Games! Games! Games!

Growing up in the 2000s and 2010s meant exploring the internet with curiosity and few restrictions, often stumbling upon random websites by chance. There were no TikTok game recommendations, and Instagram was in its infancy. My after-school ritual in grade school consisted of sitting on my family’s computer playing hours and hours of online computer games, all while soaking my feet in my Orbeez Soothing Spa. Looking back now, this was the life, an at-home foot spa, accompanied by an after-school snack, unlimited internet access, and the only “financial stress” was not having enough coins to buy every color puffle on Club Penguin. Some of the most memorable games from that era weren’t just pastimes, they became miniature worlds we escaped into, each one leaving its mark on an entire generation, good and bad.

MovieStar Planet 

MovieStarPlanet 2013

MovieStarPlanet (MSP) made every kid growing up in the 2000s and 2010s feel like an actual star. It was a virtual world where players could dress up in outfits we were far too young to wear in real life, direct movies like James Cameron or Sofia Coppola, and even find “romantic interests” in chat rooms, which we were also far too young for. One of the game’s most addictive features was its high scores system: a leaderboard that ranked the popularity of players, called “movie stars”, as well as their creations, including short films, artwork, outfits, character animations, and room designs.

Autographs were another crucial element of rising to fame on MSP, giving players the power to boost others' rankings. One notable player on the game's platform went by the username Pumpchkin, who reigned at the top of the U.S. high scores list until 2019. In the world of MSP, everyone knew Pumpchkin. You either loved them because you wanted to be them, or hated them because you wanted to be them, especially due to their artbooks and coordinated clothing looks. 

While MSP still has active users, and developers even created a sequel to the original, it remains, for most Gen Z players in the U.S., a relic of internet adolescence: a chaotic, glittery, and unforgettable universe you might still remember… if only you could recall your login. 

Club Penguin

Club Penguin Art Evolution

Club Penguin was my all-time favorite game growing up. Unlike having a designated area for chat rooms like MovieStarPlanet, Club Penguin turned the entire virtual world into one big chat room. Every location, from the bustling town where you could buy outfits or dance in the nightclub, to the plaza where you could adopt colorful puffles, to the ski hill where you could race other penguins on sleds, was open for conversation and connection. With over 200 million users, the game felt expansive and alive, offering endless spaces to explore.

A unique aspect of Club Penguin was its acquisition by the Walt Disney Company in 2007, which led to frequent in-game “takeovers” that promoted Disney films and shows. These crossovers included Teen Beach Movie, Monsters University, Shake It Up, Star Wars, and more, turning the island into a constantly evolving playground.

Although the original Club Penguin was discontinued, it found new life through Club Penguin Legacy, a fan-made revival released a few years ago. Naturally, this piqued my interest, and I made an account to see how similar it was to the original Club Penguin. The map, stores, and mini-games were almost perfectly recreated, and there was still a solid number of players online. While the Legacy version has no affiliation with Disney, users wouldn’t expect to see any new collaborations, but it does host regular events and parties to keep the game fresh. Whether you’re a nostalgic Gen Z veteran or a curious new player, Club Penguin lives on and is still just as fun.

GirlsGoGames Original site

GirlsGoGames.com

GirlsGoGames.com was the ultimate hub for tween girls, and often, younger girls as well. Unlike the games mentioned earlier, GirlsGoGames did not provide any maps or live chat features, but instead hosted a massive collection of games ranging from cooking simulations to dress-up challenges and personality quizzes. On the surface, it appeared to be a wholesome, bubbly site filled with fun and creativity, but for many, it also served as an early, and often unintentional, introduction to more inappropriate content.

GirlsGoGames featured different categories of games to play, such as animal games, makeup games, and adventure games, but one category in particular stood out: kissing games. These games often involved three characters, where the objective was to make two of the characters flirt or kiss behind the back of the third character, who would usually be portrayed as a boss, teacher, or parent, without getting caught. Unsurprisingly, many parents weren’t in favor of their children playing games like these, which led to a common ritual of quickly exiting the browser when parents walked in, or deleting history to avoid getting in trouble.

