A Deep Dive Into Animal Jam

[@Izzzyzzz]

Use code IZZZY to get 30% off your first month at Scentbird sbird.co/3hhKqO7

[@Nutteh07]

ngl i was like "o shit do they finally ship to nz" when i saw you had a sponsorship, but alas

[@yoniquericketts4162]

RTT=}{ï

[@yoniquericketts4162]

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[@yoniquericketts4162]

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[@yoniquericketts4162]

P{>

[@Leahbee]

danggg u got the rare spikes on irl haha :D

[@elijah1437]

Hi Leah!!!!!!!

[@jnelson4611]

Leah :D

[@SavvyFaerie]

Leah!! :D

[@strawberryrnilk]

omg 😳😳

[@juneaus5626]

Leah!!❤

[@Stereo6400]

*_back in my days “NFT” meant not for trade and “slamming” meant you tricked someone out of their parents money!_*

[@Kyrusisgone]

Wait nft means smt else?-

[@cass8167]

Whenever I see nft all I think it is is not for trade

[@Kyrusisgone]

@@cass8167 same..

[@occultCapra]

and now its Non-fungible token for trading jpgs lol

[@vipenova]

Also “scaled”

[@felix_a_fiend]

The stakes in animal jam felt so high as a kid. “If I don’t win this game, I won’t own that clothing item, and I will die because of it.”

[@dari2409]

Please I remember spending so many hours trying to get the new items

[@chromacattiosv2]

yeah. i remember one day i played the forgotten desert for 7+ hours only stopping to eat and use the bathroom to try and farm items.

[@shartcy]

@@chromacattiosv2 tfd grinding felt like a fever dream i still remember the background music by heart

[@dari2409]

@@shartcy the background music is so nostalgic

[@lilylaframboise9113]

I love your username LMAO

[@charlottemay7256]

i've never played animal jam in my life but the pillow room had me in hysterics. the fact that it doubled at a love den and adoption centre is absolutely unhinged. imagine you're trying to find a new mom and you see two wolves across the room doing the jump emote on each other.

[@mintydrops2033]

I mean it saves them a trip to the adoption center after all is said and done...

[@crayonzii]

The pillow room is still alive on a russian server that i’m playing on. It’s always funny

[@ADHD_PLAYZgames]

I hate the pillow room... :l

[@curlyq616]

That is EXACTLY what it was like

[@kaiserhundkek2531]

There has gotta be some RP gold spawning form that somewhere. I gotta see it now.

[@dulcae]

I was actually a very well known “trader” on Animal Jam for a couple years or so. I had accumulated every single rare nonmember/member item in the game at one point, and so a lot of people would come to me in hopes I could get them their “dream item”. I also had a big “clan” full of friends and we would all wear matching fox hats every time we were together. I still think of it fondly as a really fun internet time, but it’s also funny because one day my AJ girlfriend of 6 years (only person that knew my pswrd!) decided to get on and take everything I ever had LOL. she never even confessed to it in the end! bloody teenagers.

[@missmoomoo6360]

Back at 12 yrs old my aj bf of, a week. Convinced me to trust trade him, and me being the kind and caring “gf” I was I declined every trade! I lost a neon bow and a spike that day, he came back like 3 years later on an alt, apologized and told me he got banned- I remember checking his acc a few days after the incident and his user was not going through fhendndn 💀

[@_zeroXD]

NO WAYYYYY i think i remember seeing y’all with the matching fox hats back in the day… or maybe it was a group of role players 😭😭😭

[@emmajewelcat]

I didn’t even share my password with anyone and my animal jam account got hacked.

[@gordonramslay9955]

REALLY?!? Istg I’ve only play aj twice and the first time I played it (ages ago) I saw a bunch of animals in little fox hats (like the ones with buttons as eyes) running about. There was only like 5-7 of them when I was there so it might not of been you but it’s still wild to think that it could’ve been

[@dulcae]

@@gordonramslay9955 oh my god no honestly that might’ve been us LOL. there were only about 5-7 of us that were super active all at the same time so we would run around somewhere with our little hats and chat. absolutely insane to think that anybody would remember that. ✨

[@lazycookies]

I remember crying SO HARD when I was scammed on animal jam when I was like 11. I legit stayed up all night crying and sobbing 💀 after that day I quit and ironically enough started my warrior cats phase a week later

[@PrincessYaura]

Out of the frying pan and into the fire lmao

[@catfood8568]

Same

[@SHinierthennyourforehead]

lmfao i can relate. warrior cats good time . i got scammed out of my purple short collar once

[@Delihlah]

Please, I got scammed over so many items because I either didn't know the value or I was tricked lol

[@Jaythetransgremlin]

6 year old me got scammed on roblox it was one of the stupid roblox “give us ur password u will get robux!!!!”

[@dogfishthedogfish]

holy shit i remember being so against the animal jam economy because i was a silly loser roleplayer only to fall into trade chains because i really missed having the cami's frog

[@ryleeosborne1758]

Oml same i hated traders for some reason but then i became addicted

[@lanaenjoyer]

I was a hardcore trader, damn the memories

[@somethingwithbungalows]

I kept getting scammed so being very very fed up with it all and loosing items- I became one 🤦🏽‍♀️.. for awhile anyways I give away good items to make up for it now. I feel so bad for the peeps I took advantage of but at least I never bullied anyone like others did to me

[@MPREGCOOKING]

GOD I FEEL but i ended up selling my transformice account for a beta tiara and then started getting a ton of shit 😭

[@breeannaglover3942]

LMAO ME TOO

[@elizabethsayeau8305]

i’m no longer ashamed to admit that at the age of 9, for probably 3 months straight i would log onto my bestfriends animal jam account and change the colour/facial features of all her animals because i was severely jealous her mom would buy her the premium gift cards so she had artic wolfs and shit.. we’re still bestfriends to this day, we actually live together and i just told her the truth about this a month ago💀 we had a good laugh

[@jlizard8500]

Sounds better than getting my 2 friends banned on accident

[@sparrow5394]

@@jlizard8500 you can't just say this without telling the story

[@smileyfroggyz]

@@jlizard8500 explain please.

[@Kensuke22]

​@@jlizard8500 explain explain explain

[@platypusparasol9825]

​@@jlizard8500 you cant just drop a nuke and leave like that youtube commenter J Lizard

[@thecatingrey]

I could never get my parents to pay for a membership when I was young. My best friend, who introduced me to the game, had a membership and the difference between what we had access to is what made me ultimately stop playing. He could do literally whatever the game allowed, while I couldn't even play the majority of the story or buy more than two animals. It felt bad to see other people playing with their members-only animals, wearing members-only clothes and being followed by members-only pets into members-only adventures while I was basically stuck looking longingly at a cat in the pet shop.

[@brendan6555]

Lol me, my sister, and our friend played it when we were little and NONE of us had memberships. We were too embarrassed to ask for memberships lol.

[@AceAttorny]

This but Runescape

[@un.ava.ilable]

I related to that on a personal level omg

[@mae.glitter]

man, that sucks :/ Fortunately, I don't think it's exactly the same anymore! I played AJ when i was younger and definitely had a similar experience to you, but my little sister is a current (and extremely avid-) player and luckily it seems a lot more accessible these days! She has a membership right now, but before she got her membership, she had loads of animals, pets, and rare items that she racked up from trading chains. And it seems like the member items and functions are a lot less restrictive to non-members, but that's just my outsider view as a nonplaying big sister lol. I don't know how much of the game changed exactly, but the AJ climate I see from watching my sister play is a lot better than the one I played. (Also, not related, but I feel the need to brag that she has the black spike collar)

[@clev7989]

@@mae.glitter I'm very glad to hear that they improved, also as a quick side note I think it's really cool that you both have this shared experience playing animal jam. I know that may seem weird, but most of my family is not really into the same stuff I like, so it's cool to me when people can bond over media

[@stattvesque]

as someone who’s played since the beta days this feels like a veteran volunteering to oversee a honorary event

[@michelletran8242]

I was a beta tester too! Went crazy over the membership reward lmao

[@oraora8504]

I wasn't beta but I've been around for a... long long long time so same

[@leeluueilis]

I was also there in the beta playing for so long was an experience

[@katana322]

Omg same

[@Viva_Cynefin]

same

[@breadcrumbs3530]

I remember on one of Aparri’s streams someone had traded one of my masterpieces (an in-game artwork you paint yourself) for one of his spikes. He and his streamers were fawning over it and people were typing that it was worth a black long spike. The next day I woke up with a ton of fan mail and my masterpiece was on display in his den. It was the best moment of my 14 year old life.

[@sunnivamhagatun]

that’s awesome!

