Poptropica Lore with Lulaloopsey 🎥💙

Hey Poptropicans! We know the game’s gone through a lot over the years… so why not take a pop down memory lane?

Young adult nostalgia YouTuber Lulaloopsey just dropped a video essay delving into Poptropica’s 17-year history, already amassing 20K+ views within the first day of posting. Check it out (mild language warning):

While a lot of the content she covers is documented here on the PHB (thanks for the shout-out 🩵), Lulaloopsey also brings her own perspective and experiences of playing the game as a kid in her deep dive into Poptropica’s lore, which makes this all the more engaging.

Some of the throwback topics she covers include the Mystery of Monster Carnival Island, Mystery of Shark Boy, and how Nickelodeon’s virtual world shaped Pop’s identity. And for more year-by-year explorations, we recommend checking out our Poptropica Yearbook pages.

Thanks for the nostalgia trip, Lulaloopsey!

Keep on poppin’ on,

~🐠

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4 thoughts on “Poptropica Lore with Lulaloopsey 🎥💙”

it’s always fun to see what you all come up with 🙂 Some of it is even true… 😇😅

phansen says:

January 14, 2025 at 11:08 am

what?

Reply
Slanted Fish says:

January 14, 2025 at 11:38 pm

If this is THE Chris Barney (former Poptropica game designer) — it’s an honor to have you here. Thanks for all you did to make Poptropica great! 🥳

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Shout-out to former PHB staffer Brave Tomato for this lovely comment on Lulaloopsey’s video:

I knew this was coming one day or another but here we are- a video circling around a game that was so important to me.

In the past, I was Brave Tomato, a former figure in the Poptropica fandom, being part of the PHB from 2012-2018. That being said, it was surreal seeing the blog being used as a source. I just go through life and remember like suddenly “Oh yeah, I was a part of this roller coaster ride during my teen years.” I still even have playthroughs of these islands on my channel and even if it’s from a cringy teenager version of me, I’m so glad that I have my memories of playing these islands on my page, especially the deleted ones.

What I appreciated about Poptropica was that it didn’t treat players like they were foolish, it didn’t constantly hold your hand to accomplish what you needed to, and it wasn’t afraid to prioritize telling good stories, especially in its golden ages. The game wasn’t afraid to be difficult or intense in its plot for a young audience. Astro-Knights really was an island that kicked off something special with that, and if you ask me, I consider Pelican Rock Poptropica’s last great island of that time. The artists, writers, and game designers and programmers created stories that people fell in love with, memorable characters, a beloved rogues gallery that inspired an entire island and grew even after, and the times that are meant to be more lighthearted, it was still allowed to be fun and funny.

It’s a real shame, and yet a little bit of an inevitability that this was the fate that befell this game. Especially in its latter years, it felt like they were trying to throw ideas at the walls to see if anything was going to stick, and none of it really did all that much. Not helping was that unfortunately a lot of the people who made Poptropica what it was were laid off. It’s a whole mess that I do not have the time to recount in a simple YouTube reply. What I do appreciate though, is the last ditch effort to immortalize the game as it was left on CoolMathGames. It was something at least. And Poptropica’s past can still be found on mediums that preserve Flash games.

Overall though, this video was a trip down memory lane for me, especially witnessing these stories as they happened and seeing the game for what it was and what it became. Thank you for making it and thanks for telling the stories of the explorers, collectors, and competitors that made up our funny little island game populated by neckless bobbleheads.

(screenshot here)

Thanks for sharing, BT!