That said, GirlsGoGames was still home to plenty of age-appropriate classics such as Sara’s Cooking Class, or the Polly Pocket games, my personal favorites. Looking back though, it’s clear that for many Gen Z kids, sites like this blurred the lines between harmless fun and questionable content. It makes you reconsider just how unfiltered and unsupervised our early internet experiences really were.

Poptropica Loading screen

Poptropica

Ending on a more positive note, we travel to the world of Poptropica, an adventure-based game where players explore islands and complete storylines unique to each island. This game wasn’t just fun; it was surprisingly educational. Created by Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Poptropica featured narratives that introduced players to figures like Marie Curie, the first woman to win Nobel Prizes in both physics and chemistry, as well as immersive lessons on mythology, including stories of Greek gods such as Athena, Zues, and Poseidon. 

Though the game is still up and running today, it now offers a limited number of islands compared to its original run. The classic Poptropica experience included everything from light-hearted, easy quests to darker, more challenging adventures. For example, Cryptids Island, which featured the legend of the Jersey Devil, scared many young players with its eerie storyline. Another famously spooky island, Survival Island, based on the book The Most Dangerous Game, required players to escape a hunter stalking them through the wilderness. It terrified me as a kid, and it is still available to play.

Despite the reduced island count, Poptropica continues to draw in both old and new players. Many find themselves replaying islands they once struggled with as kids, discovering new meaning or finally solving puzzles that once seemed impossible. It’s a reminder of how even the simplest childhood games left a lasting impact, teaching us more than we realized at the time.

Mini Issue 06: GAMES! Photographed by Mark Bluemle

Overall, growing up in a world with technology already widely available and rapidly evolving came with both joy and risk. While many games were genuinely kid-friendly, others only appeared to be, making it all too easy for Gen Z to stumble into spaces they weren’t ready for.  With little supervision, many young users were exposed to inappropriate or even harmful content, from suggestive themes to online grooming, and experiences that left lasting impressions well into adulthood.

While it is nostalgic to revisit the games that once filled our afternoons with laughter and imagination, it’s equally important to reflect on how those early digital interactions shaped our sense of safety, trust, and identity. As Gen Z continues to navigate adulthood, carrying both nostalgia and caution, we’re uniquely positioned to push for safer, more thoughtful digital spaces, places where exploration and creativity are encouraged, but never at the expense of our well-being.

Binge, Stan, Repeat: Television Fandom in the Times of Stan Culture and Streaming

(Slight Warning: Spoilers for The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, and The Bear) 

On May 6, 2004, millions of New Yorkers gathered in Times Square to experience the season finale of arguably the most famous sitcom of all time: Friends. After the episode aired, folks presumably chatted about their thoughts with their friends and family on the subway ride home, and furthermore with their coworkers in the break room the next day. Then we all moved on. 

Television has a way of integrating itself into ever-changing pop culture. From the introduction of late-night television into the average middle-income home, to watchers across America voting for their favorite couple on Love Island USA every single week. Early instances of fans creating their own spaces for fellow viewers and showrunners alike can be attributed to the early days of Twitter. Immediately after the airing of the episode, it was no longer required to wait to communicate with your friends in real life. The second the credits began to scroll across the silver screen, fans could take their grievances or happiness to the world wide web for all to see. Fandom long existed before the time of social media or even the Internet. Showrunner and filmmaker J.J. Abrams describes the new world of television viewing as "akin to watching theater". The episodic release becomes something of a performance, and reactions would trickle in real-time. He goes on to add, “What was kind of great was that you could use it as one of your tools.” But where does this notion leave us in the current climate of all things streaming, whole-season releases, fandom existing on various platforms, media literacy declining, and so much more? 

