in the wiping of the existing default petpages and what a shame it would be to lose them all. And that's all it took for me to start planning ninety miles a minute (144.841 km for people who don't use freedom units**) and start planning. I live for this shit. There are few things I love more than Internet Culture of the early 00s, and so much of that is encapsulated in forgotten corners of Neopia. I complain a lot about Post-Conversion changes, but really the golden age for me was a few years earlier. Stumbling onto (you need an account to see links) felt like a gift and I had already recently collected all of the petpage polaroids to admire. Of course there's more to love from this time than just Neopets, but it was a formative piece of my Early 00s Internet Experience, and that's why we're all here, so that's my focus right now. Fab talked in our data post about the growing legitimacy of things like Internet Anthropology, and things like studying sociology from a technical perspective, everybody please share your blog posts/podcasts/dissertations on this stuff with me. Anyway, creating an archive of all of the petpages felt like the perfect little project. But even already some things may have been lost. We found template photos for the Badeek, so there was probably once an entire petpage, ephemera all but lost.

First order of business was the task of gathering all of these petpages. We wanted these in the purest form #NAME and #VISITOR and all. So the best way to do this was to go straight from the edit page. Fortunately between us we covered a lot of ground, and the rest weren't too difficult between the pound and cheap morphs, while finding some forgotten personal petpages along the way. But there were two notable exceptions. The first being the Gnorbu, which is empty on the edit page, but visible when you navigate to it. The second, the Lutari, which has no template at all. Even the Vandagyre have one. Poor Lutari.

And it just kind of snowballed from there. And now we'd like to humbly present.

(you need an account to see links)

You'll be able to explore previews of the different petpages, copy/save the original versions for yourself, browse an expansive polaroid album, and... honestly that's about it for this little labour of love, but we hope you all enjoy it.


@(you need an account to see links) it's been wonderful collaborating with you agan and I can't believe we pulled this off so quickly and so soon after the last one (although you did much more than I did there). Thank you for being the spark and thank you for all the extra commentary and input, which really brought a lot of soul to this project. @ everybody else reading this, go shower her with praise! She's about to roll in with a highlight real so if somehow you're here in the first .05 seconds of posting, please wait a sec!


*Fab was very kind in her paraphrasing here as when I scrolled back to take the above screenshot I realized I kind of failed at that sentence.

**i wrote a note about how the us seems too nuts to even use that term sarcastically anymore, and somehow it got worse since writing this draft

[Fabulous]

Here are things that caught our attention as we pulled this project together! These petpages are a journey back in time, before TNT discovered fonts beyond Times New Roman, before web design principles were a thing, back when flamboyant tiled backgrounds and glitter images ruled the internet. Most of the default petpages feature coding and content that has literally been untouched since Adam pushed them live in 2000. This, my friends, is digital folklore.

• Our favourite petpage title images, judged by strongest Web 1.0 aesthetics and how many superfluous pixels we could find
  
  
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• You only wish you could achieve this level of refined design. Say hullo to the beautiful disaster that is the Meerca default. Everything is A Choice and we love it:
  
  
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  Please delight in this pioneering piece of graphic design, courtesy of the Mynci default:
  
  
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• WRT the longstanding debate as to whether ixi are supposed to be a deer or a goat, we draw your attention to this image on the ixi default petpage:
  
  
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  And then to its filename:
  
  
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  We too are shocked and disappointed and still think they're goats.

• Time for a quiz: what sound do Xweetoks make in the battledome?
  
  
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• Some retro webcore aesthetics for your nostalgic enjoyment:
  
  
  
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• Strong odds this was written by wine-drunk Donna at 1am
  
  
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• Enjoyed the passionate anti-carrot manifesto on the Cybunny default, along with that clumsy orange font, illegible over the heart background.
  
  
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• Prize for darkest content: Jetsam
  
  
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  Also enjoyed this mildly threatening line from the Korbat page:
  
  
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• Same tho
  
  
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• Let us take a moment to appreciate these classic dividers.
  
  
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All tongue-in-cheek commentary aside, I'm so grateful to Kitty for pending her incredible mind and skills towards preserving the legacy of these pages. They capture a moment in time, of animation trends, design choices, and gaudy visuals that have largely (some would argue, rightly) been erased from the internet by sleek interfaces, usability theory, and incredible tools that allow amateurs to create professional(ish) looking outputs in a few clicks. These default pages are the amateur web in a nutshell; maximalist, tawdry, a piece of neopets.com that will one day disappear onsite, if not with the advancement of the current beta, then by some other mechanism. But for now, we preserve their sometimes-questionable beauty and their peculiarities and hope you enjoy this tiny piece of Web history.

[nrv]

This is amazing! I love the randomized pet-colour elements.
I have found one non-loading (broken) image though- " (you need an account to see links) " on the Koi page.

[♥ PrettySarcastic ♥]

This is really fantastic. Even if they don't completely purge these pages at some point in time, having a single reference of all of these dumpster fires in their original glory is divine.

This is genuinely a gift to the community! ♥

[Flordibel]

This is so wonderful, you two!! I am absolutely in love with the website and the fact that you allow me to now put this GORGEOUS DEFAULT CODING in for whichever pet I'd like!

You've done an amazing service here: too often, as time moves forward, we forget the things that once gave us such joy in the past. I'm really, honestly thrilled that these won't be lost to the void forever.

NICE WORK!!!!! (Also the .fun domain name makes me SO HAPPY.)

[TsUNaMy WaVe]

Amazing work you two! Love the story behind it as well as Fab's examples with the snarky flair.
I'm glad we know now that it's better to preserve what we can, so we can still enjoy the internet in its purest form for years to come :3

[Mangle]

I'm so glad this will be preserved forever
I'm so worried about the petpage change, I don't want them to really do anything
just like
change the filters maybe? but i know that all of this fantastic geocities 2000 looking stuff would definitely not be a priority for them to keep

but its fantastic :*
thanks for archiving the internet, id be sad if i could never see some of these again

[Extraterrestrial]

Thank you guys for archiving this! It's funny, nowadays if I click on a petpage and see it's the default, I immediately close it. But when I was a kid I read these default pages over and over, and when I played more seriously I used these templates and just changed the text to make it stories and info about my pet.

These hold a special place in my heart, especially the meerca one. Meerca pie scared the shit out of me as a concept for some reason.

[kittyray]

This is amazing! I love the randomized pet-colour elements.
I have found one non-loading (broken) image though- " (you need an account to see links) " on the Koi page.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention, but unfortunately looks like the original version is missing, too. ;-;

(you need an account to see links)

[edit]

Also sorry i was so focused on tracking down the image i forgot to say thank you, but thank you!


Also thank you to everybody who has shown appreciation for this, it really does mean a lot and I'm glad other people find joy in this little corner of neopets!