[@vaporean_boylove.0w083]

Honestly, that had to be the best thing to feel probably just have someone say that the art is worth a very desired item! I would feel like im on cloud 9

[@gordonramslay9955]

That’s amazing :D

[@michelleobamafootcream9292]

There were so many young talented artists in Animal Jam.

[@Blazequine]

I used to play the claw machine for like hours, then put all the plushies down in my den, advertise a plushy shop at my den in the busy areas, and then trade the plushies for things that were actually valuable, and then if I didn't like the way the valuable thing looked I'd just sell it. Made hella gems.

[@eleanoralbertson4605]

Me tooooo! I was an AVID plushie trader. I would literally spend hours upon hours just going between advertising in the town area and back to my den to go see who showed up to 'shop'. The amount of rare mini plushies that I got from trading some just semi rare ones was crazy. Man.... I was a ruthless trading mogul lol.

[@JojoMinecraftProductions]

omg me tooo!!!!!! I eventually went from trading just random plushies all the way up to eventually getting the rare claw after literal YEARS of running that damn shop lol

[@sabbiss]

yesss!1 me tooo, cos everyone would like the plushies who had clothes and etc and id be so happy to get them

[@jlizard8500]

Same!

[@PorkSzoda]

I forgot about plushy trading omgggg

[@reharp2037]

Yesterday I came to the realization that probably one of the biggest reasons I am going to college for wildlife and conservation, is playing Animal Jam so much as a child. I would read every animal factoid that popped up or that I could click on. I would go into deep dives off of certain facts and look things up, etc etc. I’m addicted to the subject of environmental science because of this game.

[@sockyyyyyyy]

I just started college for Wildlife Ecology and Management, and I just came to that same realization moments ago! It was such an influential part of my life, and reinforced my love for animals so much, despite its flaws!

[@Vicky-fi3yr]

I’m glad I’m not the only one who really enjoyed the biology aspect of animal jam!! I would sit and watch Brady’s q&a’s about animals! I’m not going into an environmental career, (going into neurology) but having animal jam as a way to fuel my love for sciences really was wonderful.

[@dovahdog0]

Me too!!! I've always had a fascination and passion about animals ever since I was a kid, but now I'm thinking of going into zoology, partly because of amimal jam ^^

[@michellesaxton2039]

I would watch Barry Barr or whatever his name was in the theatre for hours while eating hot pockets😩😂

[@jasperjazzie]

same! am interested in anthropology and zoology as well as wildlife and environmental conservation,,and i can def thank aj for the latter two (also if any of yall remember bein friends with someone called catlover583...that was me lmao)

[@asteralium]

Hey, I'm a staff member of the Animal Jam Archives. I just wanted to say that, as someone who's been in this community since 2012, you did an amazing job with this video. It made me nostalgic and happy, but also a sad that the good old days are gone. This game means a lot to me and I'm glad we finally got a decent (and even better than decent!) Animal Jam retrospective.

[@kt-dq4vh]

I'm not trying to be that person, but how can we know that you are trustworthy?

[@asteralium]

@bababooey Nope, we’re not dead! Sadly the original game is sort of on its last legs with updates being mostly rereleased or recolors. But the mobile game is going strong now.

[@asteralium]

@@kt-dq4vh I mean, I can verify myself if you like? Not sure what you’d want me to do tho.

[@HonestMagpie]

As a game designer myself, can you confirm or deny a hypothesis- is the Staff coral basically just a staff credits page, maybe with some extra feature for just the staff that wouldn’t really do anything for non-staff members, or testing room usage? That was my hypothesis just looking at this video.

[@asteralium]

@@HonestMagpie The staff coral was supposed to only ever be seen by Wildwork's staff members. By clicking on and walking over to one of the names, you would get teleported to the staff member's private testing room, if one existed. For example, Andrew's was called "Andrew's Room of Doom" which had portals to various empty houses (dens) that were to be released. I would imagine it's just called the staff coral because, well, this is an animal game.

[@V1RF1]

Back in the day, I was an avid Animal Jam player. I had an online “Boyfriend” who I had a relationship with for a week. I always used a wolf (imagine that, i was a furry) and so did he. One day I changed my animal to a koala, and we “broke up” because of it. My 7-year-old self was heartbroken, of course. I went to school and started telling my friends and they comforted me like it was an actual relationship I had lol. Man, one day I should go back and see how much it’s changed.

[@elizabethh.9556]

I had a similar thing happen, but a bit more intense. We both used wolves and was an online friend with one of my IRL friends. He slowly became super attached to me and would follow me from place to place. I soon switched main accounts to avoid him. Fun times.

[@NuniiPlays]

Nah this is so crazy I’m 90% sure everyone used the wolf when having a relationship lol how I miss the simpler times 😂

[@emilystewart6175]

This is so cute awwww

[@Bronythepony]

Sounds like 7 year old you had dope friends.

[@kevinbumgardner3553]

My friend had a "crush" on Animal Jam and broke up when the girl started hanging out with rich people and then when he got really rare she tried to come back to him smh.

[@catzgaming1857]

Stumbled across this after making a new account and getting the membership I wasn't allowed to have as a child. I grew up with verbally abusive parents. It was screaming whenever I was home from school. Animal Jam was my safe place and I'll play it as long as it exists. It really seemed to soothe my inner child to finally have the coveted arctic wolf.

[@Ourxz]

Hope ur doing ok now ❤️❤️

[@maishishikusa1856]

Hey! I also play childrens web games as a coping mechanism for trauma, for me its chicken smoothie though. Hope your doing alright, and have fun with your arctic wolf and membership.

[@michellesaxton2039]

Love this 👏🏼

[@KK-hd1jw]

I’m so glad you could find comfort in this game through all of that, and I hope everything is going better now, and if not, then soon.

[@veronicafoxx8590]

Yessssssssss. Arctic wolf is life.

[@bagelbyte27]

I LOVED the educational aspect of the game as a kid. it was honestly one of my favorite parts, especially with how easy to digest it was. I'm now one year away from getting a degree in Zoology so my love for animal facts (and this game) has never died

[@scorpiiiondude3327]

this. THIS!

[@reichr]

THISSSS

[@SpicyApplePie]

I remember just sitting in the theatre watching marine videos

[@tidepodpadthai2633]

Same, I'm planning to go to school for biology!

[@ohgodohnothebees]

I watched all the theater videos

[@solseclipse]

I'll recite a little poem that may bring back some memory for all of us: *"Lions roar, eagles soar, non-members deserve more!"* Edit: hOLY- AT 38:27 YOU CAN SEE MY STORY- I WAS THE ONE WHO MADE "A- The Creepy Wolf". WHO KNEW 3RD GRADE ME DRAFTING UP A STUPID CLICHE 'CREEPYPASTA' ON A SCHOOL COMPUTER AND REWRITING IT AT HOME WOULD MAKE IT THIS FAR??

[@Benutzername474]

Smh be HapPy wItH wHaT yOu HaVe YoU iDiOt

[@goldegreen]

Omg I was such an activist, I remember spamming that all the time

[@Rosekatz]

I USED TO START RALLIES IN JAMAA TOWNSHIP CHANTING THAT LMAOO

[@MystamiSalami]

I was always the spoiled little kid who had my poor mother spend so much money on memberships- however I never understood the "members only" den parties. Alot of my closest friends that I ended up growing up with after we all moved off the platform were all non mems.

[@saltybskut3654]

@@MystamiSalami Stuff like members only den parties and “adopt me members only” This game taught us about discrimination at the age of 8 😭

[@WisteriaMoonAJ]

This feels like a summary of my life omg

[@VenusAsAFormerBoy]

I had never heard of animal jam before this video but I still feel mildly star-struck seeing you, a jambassador, in the comments lol

[@literally.]

me when i realize ive known animal jam for half my life at the moment

[@platinumdescent2001]

Seeing you here is a surprise, but a welcome one :0 I used to watch your videos for hours upon hours after school kekw

[@sothesalamilidwontfit]

samee. i'm pretty sure animal jam formed at least 60% of my brain matter

[@folklore-of-the-sun]

The legend herself! can't believe that I've found the youtuber that I grew up watching in the comment section of this video :))

[@CoolattasLab]

"Though lets be honest, none of us really payed attention to it as kids" SPEAK FOR URSELF!!! I spent hours finding all the animals and reading all the little biographies and absorbing all the animal info the game had. Still a shock I wasn't diagnosed as a kid. I think loving being able to be a funny little animal is what really made me not fall prey to the membership shit, funnily enough. The bit about WildWorks still doing well for themselves and Feral being successful really didn't age well LOL. I hadn't heard of the rock bridge one before but I remember participating in the ice jumping, fire dances, and drum jumping in the bunny parties.

[@scoot-scoot51341]

Omg SAME!!! I would search the entire game for those info cards!