Friends Series Finale In Times Square (2004)

What came of the fans’ criticism visibility is a change within the writer’s rooms. Suddenly, showrunners had become their own character. They were expected to represent their work in the same fashion that actors had been doing in the past. This is due to the new level of parasocial intimacy on Twitter. Writers, actors, and showrunners alike now had access to initial reactions and had the opportunity to not only engage in online discourse but take from it. Writers now had to dissect the difference between what fans think they wanted for their faves, to what was necessary to produce a decent series with a strong narrative.

Shipping is one of the more popular forms of engagement seen online, dating back to one of television history’s first “cult classics.” ‘The X-Files’ first graced screens in 1993, and Internet fans were quick to harbor a passion for the potential relationship between lead protagonists, Fox Mulder (Dave Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). While the show carried sentiments of critiques towards the American government and large institutions and embraced supernatural conspiracy theories, at the center of this show lies an intense coworker-to-lovers (kind of, it’s a little complicated) relationship between Mulder and Scully. 

Manifestations of shipping culture begin to trickle into reality, in which the actors face the repercussions of what exactly the fans want to see. Performers now exist as an extension of the series they are dedicating their professional life to. Rumors have long swirled about Anderson and Duchovny, from a famous clip of Anderson winning an award and celebrating by first kissing Duchovny then her boyfriend to the two continuously appearing on red carpets together. Every other summer, an influx of Conrad vs Jeremiah appears on the timeline and creates further discourse, despite the series ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ being an adaptation of a completed novel series, with an ending pre-written. While not always harmful, the extent to which shipping culture bleeds into the personal lives of actors emphasizes the issue of potentially too much involvement from fans. 

Fans of Netflix’s star show ‘Stranger Things’ have long noticed that Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown rarely “interact” anymore, and many users online attribute this public awkwardness to the harassment from Mileven shippers. Fans of the on-screen couple furthermore shipped the actors, looking for public moments between the two to interrogate them about the status of a non-existent romantic relationship. Wolfhard and Brown rarely interact publicly, and users online speculate that the incessant shipping from fans early in the show’s run is a major part of that choice.  

Shipping has gone far beyond the streaming culture and fiction television series, where it can now be voted on every day from ‘Love Island USA’. American watchers choose their favorite couple in a similar fashion to how those early viewers of ‘The X-Files’ championed for the couple they desperately wanted to see online. This notion of “America decides” in conjunction with the way that fans can now guide television writers to make choices for their work in real time creates an entirely new question of whether fans of a show should have a say or not. Fans of the hit FX series ‘The Bear’ have long-campaigned for a romantic relationship between Syd (Ayo Edebiri) and Carmy (Jeremy Allen White). As the show continues to air episodes, the fans grow frustrated at the creators’ choice to refrain the two from ever getting together. Instead, the show created a unanimously despised girlfriend from Carmy’s past to deflect from the potential of “sydcarmy.” If a majority of viewership is rooting for one very specific thing, what would be the reason for the writers not to please their viewers? 

Shows that remained true to their planned plot point, such as ‘The Walking Dead’ killing fan-favorite character Glenn, lost a major chunk of their loyal fanbase from a decision that was unfavorable. Inversely, the ships and dramatics that surrounded ‘Outer Banks’ upon its newest season led many fans to believe that a crowd favorite character was killed off due to tensions on set. It was speculated that Madison Bailey and Rudy Pankow may have had a small and fleeting romantic relationship at some point throughout the filming of the early seasons, leading fans to ship not only the actors, but their characters as well. Initially, the character of Kie (Bailey) was meant to embark on a relationship with Pope (Jonathan Daviss). However, fans were not shy in their desire to see JJ (Pankow) and Kie end up together.

While the drama is largely speculation from fans and online users, there seems to be a slight correlation in the way that Bailey and Pankow chose to interact with one another publicly, as both were in separate relationships. It was alleged that the two could barely work together despite now having to perform as a romantic couple on-screen. 

