My Place in Poptropica: Paris

This is a guest post from Paris sharing his My Place in Poptropica story, which is all about one’s Poptropica journey. Enjoy!

2010 | The world of online games

In 2010, my siblings and I were obsessed with online games — Animal Jam, Webkinz, and even that one McDonald’s MMO, if anyone remembers. Around 2010, my sister introduced us to Poptropica, and everything changed. From the years of 2010 to 2013, I was obsessed with Poptropica.

2013-ish | A PHB obsession 

Near the year 2013 (or was it 2014?) I discovered the Poptropica Help Blog. I don’t exactly remember when or how (perhaps I was searching for island guides?), but when I discovered the PHB, I became even more obsessed with Poptropica. I idolized the PHB authors at the time; this included Slanted Fish, HPuterpop, etc. This obsession of mine continued throughout 2015.

Then in 2016, there was hardly any Poptropica content, and I fell out with the game. This all changed a couple years later…

2018 | What happened to Poptropica?!

In 2018, I decided to check back on the current situation of Poptropica, only to find it a mess. Flash was shutting down in a little over two years and the creators were spending time on Poptropica Worlds: a laggy, slow, and unfinished mess. The old islands seemed like they were doomed to die, so that summer, I decided to play through all of the old islands I hadn’t completed yet.

Also during that summer, I decided to join the PHB’s Discord server, the Poptropica Help Chat (PHC). It was not really active at the time, but it did introduce me to the larger Poptropica community. I participated in the Poppies, gave the PHB a tip-off about the ad-based Lego Island, and all sorts of things. But 2019 brought even more things to the table.

2019 | Finding community

I became even more active in the community and joined another Discord server in the fandom, the Poptropica Club. This was in its early days before I became a part of its staff. Due to the massive growth and activity of the Pop Club, I grew disinterested in the PHC, but still read the PHB religiously.

In 2019, we were introduced to Reality TV: Wild Safari, and later a new tutorial called Snagglemast. These underwhelming islands left me disappointed and even more pessimistic about the future of Poptropica.

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Also, that summer, the old islands were taken off of the map. This proved to be devastating to most players, but quite fortuitous for the Pop Club, as it became a key place where players could conveniently access links to the old store inventory, the old islands, and the old friends page, and get tech support from idk, who made these links available. (These methods have long since expired, by the way.)

The summer of 2019 proved to be one of the most disappointing for Poptropica, but the most wonderful for me, as I was able to engage in this community. But when September 2019 rolled around, I had to take a break from Poptropica and the community for school.

2020 | Antagonism

When everything shut down for the pandemic, I was able to make my return to the Poptropica community. This time around, I had more of an antagonistic attitude towards the PHB. Certain community members got on my nerves, motivating me to troll the PHC during the 2020 Poppies and Tribal Tournament events. This eventually led to me being banned from that space.

I didn’t let that discourage me, though. The rest of 2020 held some good times in the fandom. One of the highlights for me was the Pop Club’s New Year’s party, in which idk created a custom snowglobe common room for us all to hang out in and watch a countdown to 2021. And with 2021, some things changed.

2021 | Letting go of grievances

After some drama on the Pop Club, I was promoted to an admin position. Later in April of 2021, I returned to the PHC during the open house party.

I’m willing to put aside my minor grievances with the PHB, because I can’t spend all of my time hating this blog; it’s exhausting. I’d rather spend my time participating with it and making friends, rather than enemies.

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Hope you enjoyed this “My Place in Poptropica” story! If you did, you’ll probably enjoy our other MPIP stories here on the PHB.

If you haven’t already shared your story, we invite you to send in your own. Interested in writing for the PHB under a different Pop-topic? Take a look at our Write for the PHB page for ideas, guidelines, and more! 📰✨