[@alchemlemnis]

Same x)

[@jaalahhale2905]

Omg I loved reading about the facts scattered in the game. It was like the only thing I was excited about in AJ. The only time I really got a membership was with the Arctic wolf toy that gave me a 2 week membership.

[@aerofish0]

My favorite facts are the sea creature ones

[@three_crows_all_day]

I remember reading all the facts and spending hours in the Chamber of Knowledge with that soothing music. When I first started, I think I did nothing but play Temple of Trivia; the information was the reason I played!

[@mikchimin]

I'm so glad I was a young child with absolutely no idea none of this was happening on Animal Jam lmao. I just played fashion shows and claw machines, and decorated my home with all the stuffed animals I won. I had no idea people looked down on non-members. I was always jealous of the nice homes and cool pets, but I was content with my base houses, hamsters, and seahorses lmao

[@vrinkee]

Yeah, I could usually get around my jealousy by just playing for hours. I'd do the games that gives out semi rare items and would trade them for cool looking non member items. I'd also follow Snowyclaw's blog for updates and would participate in any promos that would give limited features or items such as bubble bee and kangaroo pets. I personally never felt like non members were looked down upon, but that may just have been because I'd been playing since close to the official release, so I had items that made me "rare." Also, coolest trick I discovered were the shared member accounts that people would post on KZbin. Sure, you'd get kicked out whenever someone else tried to log in, but sometimes I'd have enough time to complete and adventure only accessible to members and get the non member usable items to decorate my den with after trading with myself. Lol, I remember lining up two laptops for that. Eventually realized I could just use a different browser.

[@leonineKelter]

Same. I was always so sad I couldn't have a pet cat, and would customize the entire cat and go to buy them even though I knew it would just tell me I couldn't lol. I wasn't involved with the trading or anything but the warriors role play, but I I do vaguely remember the ""adopt me!!"" People qnd defenitely feeling the effects of the rampant monetization to the point where I stopped playing after a few years of having the bare minimum ://

[@hamburger7243]

Dude I think I bought a membership once? I never knew that either

[@mimimi-]

i thought i was the only one who collected stuffed animals and put them all over the floor of my home omg

[@mikchimin]

@@mimimi- I thought I was too!! Lol decorating my home was just making cool patterns with the different stuffed animals. I remember I had a /huge/ satisfying row of wolves. Super fun lol

[@StoneBasilisk]

I never realized that raid was Quackity lmao. It was annoying at the time, but funny af like, five seconds after. Gotta miss staying up all night having 'sleepovers' with my friends in our dens.

[@julia-pw8fz]

LOL i actually searched it up on that day, i was in middle school and super confused by the yellow penguins. I found quackity's yt and was like "bruh this guy's kinda annoying he reminds me of my older brother" never ended up putting 2-and-2 together when i watched dream smp last year and then i stumbled upon the animal jam raid vid like "wait that was quackity lmfaooo???"

[@kirbyblade2238]

WAITTT ik i had seen quackity b4 !!! this is probably where i recognized him from

[@drifterastralis]

@@julia-pw8fz SAME I watch the dream smp and when I clicked on this video I was like damn wait that was him?? lmao

[@GodisKing201]

I watched quackity back when he did stuff like that xjbchc

[@cjstarz3569]

Dancing in Jamaa township and screaming "RARES FOR TRADE!" while many others did the same thing, one of my best memories as a kid!

[@2doohhead]

yep 😩

[@iwakeupandboomimarat]

either that or trust trading 😭😭

[@harley5.7bviews5secondsago6]

That's really Nostalgic omg 😂

[@StaticPuzzles]

SAME HAHA

[@SHinierthennyourforehead]

@@iwakeupandboomimarat trust trading lmfao i remember getting scammed from an trust trade good times

[@Julian2AJ]

Clicked this over breakfast and ended up sitting through the whole thing. Brings back some great memories. Thanks for putting this all together :)

[@maia5888]

you were literally my childhood thanks for everything man❤️

[@bl00dyplushiez]

We love you, Julian! So happy you were a part of my childhood and so many other’s💕

[@Emryssy]

I miss your ‘hey beans!’ line 😭

[@Acetronomy]

Thank you for making my childhood Julian.

[@Sailor-Khione]

I'm sorry to hear what happened to you back then.

[@mayapanini]

Animal jam brought my dad and I closer. I remember always having to ask him for help with the really tough adventures, and showing him all of my different den decor. Him being a video game nerd loved to see me being so interested in something of the sort, and we bonded over it a lot. The dens feature was probably my gateway drug into being an avid Sims 4 player, and once again like with AJ I find myself in the shackles of a game company I'm willing to spend all my money on😭

[@butteredcornfr]

that’s so wholesome jesus

[@VannahL]

Literally the exact same situation for me. Omfg. Me and my dad always bonded through animal jam and I honestly miss it 🥲

[@Gentvein]

That’s unbelievably sweet :] I love when games bring family members together

[@Weirdanimalboy]

Wait a fucking second, this is wholesome content

[@isabellasanchez4803]

I was the 666th like 😎😩

[@23dollarsmoothie]

I used to “date” girls by dressing up as a boy Arctic wolf and saying “I share this account with my sister”

[@Pinkwolfman]

Holy shit i did the same lmfao i wanted to mess around since in the french severs, girls looking for boyfriends were all over the place

[@tafferine388]

ME TOO???

[@MystamiSalami]

I, while knowing they were probably girls, went along with this because I really didnt care- Then came out as pansexual later in life

[@kamakeii]

“I share this account with my sister” is a universally used quote by gay kids on online games

[@wolftric]

This is why you just gotta commit and give all your animals "boy eyes"

[@lexicrawford8726]

I am by no means an AJ expert, I was more of a Toontown girl as a kid. However the Employee Corral is a relatively common thing in development, Whilst it may seem to serve no purpose, it could act as a way to permanently enshrine those who have helped make the game possible. The best example I can give is in the game Hollow Knight. There's a secret area in the game called the Shrine of Believers, which has quotes from all of the 200+ kickstarter backers. It could very well be the same principle here

[@janjanbinks1710]

The Spirit Glade's ghosts and Dream Warriors in HK are designed by backers also which is really cool

[@LynxGriffin]

I was almost hired as an artist for this game, so I got to play a really early beta of it to get a feel for it, and it looked so charming! The job fell through and I pretty much forgot about the game until now, so seeing this deep dive and how it all ended up turning out was so fascinating!

[@Ooffoop]

*old*

[@azarberries3991]

Holy crap thats really interesting!

[@SHinierthennyourforehead]

woah thats actually really cool

[@cattegoggles]

that's actually pretty cool :0

[@kagamine-rin]

That's super neat!

[@aurikp]

"homestuck?" "for godness sake no" THIS SENT ME LMAO

[@wayne_._]

SAME LMAO

[@frostflaggermus]

that part was my favorite

[@monkeymayEH]

Where did you go

[@god47398]

sent you where?

[@gabrielnalom4930]

*Gets marked fragile and gets sent to Alaska*

[@PigBoy99]

I remember hiding in a “bunker den” during the Quackity raid Ducks would keep trying to sneak in

[@uwuifyingransomware]

There were bunker dens? I never realised how big that whole raid got. Kinda miss that time, ngl

[@jaylynn0x048]

excuse me the WHAT

[@MultiNaruto900]

*BUNKER DENS?* I know the Quackity raid was big, but _WHAT?_

[@rickpervez322]

i remember a few yellow penguins before the raid took place but like, i was offline during the raid lol

[@MinePlanet84]

I WAS ONE OF THE DUCKS

[@Kindnese]

When I was 10 or 11 on Animal Jam, someone had scammed me out of my short blue spike collar, and so I had told the player that I was recording the whole interaction and that I would post them. I then had my friends send the person a jam-a-gram pretending to have watched my video and were scolding them, and the player who scammed me then quickly gifted me my collar back out of fear.

[@superchick221b5]

I remember those roleplays, they were usually a mess, unless you were there from the start, things were confusing. I also remember that people with bunny skins usually played pups... I was always a pup. I used to get so upset when grown wolves would shove me out of battles or kidnap me. You are so right, things back then were WEIRD. Now I play D&D... so things really have not changed.

[@Ajhernandez3550]

Wait… so do I 😀

[@kristinakristalls4149]

Same One obsession turned in to another 😄

[@SYD.0_o]

Dude i also went from aj rp to D&D 😭

[@keribere244]

I always tried so hard to join those member roleplays. I remember trying to get in to one, with like princesses and stuff so this one nice girl let me be a princess even though I was like the 8th while the rest on the princesses were members so then everyone just ignored me lol. I at one point even sacrificed myself for one of my “sisters” because I had to go and everyone just continued the roleplay without acknowledging me :(

[@blushingrxes-quit7774]

My school has a d and d club lol 😂 I’m not in it tho

[@LeBongFairy]

I remember hating that people used foxes or wolves when there were literal big cats for the warriors, including the nonmember tiger.. I was a biology dork even back then, and hated nonrelated animals being used to represent another

[@ZimLikesPastaAnimation]

I remember getting SO upset at people using arctic wolves for warriorcats roleplays when I had saved up my money for so long to get a snow leopard SPECIFICALLY for roleplay purposes

[@nopenope4502]

OH MY GOD YES. I had a snow leopard specifically for Warriors rps.