The term “fan service” historically stems from manga books, in which artists and authors would lean into the riqué nature of the novels for the fans’ pleasure. The problem that fan service has found itself in is that it removes the original integrity of the writing and the natural progression of the narrative. Typical fan service instances revolve around heightened sexuality of characters or exploiting female bodies for the pleasure of a male-dominated audience, such as Princess Leia’s costume in Return of the Jedi, where she is clad in a tiny metal bikini, and enslaved with chains by Jabba the Hut. Other subsets of fan service come in the form of just doing what the audiences want and giving small jolts of excitement that will keep them slightly engaged. This can come in the form of letting two characters with a strong shipper fan base finally be together, or relying on references and nostalgia to keep fans happy, such as the case with Marvel’s latest endeavors. 

The change in the format in which television is consumed has also entirely shifted fandom culture and the way that content is discussed. In 2013, Netflix released their first-ever streaming exclusive series ‘House of Cards’ which changed the entertainment industry as we know it today. The days of weekly releases once a year on cable networks dwindled into a void of binging limited series or shows with eight episode seasons. The shift was gradual, of course, but it is impossible to look at the landscape of television without considering such a significant shift. HBO Max has stayed true to their model for the most part, opting to still release episodes on a weekly basis for their original streaming shows. The term “‘Euphoria’ Sundays” created a collective memory in the culture, and the service continues to find success within their weekly releases such as ‘The Last of Us,’ ‘Succession,’ ‘The Pitt,’ and more.  Netflix has now fully integrated a “parts” release system, in which they drop a few of the first half of one season at one point, then wait roughly a month or so to drop the other part. This model was highly impactful in the summer of 2022, where ‘Stranger Things’ felt inescapable. It was the show of the summer because it kept its momentum alive with the two different drops. 

Oftentimes, discourse around the steady decline of media literacy surrounds how audiences interact with the content and art they are actively consuming. Television writing consists of more telling than showing because the writers have lost faith in their readers’ intellect. The blurred line between actor, creator, and character that social media has created for stans has become a prominent issue for the developing nature of TV. 

Gen-Z infautation with 2000s/2010 Nostalgia

The year is 2025. You’re walking through the New York streets, listening to Veruca Salt or perhaps Alanis Morrisette. You’ve got on your favorite low-rise cargo capris paired with a Bobby Jack tee that you just thrifted from Depop, and you're starting to regret wearing your platform flip-flops to walk around in. The sun starts to peek above the buildings and shine down onto you, so you reach into your vintage Coach bag and grab your rimless rectangle sunglasses. Your feet are starting to kill you, so you decide to sit on a bench in Washington Square. You pull out your phone, adorned with a cute chunky charm, to fix up your lip combo, and then decide to watch the people in the bustling park. You notice lots of cute dogs trotting by, couples having picnics, friends playing chess, but then you start to pick up on something else. Denim mini skirts. Baggy cargo shorts. Skaters wearing DC shoes. Juicy Couture velour tracksuits. You then remove your earbuds from your ears, and a group behind you talks about rewatching Skins, while a person sitting next to you is blasting a Sublime album. These are all things you wear, watch, and listen to, and suddenly you think to yourself, is this 2025, or 2000?

This isn’t just a coincidence. It’s part of a bigger cultural shift I’ve noticed, and being a part of Gen Z, it hits especially close to home. I, like most people reading this article, am a part of Gen Z. Born in 2005, my lullabies consisted of Green Day songs my sister would sing to me. I remember being introduced to popular R&B artists such as Beyoncé, Bell Biv DeVoe, Boyz II Men, and many more whenever riding in the car with my aunt, and if I were to cry, she’d put on “Big Girls Don’t Cry” by Fergie, and I'd instantly grow calm. Back-to-school clothes shopping meant trips to Kmart, Payless, and, as a treat, sometimes Justice.