[@susiepilled]

aj tigers are ugly tbf but yeah if you have access to the snow leopard or cheetah or whatever you've got no excuse

[@un.ava.ilable]

*old man voice* Back in my day we only had wolves, bunnies, and monkeys for free

[@whatteamwildcats4033]

It's like saying you're role playing as eren jeager and popping up with a profile pic of ichigo kurosaki like they aren't interchangeable

[@kalkory]

I used to mass-purchase supplies for elaborate zoos and “jail cells” in my den, hopped from server to server advertising until my den reached the 30 player limit, then just sat & watched shit go down

[@Jaythetransgremlin]

that is beautiful i wish i had that much commitment to be mean to people

[@arsenicArtificer]

chaotic evil

[@cathacks_exe]

SAME

[@canyonbear21]

i loved hosting roleplays and watching drama go down

[@bunnywavyxx9524]

@@canyonbear21 samee..!! when I got membership I bought that really big palace with the forest and everything and hosted elaborate roleplays. rp was one of the main reasons I love Animal Jam

[@EstellaCordero]

i remember being SO into animal jam. id wake up early on school days to play it before school and would play it as long as i could after school and on the weekends. i recently came back to animal jam classic to relive those days and i forgot just how much i knew about rares/beta items and what was worthy. it’s actually funny to think about how invested i was in a virtual marketplace💀also to be so knowledgeable about the lore of the game

[@TumultuousTiger]

Fun fact: The original beta den actually did return to the game, just not as an actual den you can use. It was re-introduced to the game as the location for the Beta Party in 2014.

[@tomate6433]

yessss i was waiting for her to mention it lol

[@wrenhall1024]

I’m 18 now and I’ll still log on and buy a membership then play nonstop for like a week or two sometimes. Definitely can never recreate how magical it felt to play this game when I was younger but it’s a good nostalgia boost.

[@glossydrop8107]

Me too! I'm glad people still play the game

[@kpopgoblin6590]

I appreciate you commenting this cuz i never played animal jam as kid (I played a lot of Club Penguin and then later in life I played Moviestar Planet) but now watching this video it's peaked my interest and I wanna play it even tho im 18 lol

[@DreamMakeup-h4k]

Yall I'm 19 and I still play lol I'm a collector 👌

[@roul4842]

I never played the original AJ but I did play AJPW for a long time. I'm 16 now and like playing Fer.al from time to time... It's Animal Jam but with a bar. lol

[@Botsusann]

God same, I’m 20 and still hop onto my almost ten year old account for nostalgias sake, it’s almost surprising that it’s still addictive to play after all this time.

[@AliceLps]

Animal Jam... what a time to be alive 🤣🤣🤣

[@emirui]

bro i used to watch you so much growing up

[@DanniIsASquid]

Omg I watched you during my AJ phase what a coincidence

[@GodisKing201]

PLEASE I FORGOT YOU EXISTED WHT

[@annamariafunes3725]

Ikr😭

[@javierolmedo2225]

@@emirui same

[@nixien1496]

I'm 35 and I'd obviously never heard of Animal jam, but honestly hearing about how incredibly depraved these teenagers were reminds me alot of my teen years online and is reassuring... I was a Teen in the early 2000's and yeah shit then was wild.

[@mrpickles-hb6zx]

Alot of kids these days think suicide is funny, was it any better in ur day?

[@SnackPacks10]

Me too lol I'd never heard of it before but it reminds me a lot of Gaia online and runescape

[@gayforitzy14]

fun story: my sister proposed to her now wife three weeks after discovering that she scammed her on aj when they were fourteen years old and they logged back in after 3 or 4 years after they both left the site so she could trade back the stuff she scammed her out of edit: got their ages wrong, they were 14 not 10

[@SAM-BVCK]

The love story we didn't know we needed

[@KittyFAN13]

Holy shit, that is so cute!

[@Moony1568]

Beautiful. True love right there

[@SillySuli03]

the og enemies to lovers

[@fatlittlekittens7297]

@@SAM-BVCK that pfp is nostalgic

[@ameliaweeks5]

the fact that i would spend hours on that game decorating my den, emptying it, and decorating it all over again shocks me but also makes me so happy like i was so wholesome back then decorating my little imaginary house for my little imaginary wolf called shimmersparklebeans or something... i loved this vid made me so nostalgic, thank you.

[@nopenope4502]

I once got a load of Jammagrams from people saying my den got into Epic Dens but when I checked it I couldn't find it. Still confuses me to this day.

[@estherfichtenholz4838]

I had one of my dens always decorated for the holidays, and I'd clean it out every time the season changed or another holiday was coming up, and redecorate with this intense focus. I'd do it in this one room in my Webkinz house, too. Those were the good days

[@mushi3255]

SAME

[@Nat-of3il]

After adopting probably well over 30 kids during my time playing Animal Jam, not a single one ever asked me for an item ever(I was a member, and I didn’t care if they were or weren’t). I think that maybe you had a few bad apples if they were asking you for stuff? But from my time they were all really sweet and just wanted to play house essentially.

[@2verysnowyyy]

The only times my roleplay siblings/pets needed things, I essentially just rented it to them and they always gave it back (think a cat collar for a pet) and can confirm we just played like house but with magic and maybe a natural disaster/alien invasion

[@Rizzalert69]

that’s so sweet :(

[@violetrose8779]

Same i miss the old times where everyone had fun roleplaying member or not

[@christinawilliams299]

Right 😢😢r😢like drlll l

[@Voltage256]

Was the same for me I didn't understand all the bullying just bc ppl didn't have membership. I honestly lost count of how many kids I adopted on that game (Also was a member) and I think maybe just 1 out all of them were asking for items. The good ppl on the game definitely outweighed the bad ones in my experience

[@steamdragon8550]

One of my favorite memories of this game was when I went into a party and the only other person there was the guy who was hosting the party. They were really grateful for me coming and didn’t try to take advantage of me or anything. Hope they’re doing well now.

[@justabridget]

Your talk about the weird role plays on AJ reminded me of a time where my friend and I would dress up as a devil and an angel, go to the most popular rp server, then continue to use overpowered moves and huge plot twists against each other to mock the people that did that. We’d always bring so much attention to ourselves and some people even tried to intervene. Those were the good times.

[@nagitokomaeda6960]

Ok but why did me and my friend do the same thing 😭😭✋ Good innocent kid times

[@puppyparfait9014]

@@nagitokomaeda6960 omg a danganronpa fan in the wild holy shit /lh

[@SuperSimputer]

The idea of a silly little animal game having a dedicated adoption center that moonlights as a red-light district is beyond wild to me.

[@gh.stb12rd]

As someone who played a lot of mmos (and i still do. My ass on ponytown daily), let me tell you. Humans are creative, competitive, and horny. We will find out new creative ways to engage in horny shit, we will make it a competition in some sort of way, and perfect it. In case you dont know ponytown, its a pixel browser game based off mlp. Full in depth character customization is open to everyone, AND you can have your own map you can invite people to, besides the main map. the only thing thats paywalled is the amount of items you can put in the house and a few speech bubble colors. So the place you go to to go into someones elses map is this dock with a boat, you get on the boat and you go to your map (or the map of the party leader if you get invited to one). So bc of this the dock is one of the most crowded areas. So people advertise party games, roleplays, and such. So people spend more time on their map, so the devs kept adding more and more objects to put on your map. Theres a huuuge selection now and you can genuinely make really gorgeous stuff, and, of course, as i said before, people are horny. So now a common thing is stripclub maps, usually include poles ppl emote on, a bar and private rooms. But the shits kept getting more and more elaborate, the maps bigger and more complex. There is no official 'stairs' objects, but i found out a way to makr stairs out of other objects, same with liquor bottles, and well, the poles. Stripclubs are like a competitive market its insane, abd because of this, entire stripclub communities started forming. It was honestly like ?? Gangs??? They would open a discord server to annoubce when they were going to host the stripclub roleplay, then, because we are all terminally online, drama ensues. The point is that these groups would have massive fights with each other and the drama was inmense and i love explaining this to people bc they are already (understandably so) bewildered by the concept of ponytown stripclub and i am always so excited to say that that is the basic understanding of the shit im ab to discuss. I rambled so hard. I just find this so much fun i let go of my point but going back to it- whatever it is, as long as people are free to interact with each other in any terms, we will create, we will argue, and we will somehow fuck in some sort of way