Every Winter, I would get to choose a new Baby Phat coat from Burlington to pair with my Bearpaw boots. When I wasn’t at gymnastics class after school, I'd spend most of my time online playing Club Penguin and Polly Pocket games or watching television with my grandfather, where we would spend hours watching Victorious or The Backyardigans (his two favorites). On weekends when my oldest sister wasn’t subjecting me to watch Twilight, I’d try (and fail) to stay up until midnight to catch Teen Titans and listen to Music Choice while playing with my Monster High doll collection.

Those memories shaped my childhood, but what’s strange is how much I see those same trends, shows, and styles resurfacing everywhere around me now.

I pretty much had the average GenZ childhood experience, and I often find myself reminiscing with other people of my age group about the unique experiences we had that other generations didn’t, but in recent years, I’ve noticed myself and others yearning for the revival of trends from the 2000s and 2010s, whether through fashion, music, or entertainment. This longing for the past, or nostalgia, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but at what point does nostalgia become excessive? 

There are said to be two types of nostalgia: Restorative and reflective. Restorative nostalgia refers to looking back on the past, and accepting that it is just that; the past. For example, catching a glimpse of an old 2008 commercial would most likely evoke a momentary sense of contentment, allowing for enjoyment of the memory. In the same case with reflective nostalgia, however, seeing the same commercial may instead evoke a feeling of sadness, and an urge to recreate or return to it. It seems that today, many young adults are experiencing restorative nostalgia more than reflective nostalgia when it comes to the 2000’s, or Y2K aesthetic. However, Generation Z started in 1997 and ended in 2012, so how is it that so many of us feel restorative nostalgia for an era we were barely old enough to remember or even fully experience?

At first glance, nostalgia may seem harmless, but in reality, nostalgia is a tool that provides comfort. Sure, we may genuinely enjoy the humorous and relatable aspects of Sex and the City, but do we need to re-watch Carrie getting humiliated by Big 5+ times? Oftentimes, the nostalgia experienced by Gen Z is used as a way to cope with the harsh realities of the world today, and offers an ‘escape’ into a time when things seemed simpler; our childhoods. So, how exactly is this a problem?

While some may suggest that nostalgia fuels creativity, I feel it can hinder it instead. Have you noticed the unnecessary amount of live-action remakes being made lately? Movies Gen Z grew up with, films that once felt iconic, are now being recycled with shinier visuals but weaker storylines. I recently had a conversation with my partner about this topic, and he pointed out that producers aren’t doing this because the stories need to be retold, they're doing it because it’s the safest way to make a profit. Nostalgia sells, and the entertainment industry knows it.

The same idea applies to fashion. Many brands, especially fast-fashion retailers, are capitalizing on the Y2K trend by mass-producing modernized versions of early 2000s staples. You can walk into almost any clothing store right now and you’ll find racks filled with Juicy Couture sets, flare jeans, graphic baby tees, and wide belts. These aren’t necessarily new designs; they’re rebranded replicas of what we grew up seeing on TV or in magazines. This constant recycling might feel comforting, but it leaves little room for new ideas to flourish. Instead of pushing boundaries or innovating, entire industries are leaning into what’s already been done, feeding into our need for familiarity in a time of uncertainty.

While indulging in the past can feel good at the moment, it raises the question: Are we building a future worth being nostalgic for someday?

Nostalgia can be comforting, even creatively useful in small doses. But when it becomes the foundation of our culture, it starts to feel less like homage and more like avoidance. For Gen Z, the attraction toward the 2000s is understandable. It represents a time that feels simpler, safer, and more stable than what we’re facing now. Still, constantly recycling the past isn’t a substitute for building something new. It’s one thing to reference what came before; it’s another to depend on it. If everything we consume and create is rooted in nostalgia, we risk losing the chance to define our generation on our terms. So while there’s nothing wrong with embracing nostalgia, maybe it’s time to start asking: what do we want the next era to look like, and what will we leave behind for the generation after us?