[@atomicrenegade8194]

WHORPHENAGE

[@rubyredraccoon7580]

@@atomicrenegade8194 oh my god this reply genuinely made me do a double take, if i was sipping a drink at the time i would have spat it out laughing 100%

[@yeet1066]

I play warrior cats ultimate edition on Roblox and this is also what twolegplace in that game is like, at least three times I've walked in on someone doing the sit animation over and over on a cat doing the front sit animation. Then downstairs there's 300 kits Spamming "ABC FOR KIT"

[@8stormy5]

Well the results of so much hanky panky have to go somewhere now don't they

[@rachelmccaughey6239]

honestly, animal jam did actually teach me a lot about wildlife, and definitely sparked my interest in nature which i still carry today! although it was a bit of a shamble at times with drama and scams and knowing the worth of your items and rares, it did genuinely help me! and i'm so glad i had it in my childhood

[@finnegan728]

same! i watched the brady barr vids on loop, they were great

[@lemonine2712]

Honestly same. Animal jam is the reason I want to travel the world and explore new environments and such

[@hello-up1fo]

same i used to be a role player on that ajcw wiki thing 😭😭 i learned html coding for a bit. i also learned how to draw, and just got really good with typing fast and increased my vocabulary a lot. i’m actually thinking about going into some sort of web design as an adult, because of how much i enjoyed doing the html coding on there. i did a lot of cringey stuff back then, but i actually learned a lot of cool things from it!!

[@jellygypsyaj5352]

Have u seen the game now? Its chaotic

[@petalleaf2808]

Same! I honestly loved going around and completing the journal book- first on my main, and many, many side accounts. The rewards were pretty cool den items most of the time, and they were honestly interesting to have learned. I remember when the Bird of Paradise party came out and I was enamored with learning more about paradise birds cause they were so cool! And back when the community wasn't centered on trading, but more like exploring and making friends around 2013 - 2014, I remember feeling just wandering around and exploring, as well as being immersed in the ambience of Jamaa's wilderness and lands. Like Coral Canyons or Sarepia Forest. Sarepia Forest's music is calming.

[@marialmao3353]

man this is nostalgic. playing animal jam during Christmas was honestly the happiest part of my childhood. And that carnival they had every summer was sick too

[@valentine4865]

My biggest AJ memory is that I met a friend on there who I stopped talking to eventually and found out they had recently moved into my neighborhood after we'd stopped talking. It was weird af lol

[@xeiumi]

That’s such a weird coincidence lol

[@luigi7834]

that's insane. i wish one of my online buddies would move in next door

[@meowmreowmeow]

that’s an interesting coincidence I really wanna know what had happened next though, just curious

[@pessoaa8860]

Wow

[@yin9008]

izzy this is my CHILDHOOD you can't DO THIS TO ME

[@jen8790]

Izzy doing all childhood...

[@goobertron9099]

HELP SAME

[@pumpkin_cat792]

It's like she's my Kiwi twin its insane

[@Lil_Devil]

SAME HAHA

[@Darling_Decay]

I use to do those adoption roleplays a whole lot and those house parties. I have soo many fond memories, this game made my childhood. As well as all the neon spike colors and one single headdress. Adoption memory! I once was adopted and had this “sickness” that turned me into a dragon. Basically a croc with wings. I remember my “mother” crying so hard when I turned and brought a doctor and everything. Oh my god it was sooo bad

[@aver2326]

MASSIVE respect for the disclaimer at the beginning, of course its a little silly warning for swearing from an outside perspective, but I remember when I was a little 11 year old hiding under my sheets watching youtube videos on my 3ds late into the night. Coming across different videos and discovering the internet. I remember that the first couple of times I heard swear words I got a weird sickening feeling in my stomach and immediately clicked off. Of course that kind of thing doesn't bother me and it makes me laugh thinking back to how sheltered I really was.

[@literallyafishhook]

i was the exact opposite way, when i heard anyone swear i giggled like a maniac because i felt like a rebel... i refused to swear at all until i became 13 or 14, but now i cuss so much it's nothing to me lol

[@tanhart]

@Sophie ive seen fully grown adults still get mad that KZbinrs swear, so not that weird for a kid at this point

[@Rizzalert69]

oh my gosh i was the same way 💀💀

[@ssnekky]

My mom used to swear so much, and when I was watching Danny Gonzalez and he kept swearing and I was like “I’m gonna get in trouble…” Edit: I watched some Danny Gonzalez with my mom. She loves it. She thinks him and Chad Chad are hilarious.

[@toastarkat]

@@ssnekky Hell yeah another Danny Gonzalez viewer

[@krisdoesart9643]

As someone who's been waiting for an AJ retrospective for years, YES

[@mykenzieforbes5125]

Man who else remembers the township area full of people saying “Loins roar, eagles soar, non members deserve more” Edit: I also just remembered the “secret color” that used to have. My arctic wolf was that pale blue color. It might still be like that if my account still exists

[@somethingwithbungalows]

Unfortunately many accounts were deleted awhile back :,P

[@micnik3573]

@@somethingwithbungalows Were they, how?

[@robinsea]

Finding that blue colour was the highlight of my childhood

[@WhenWeAllFallAsleep]

liONS ROAR EAGLES SOAR NON MEMBERS DESERVE MORE

[@somethingwithbungalows]

@@micnik3573 AJ themselves just decided to delete a bunch of old unused accounts (unused for at least 2 years) for some reason. I believe they gave a warning awhile before but idk

[@ratherande]

This game was my unhealthy obsession. I started playing at the age of 7 and I really haven’t stopped since. I am now 17. There was a time when I was 13 where I would play every single day trying to trade for a spike.

[@froggo1405]

I remember bawling my eyes out for DAYS when I was scammed out of the nerd glasses (they were super rare at the time, maybe 5 years ago?) I told myself that I would never play again after that but I ended up logging back in after a few days because I couldn’t survive without animal jam apparently lol

[@grackaloni]

God me when I lost my rare bow I actually have a forbidden old yt where my AJ vids are still up and Im getting scammed lmao

[@pancakebarista1288]

I remember the nerd glasses! Still wish they had them

[@dhruthi2749]

i remeber having the both color enrd classes, (white and yellow) they were litterly my pride and joy. I even got a spiked collar, but it paled in comparassion to the white nerd glasses.

[@fallenstriker5472]

Ouch, I also remember crying so hard after being scammed for a spike collar or whatever. It hurt a lot because I was just a innocent person who was trying to be nice to a fox player who said they had never gotten a collar thing ever and said they would give it back. But then they took it unfriended me and left to scam another most likely it hurts but you learn and it's just a game in the end.

[@squittens8337]

I got scammed out of a bunch of betas and I sobbed for an hour straight and lost interest in the game after that.

[@__-be1gk]

"Homestuck?" "For goodness sake no" The more things change the more they stay the same

[@andream1636]

seeing that really cracked me up

[@inkedoutsans]

"My dad is undertale" god, true

[@clownfern]

😭

[@nettspend_penis]

you've summoned them....

[@mlptv4u397]

timestamp?

[@cleanestmidwestemofan]

moviestarplanet would be such a good topic for this series but also it’s like the most boring out of all these games. also tunnel town was AWESOME

[@scyntheachannel]

Please not moviestarplanet, God that game scared me so bad as a tween

[@TheAnimestudio]

Moviestarplanet was a ruthless environment I wish I could account for all the drama I went through on there

[@dia_official1]

@@TheAnimestudio omg ik it was literally chaotic lmao i actually spent most of my time in BlockStarPlanet (which is literally a minecraft ripoff but my mom refused to buy me minecraft so BSP was my only option 🥺) but the time i spent in MovieStarPlanet was literally just grinding for coins and levels every day so i could customize my character because i was ftp and i couldnt get vip 😔

[@olive2609]

I stopped playing movie star planet bc my parents got mad at me when they saw I had a ‘boyfriend’ on there (aka some random dude I’d never spoken to) 😭

[@beatricegoodchild6232]

@@dia_official1 GOSH THIS WAS ME I'd spend hours playing the quiz and best dressed games to earn some star coins all so I couls buy the new unicorn hair

[@brunettebi4111]

In 2013, I joined Animal Jam after seeing a KZbinr playing it. Hard to believe it's been a decade. I play both Classic and Play Wild, but Classic will always have a huge place in my heart. (Wish I got to play Feral since it looked so cool. Dang NFTs.)

[@gunnysmack3163]

I find it so endlessly interesting that almost all Gen z kids had one of these games that they obsessed over endlessly. By the end of my career I had about 30 Webkinz which I felt was decent and a good year or two in on a toontown subscription. Questions about this stuff are great icebreakers because you’ll always get some excitement on the topic as people relive the fun and hilarious memories from childhood.

[@remyratatouille634]

I had animal jam and wizard 101 (god i miss wizard 101)

[@Jesterz404]

As a game designer who has worked on online games before, my guess is that the “developer corral” is probably an inside joke for the area the devs would spawn into when they were testing the game. Inside jokes like that are always appreciated especially when testing hehehe

[@garfieldfan48]

Dude I remember there being a warrior cat community with a whole website dedicated to making clans in animal jam and advertising it so people will join. It's crazy now that I think about it. Hell, the website is somehow still active Edit: I'm actually so happy this was brought up in the video even if it was brief

[@garfieldfan48]

Holy shit this is the first time I got spam replies. I feel special

[@digitalcourtjester]

oh my god i remember being obsessed with just making clans to just make the wikis.

[@solseclipse]

I remember joining someone's Clan, then getting bored bc nobody was online to talk to so I joined another random one, then getting attacked and kicked out for "double-clanning". F in the chat for 8 y/o me

[@garfieldfan48]

@@digitalcourtjester no shit AJCW is what got me into coding and computers lmaoo. My whole education is built from being a virtual cat on Animal Jam 🥴

[@sodo_mizer]

Man yess I used to make so many warrior cats ocs on ajpw

[@shark_gaming_0]

I genuinely loved the educational side of AJ. I wasn't the most active player, but when I was online, I was running around and learning about nature. I'm fairly certain I was either a seal or a penguin

[@salemmacrae9472]

If it weren’t for my old friend showing me animal jam while having a sleepover I don’t think I would be the person I am today, thank you Anika for introducing to cursed children’s games

[@moogaboogaa]

I was introduced to it by a girl named Cami at summer school when I was going into 3rd grade

[@rosetenko8589]

I know I'm glad my ex-friend and his sister introduced me to AJ- I would've missed out on so much, smh

[@clarethecat5199]

Totally agree, dude. I wouldn't be the same person without being introduced to it by a friend, either. 5th grade, man.. Thank you, Paris

[@Bloody.Mushroom]

That is my deadname and I almost never see it in public so I nearly jumped out of my skin lol

[@thiswillnotdo6027]

damn my name is anika lmfao

[@Wince_Media]

It's so weird that people see quackity as "the dream smp guy" when I knew the guy long before dream smp. Seeing him now is like imagining leafy having a massive fandom

[@enviisyk]

yeah same ive been watching him since 2018 and its surreal

[@Wince_Media]

@@enviisyk kinda reminds me of hazbi. Hotel in a way

[@hobqueer]

It makes me really sad. Fortunately other people have taken his place though.

[@iloveyungsherman]

seeing leafy mentioned here made me exhilarated ahah

[@derago7205]

Lmao yeah i remember when i was getting into dream smp and seeing him and thinking "wait isnt that the guy who raided animal jam?"

[@friendlyrectangle56]

I’m pretty sure this game was my first introduction to classism and somewhat makeshift stock markets.

[@TheSilliestSillyBilly]

Logged onto animal jam for the first time in years a few months back. First thing I saw was a masterpiece on someones trade list that said "Poor people (nms) dni." Ahh, classic Animal Jam!

[@delikat6775]

I used to be obsessed with fox’s during that time and I remember going to the announcements board every single day and writing a suggestion message to Animal Jam about why they should add fox’s back again. They eventually did add them back and I like to think it was because of me.

[@ferretguy2457]

I DID THE SAME WITH FERRETS. everyday id go to the suggestion box and ask for ferrets and sign it under my username and then they released the pet ferrets!!!

[@somethingwithbungalows]

“This is like the 100th time that this lil shit has asked for this”

[@Sara-c7y6o]

Same but not really- I remember before they released snow leopards, I donated SO MANY GEMS to the conservation center to "Lions, tigers and cheetahs" everyday for months. After that time frame, I actually remember reading the Jamaa Journal saying something along the lines that they changed the donation... thing to be dedicated to solely lions, tigers and cheetahs. Not long after, they released snow leopards so to this day (I quit a little over a year ago) I believe the AJ snow leopards to be kind of like my babies because of my donations lmao.

[@kazulcosplay6494]

I worked at Wildworks as 3D artist and animator on Animal Jam from 2011-2017 and then again for a few months in 2018. This was a very fun video to watch and see Animal Jam from a player perspective. It was definitely a great trip down memory lane :) I could probably answer quite a few of your questions from the dev side.

[@KazplayVideos]

Like the magenta items and the special colors by clicking a certain pixels definitely started as a bug, but were preserved because the community reaction to them. An Easter egg that was purposely added was certain animals had a unique color that you couldn't pick on the list. So once you changed colors from the default, you couldn't go back to those colors. As far as the aggressive moderation, that was because it's a game for kids. The company had a lot of laws to adhere to to keep kids safe. It was a constant, and expensive, requirement we had to follow. I remember the blood paint splat incident, but didn't realize they kept the white one. I was on the 3D team, 2D assets like that had another team of artists. I had my fair share of items I made that were cut just before going live because of how they could be used inappropriately. It was always something we tried to keep in mind but we made mistakes. This is part of the reason the reason to develop a game like Fer.al, because aging up the audience would not have the same legal/moderation requirements. On AJ classic VS AJ play wild. This this was motivated by a couple things: industry trends with mobile games focus but most especially because AJ classic was built in flash(now defunct). At one point we made an effort to convert the game to HTML 5, but it proved too costly and too late. Instead they made a downladable launcher, and kept the game on life support. I spent all my time at the company on Classic. Notable things I did: animated the Arctic wolf, eagle, arctic fox, owl, raccoon, sloth, deer, and maybe more. I made hundreds of clothing items, my favorite was the ice armor set.

[@PocketRowlette]

Did you get any special "perks" and junk in the game for being part of staff? Just a completely random curiosity.

[@kazulcosplay6494]

@@PocketRowlette I got a free permanent membership (they did a reset on those every couple years) and they would give us a bunch of codes for free 3 and 6 month memberships to give away to friends and family every year. Those codes included the special animals and premium currency when those were added

[@PocketRowlette]

@@kazulcosplay6494 That sounds real fun. The free codes sounds like a great gift to give to relatives' kids for birthdays/Christmas. -Also did they pay well? I'm not a person who has the skills for these careers, but I'm pretty curious to hear.-

[@kazulcosplay6494]

@@PocketRowlette I was happy with my compensation. There was even a period while I worked there that we got big bonuses every quarter because the game was doing so well. But it's a volatile industry and when the company started not doing so well people started to get laid off. I was in the 3rd round of layoffs in 2017. I returned again for about 6 months as a contract worker in 2018 and moral was pretty low and there was another round of layoffs during my contract. From what I know that was the last of it until 35 people laid off again in July this year, so I don't know the status of the company but it doesn't seem good. So as I was saying, it's a rewarding industry, but be prepared to move jobs often.

[@thekatinthehat2678]

Hi! I’m a game dev, never worked on this game, but I have a guess as to what the employee corral is. A fashion boutique game I worked on had a rite of passage where every new employee’s name would be added to a list of names that would be randomly assigned to customers who came in the boutique. Compared to the size of the list overall, it’s pretty unlikely for a player to ever see a dev’s name, so it was mostly a cute Easter egg that would only ever be noticed by us. So my guess is that the corral is something like that, an in game Easter egg for employees only

[@IcarustyBones]

Animal Jam was my childhood and was my first true trans experience. From day one I always said I was a boy and my tigers name was Sir Happy Sun Whenever I got into a "relationship" I was always the boyfriend... all my AJ friends truly thought I was a guy. And it always made me so happy to be a boy. Of course I didn't know I was trans at the time. But I think it really helped my growth

[@nataliepurvis1131]

this is so wholesome 😭 i played this game all through my childhood and i’m glad to hear that other people also had great experiences with the game

[@IcarustyBones]

@@nataliepurvis1131 it really is an amazing game. And they do a great job making it a safe space for kids

[@gh.stb12rd]

Same kinda but with amino [vine boom] I roleplayed as both boy and girl characters and non human characters without gender and i was like hey this is so fun actually i love people not knowing what gender i am. Totally cis tho!. Que hitting puberty. Not so totally after all. 1 yr and a half on hrt rn at 19 :3

[@IcarustyBones]

@lysergidemicha Congrats on your HRT! I hope your transition is going well!

[@gh.stb12rd]

@@IcarustyBones it is!! Tysm!

[@aimeeh2079]

I feel like another main thing missed was the adventures, and how certain ones like Forgotten Desert were renowned for getting rares. The hours me and my friend dedicated to trying to collect all the purple gems, man I could've cured cancer in that time lmao

[@somethingwithbungalows]

I can remember the absolute chaos of the times where me and my buddies decided to get the purple gems. Holy shit- I’ve only completed that only once and we got a simple item. We raged sooo hard lmaooooo that shit took hours xD

[@somethingwithbungalows]

Of screeching at each other to get in line

[@aimeeh2079]

@@somethingwithbungalows ahaha I know right! We only completed it like,, 3 times in the totality of it all. At one point I actually got an orange short spike but alas, my game lagged out from the sheer amount of time I had already spent

[@HiHi-lt1cb]

OMG I spent hours upon hours in The Forgotten Desert. One time I got a rare purple spike bracelet, and after that I played more and more because I wanted more rares. XD

[@haleigh6089]

i can even look back fondly on how laggy all of the adventures were now

[@TsundereOtter]

quick correction: Lions were actually the first gift card animal! I only know this because lions were a big deal because not many folks had access to them so when you had a lion at the time it was a BIG DEAL. They were later added as a regular animal and lost their whole mysticism, but it’s one of the things I remember very vividly about lions. Thank you for covering my childhood! I built my whole internet life on AJ, even running an animal jam confessions blog on tumblr, so this was amazing!

[@darealslimshady702]

i remember when i was rlly into aj i almost didn’t believe lions were in the game until i could buy one myself!

[@KingPloddy]

I remember wanting a lion so badly lmao my name was lionking46604 so i just had to have one

[@dovahdog0]

BROOO i remember when i first got a lion, i was in jamaa township using my lion and i was surrounded by jammers calling me rare n shit. They even followed me into jam mart clothing until i had to tell them to stop swarming me lmfao

[@usagiislost]

I'm so glad to hear you talking about this. This game was about 100% of what I thought about back in 2016 and 2017. WisteriaMoon and GellyJones were the only youtubers I watched. I remember doing cringey rps in the game, and while I hate that I did it now, it was quite entertaining when I was younger.

[@sofurryfurrymeow]

Gelly Jones is so nostalgic for me😭

[@Benutzername474]

Kinda sad how most of them quit… i actually started playing animal jam after i saw it on a cookieswirlC (not an animal jam youtuber) video

[@roix5543]

Same

[@heelturn2]

@@izzz222 he became a soundcloud rapper yes, i am serious

[@sejsuper4660]

okay but jellyjones was CLASS. like her videos were so good??

[@leonewashere]

one of my favourite memories of AJ was the day i was able to fill that one club/party room that no one ever went in to by saying "party in (whatever that place's name was)" in every room lol, i was so proud of myself

[@bennesweden6355]

I was half paying attention and heard "there were also tons of maps" that got me absolutely alerted, very relieved to hear that it stands for Multi Animated Projects.

[@ley.470]

might be bursting your bubble but unfortunately there were a lot of MAPs on the site that weren't animation projects 😬

[@jm1646]

that did scare me as well.

[@volkadee6151]

@@ley.470 hyenine1 lmao

[@zoeyc5851]

I remember playing The Forgotten Desert adventure. You could only play as flying animals (so only members) and you could get lots of rare items from the adventure, I had the whole map remembered and knew where all the chests were it was amazing.

[@starrynight8903]

omg yes and people would lowkey create these mini "forgotten desert" parties where they'd ask who would wanna do it more than once and you would all go to their den and friend them so you could do that adventure for like, hours without having to recruit new people. I loved it lol

[@Ducky_Lucky]

That game is how I ever got a spike, I remember I was so hyped and whilst everyone else left minus one kid before they reached the end and he just went "ok." and left, I find his deadpan reaction rather funny

[@ashleyzukas1645]

Omggg the day I got a red long collar in tfd was the best day of my life 😭😭 I love that game I kinda wanna go back and buy membership to just play it

[@chromacattiosv2]

i still remember my routes for the forgotten desert, lucky clovers, and tiki trouble.

[@nuniyoa]

oh my god same, i spent HOURS on that and ended up with a black long collar

[@viper8925]

looks like wildworks is so desperate for money that they’re developing an nft game, and the community is in chaos. they outright lied to fer.al players and told them that the game was still in open beta because they were making updates to it, when the reality is that they’ve been working on an nft-based game called cinder. now that the new game has been announced, it’s pretty much been confirmed that fer.al is being officially abandoned and will likely never move on from beta. i’m sure animal jam will be facing the same treatment in the future, probably even in the next year. i grew up on animal jam and even now at 18 i’ll sometimes log back on when i’m feeling nostalgic, but it’s safe to say those days are over and i won’t be giving wildworks another penny. this is pretty disgusting behavior for a company that supposedly makes games to teach kids about the environment. i’d love to see you make a video covering this whole mess.

[@lrk54ever]

Oh god. I know animal jam isn’t in its prime anymore but it sucks to even think about how one day I might not even r be able to log on for nostalgia. Neopets is also making NFTs, I wish these sites would remember their roots as fun kids mmos. :(

[@gone9820]

@@lrk54ever Animal Jam wasnt that fun tho. TLDR: artificial scarcity + trading made AJ toxic with a player made hiearchy. WW (wildworks) was always evil, doing the combo as above to manipulate children into playing their game. I can say this because I played AJ. Its a shame for WW to go for NFTs, but theyre going bankrupt, and I say its well deserved. People shouldnt exploit their audience made of kids and teens

[@Lindsi_loveee]

I forgot so much about animal jam until watching this, like the frozen lake we would jump on trying to get it to break. I mainly spent time in the art gallery’s looking at all the cool art, i one time saw a painting i absolutely loved and the creator was there. He friended me and made me a commission for a pound puppies painting which i still have in my den. I also collected a ton of rares (mainly spike collars, cloaks, and other various such things).

[@tusi1032]

My sister was so dedicated to this game and was good at negotiating; convincing members to give her the rarest item(s). She now plays it when she's stressed with high school, lowkey is adorable seeing her gush about the game lol.

[@annafazecas3909]

luckyyy as a high schooler who still plays sometimes i would love to have someone to gush to

[@Xswhtx]

@@annafazecas3909 you could gush to me about the game 😅I also play aj in high school

[@fIorapetals]

Ahhh, Animal Jam. The game where I went through my Warriors phase, got scammed, and started making online friends for the first time. Honestly, I have so many fond memories of Jamaa and seeing you upload this made me want to go play it again, so I'm doing that haha. I'll miss those old AJ KZbinrs... I went through so much growing up while playing that. Warriors phase, creepypasta phase, and... here I am now. The game's changed but at its core, it still feels like home. Glad you felt like talking about it!

[@jellyfssh]

I literally love how you put on a whole outfit just to sit in a room full of garfield plushies and talk about children's MMO's.

[@ayl9261]

and a stunning makeup on top of that

[@AgentPeebles]

This game remains in my heart. This only became more important to me due to my old friend. We were super young, so we had no way of talking to each other personally since we had no phone or anything. At some point, she was moving and had no way to talk to me. We decided to try and communicate over AJ instead. She decided to give me her password and username as a final gift and left. She never did log on again, but I do remember that and think about it and her account reminds me of her.

[@ggdynfytugfy6892]

Aww yeah. The game that came in clutch for me and the boys and the girls and the NBs between when our school blocked coolmath games and when we developed other workarounds. So excited to hear about the depths I never explored.

[@treats207]

IKR LOLLLL

[@leahdavis9434]

Would've been less clunky to just say "people at my school". Also, as a non-binary person, we are nonbinary PEOPLE and not just non binaries

[@HarryFrenchRoom24Gaming]

@@leahdavis9434 yeah the boy people the girl people and the non binary people lol

[@tuntehund]

@@leahdavis9434 FOR REAL THOUGH. i’m a non-binary person as well (although my pronouns are they/he/it) and i absolutely hate it when people refer to us as “they/thems”. like u don’t see them referring to girls as “she/hers” ! but like... they are being supportive ....? they’re trying ig

[@grilledpook]

your school blocked coolmath? thats so weird to think about

[@nyananath]

A few anecdotes bc nostalgia is hitting me rn: THE slur Whenever someone wanted to curse ( clarification; Spanish is my main language) they would say "eres un arroz al revés" ("you are a rice backwards"), which translated doesn't really make sense, unless you know that "arroz" backwards is "zorra" ("bitch"), tbh it was a really creative way of insulting someone Wedding Once I assisted to someone-I-didn't-know's wedding. The girl was like, really but really rich, she was an artic wolf with tons of cool clothes and her "engaged" was also rich but I don't really remember the animal nor color. The house was really big and she threw a big-ass party before the wedding and invited everyone at the plaza (that's how I got there), tho at the moment of the wedding there wasn't a lot of people left, so I had to do the priest's speech lmao, it was lots of fun Scam A "friend" that I had met just one day ago told me it was their bday, and asked if I could lend them a bit of furniture for their party. Me, as the dumb naive kid I was back then, happily accepted, with the promise that they would return it later, which, well, never happened The slur again I was playing an event game, I think it was for Saint Patrick's, not sure, I don't even know what that day is about but I remember it had to do with clovers. To get gems you had to dance with three more people on circles so ladders would appear, but literally no one wanted to help me out, so I started saying the rice thing for a moment. After a while I almost completed the event, and started cursing someone in particular who was unwilling to help me at all moments which made me mad (I got easily angry back at the time), I just had to do a last thing to finish and I couldn't help but vent, but then, before being able to finish, the game shut down because someone reported me for swearing, causing me not being to use my account for a whole day. I remember I was really mad and almost like crying lol, I got really salty Fnaf roleplaying It was common for me to start inviting a bunch of people to my house so we could roleplay as Fnaf characters, I would redecorate my house and make it look like the Fnaf 1 office, I always was Mangle or Bonnie lmao Someone called me ugly Was messing around at the ocean when someone came at me and told me how ugly my turtle was, like, out of nowhere. I was a little child so I obviously felt sad, but then when that girl left, I inspired my color scheme on hers which, ngl, was nice. The colors were basically purple and black, so I decided to make both my turtle and my bunny those colors (purple skin/fur with black/gray spots from what I remember). I'm happy I did, I kept those colors until I stopped playing and they were nice

[@N0t-Luciifer]

"You are rice backwards" is the most iconic thing I ever heard

[@RandomFriedPickles]

The furniture thing happened to me once too

[@ripplesripley]

OH MY GOD THE FNAF ROLEPLAYS??? THERE WERE ALSO THE SANSCEST ROLEPLAYS TOO DJDKSNDKSJ

[@rosetenko8589]

Oh! I remember religiously going to those Fnaf roleplays and being mangle! I also recently found out I met one of my friends at a Fnaf rp, around 3 years before we actually became friends. It was really odd putting those pieces together-

[@sydneybowman2760]

I'm so glad someone finally talked about this game. I spent so many hours of my childhood on this game.

[@jen8790]

same

[@treats207]

Same!

[@bellaredlon2229]

Thank you for putting these deep dive videos together, they make me feel happy remembering the good times of being a child on the internet, rather than being sad that those days are over. It’s also comforting knowing that other people my age were just as weird and stupid as I was, haha!

[@tidepodpadthai2633]

"None of us paid attention to this as kids" Me, who wanted to become a biologist because of this game and always spouted off animal facts I'd learned from this game: ;w;

[@cheesegorditacrunch]

That’s cute

[@Wubadubadub1967]

SAME

[@hannahbeanies8855]

There’s been a few people with similar stories in this comment section. It’s making my whole day because of how wholesome it is. 🥰 thank you for sharing!

[@grace-od1wf]

YOU USED THE GAME FOR ITS INTENDED PURPOSE. A TRUELY PURE SOUL YOU ARE!

[@dovahdog0]

Saaaame😭 im studying a bit of zoology partly because of aj

[@itsmethebesttabby]

I was obsessed with this game. I absolutely adored the claw game and had a huge collection of the animal plushies. Even a dragon giraffe

[@laundrysauce354]

I had a plushie shop, that's how I grinded for good items lmao

[@mxleo5512]

@@laundrysauce354 I did that too one time I got a spike for a really rare one I had one of the best things I got with the shop

[@vaporean_boylove.0w083]

Mine was the sky high game and the fashion show. I can spend HOURS

[@sunnivamhagatun]

ooo me too! and i loved the minigame where you have to pet different starfish and sea slugs!

[@laundrysauce354]

@@mxleo5512 dude u should try play wild, it runs better than the old aj and has cool events now,everyone has free chat and most stuff is member free. Doesn't have the old adventures but has these things called pack runs instead. Also I think u get stuff automatically from already having an account pre play wild

[@Phasmm_]

Okay but like I remember spending MONTHS just playing that eagle adventure in hopes of getting spikes and all I'd get were like necklaces and mats :'l

[@saltybskut3654]

I got a black long from the eagle adventure and I ended up losing it after months of scams and undertrading :,)

[@emmettrose5960]

I remember I got a spike from the eagle adventure-I wanna say it was a green… short? or something? and I distinctly remember absolutely nobody believing me and being called a scammer over it, as if somehow I could scam people by… Convincing them to play a minigame? It was wild.

[@stinky-as-sin]

I played that mini game too much... I ended up with some pretty good stuff tho. 7 neon bows, a couple spikes, and a lot of betas. I traded most of that for Ladybug pets, and Phantom pets. This is kinda weird but if u still want a spike I could just give u one. 😅 Even if I don't play the game anymore I still have the login info.

[@emilyfoutch]

OMG same.

[@emilyfoutch]

@@stinky-as-sin dude that's really cool that you got all that stuff. That mini game was THE BEST.

[@Eggsolotl]

33:14 This month (Oct of 2022) the ice actually broke. AJHQ decided to give in to the rumors that had run rampant since the introduction of Mt. Shiveer and had the players break it, revealing a phantom infested cavern underneath, with a new minigame, too.

[@Wolfie54545]

Here to tell people it was on the app version.

[@romanvalgo]

I remember finding not one but MULTIPLE PEOPLE either roleplaying or pretending to be fman. And the funniest part is that I believed that every one of them was the *real* fman.

[@shay36]

STOPPPPP I literally remember having nightmares about fman 😭😭🤣

[@romanvalgo]

@@shay36 pffft same lmao

[@jellygypsyaj5352]

There's still so many people pulling the Fman card haha

[@romanvalgo]

@@jellygypsyaj5352 lol I’m not surprised

[@heyguys6526]

OH MY GOD I WAS PRETENDING TO BE FMAN ONCE..

[@HeartShapedCandiedBat]

"Homestuck?" "For goodness sake no" crying i love that

[@BasicallyBerry]

I remember trading with someone and then getting scammed. They sent me buddy request after and gave me back my scammed items. Turns out they had felt bad and apologized, they were actually really nice

[@nylada]

This couldve been me 💀

[@2xilor]

@@nylada or me 💀

[@tuxedomask3483]

Gamedev here! Magenta is often used in game engines when shaders (what programs a material's surface) cant compile/render. Its bright so devs know if their materials arent working. Idk what animal jam was made in but its possible the magenta was either a default color or a missing shader color :)

[@gellyjones6418]

Haha hey look, I’m in my favorite KZbinr’s video!

[@lanaandcats874]

UR MY WHOLE CHILDHOOD BROO

[@maxiwaxipads]

@@lanaandcats874 SAME BRO, I REMEMBER WATCHING ON MY IPAD AFTER PLAYING AJ

[@eternalflame49]

omg I used to love your skits so much. the nostalgia is strong lmao

[@gracieortega8611]

I'm crying rn, I miss ur videos so much

[@repulsiveroach2573]

haha I still remember ya gelly.

[@CinnoAJ]

DUUUDDEEE omg heyy I’m an Aussie Jambassador and this is the coolest thing ever because I’m a huge fan of your videos and have been waiting for an AJ deep dive forever!! I’ll be sure to send this onto Bepper hehe 💙👀 Thank you for your super insightful and hilarious overview of our beloved little community :))

[@gemdog100]

Ayee Cinno Did not relise ya aussie

[@m3rcury229]

OHMYGODODO

[@imsocool5845]

WAIT YOUR AUSSIE?! HOLY

[@addi4801]

I remember playing this game in like 4th grade. EVERYBODY in my class was obsessed with it. I remember this one girl saying if we all gave her our usernames and passwords her sister (who she claimed worked at animal jam) would give is lifetime memberships for free. Then proceded to steal things from us. aahhh the memories

[@butteredcornfr]

steal her credit card number 🥰🥰

[@shatabdi8951]

@@butteredcornfr thats lame, steal her mother!

[@toastarkat]

I willingly INTRODUCED this game to my 5th grade class... I want to bash my head into the wall just recalling my overall performance when it comes up in my mind

[@papaelf420]

I remember being on AJ during the early days, seeing Crystal Sands without the water slides ignited a spark in my memory. My animal of choice was a seal and when the oceanic update dropped and I could swim with my seal?!?! Of all the virtual world games I actively looked for and played, including stuff like Chatlands, this one got the most playtime out of me.

[@SirAsdf]

If I had a nickel for every kid targeted website with animal characters that turned into a controversy filled nightmare scape with a shitty economy I'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't alot but crazy that it happened twice.

[@rapterlabs]

Wait, what's the other one?

[@CloudsAndDays]

@@opossumontheinternet9864 The other one is probably neopets. Neopets had an incredibly big economy back in the day before the in game stock market crash that brought it all down.

[@SirAsdf]

@@rapterlabs neopets

[@golldshi]

woah is your pfp from thumb wrestling federation? I loved that show as a kid

[@emanresu3683]

I had a good giggle ngl