Category: Social Media

Fan Art Features, Social Media, Store

Trending hot, heavy, and Pop-ular 🐦

Slanted Fish

What’s popping, Poptropicans? We’re serving up piping hot fan art, a sweaty store update, and news of none other than our favorite game #Poptropica trending on Twitter! Let’s pop right in.

First up, get an eyeful of these steamy snapshots of fan art, from a toned and tough Binary Bard to OCs in love or in combat. Topping it all off is a jittery reminder that the Candy Crazed Mini Quest just dropped—be sure to catch our mini review of it in the post below!

Time for a workout? This week’s store rotation contains new Bodybuilder costumes: one a gym bro with medium-sized weights and another with a smaller, hot pink hand weight. Go get those gains!

And now onto ever more sizzling news! Earlier this week, on Wednesday, May 26, the hashtag #Poptropica was trending on Twitter in the US. Which is rather remarkable for a game that, let’s be honest, is past its peak days and only retains a small niche following today.

It all started with a nostalgic tweet from @urfairymaid, who shared a photo with the logos of several popular kids’ virtual worlds from the late 2000s–early 2010s, like Club Penguin and Toontown Online, with a caption that read: “**** your zodiac sign / which one was your favorite.” (Contains some obscene language, but if you’re OK with that, you can see the original tweet here.)

Interestingly, Poptropica was not among the virtual worlds listed in the original tweet that went somewhat viral, with 10K retweets and 33K quote tweets. However, its lack of a mention was what then prompted many on Twitter to bring it up with the hashtag #Poptropica, garnering over 2K mentions and bringing it to the trending page for a day.

Even Poptropica’s sister site, Coolmath Games (@TheRealCoolmath) got in on the trend with a shout-out linking to the Coolmath Games site for Poptropica. Following that, Poptropica’s own Twitter (@Poptropica) retweeted Coolmath’s show of love.

So hey, congrats to Poptropica for popping off the Twitter charts for a flicker of time there! What a witness to the greatness of its past. 🎉

If you’re an oldie player who’s wondering what happened to the Poptropica you once knew, a few things: 1) Pop Protip: You can play all the old islands; 2) catch up with all that’s happened through our Poptropica Yearbook pages; and 3) join us in petitioning for the old islands back! Plus, new or old, thanks for sticking around.

No matter what, Poptropica will always be trending on the PHB! 💙

~🐠

Advertisements, Contests, Fan Art Features, Social Media

Monthly costume design contests, strange art shares, and… questionable ads?

Agent Bubbles

As we continue to wait on news for the porting of old islands and the imagined futures of Fairytale Island, the Pop Creators made an announcement regarding a new Costume Design Contest.

This event has been held a couple times in the past, but now, a new contest will be held every month! According to the Creators’ Blog, the contest will be open for two weeks each time, so the current one closes June 7 at 8 pm PST.

If this continues, plenty of fans should have the chance to see their designs become a virtual reality! Unlike past versions of this event, no prizes (such as membership) were mentioned, other than having winning costume designs implemented into the game. Good luck to all!

Continuing with the subject of fan art, Poptropica shared six new Instagram stories today. But there’s something a little odd…

Look closely and you’ll find that two of these pieces are not Poptropica related—with one being a non-Pop original character, and the other being fan art of a character from the game Resident Evil, which does not exactly share Poptropica’s demographic. They are done by arts.n.darts, the same artist who also recently made fan art of Betty Jetty that the Pop Creators did not recognize.

While it would be admirable if this is simply an effort to show more support towards artists who have previously made Poptropica fan art, the shares are nevertheless uncharacteristic, and also raises the question of whether Poptropica’s social media person (or people?) is once again unaware of Poptropica’s content. Sus?

On a final note, a couple changes appear to have happened to the ads that appear on the website and in-game.

From past observations, most ads on Poptropica are specifically targeted towards its younger audience, similar to how they are sponsored to make in-game advertisements that showcase books, toys, or movies and shows that its general demographic may enjoy.

However, lately the ads appear to be more random and not exactly geared for kids. PHB staffer Gentle Dolphin reported seeing ads for Honey, which is a browser extension for online shopping, as well as for Morgan & Morgan, an injury law firm.

It’s understandable that a game needs to make a profit to survive, but this does raise some suspicion towards Poptropica’s insistence that they are still getting a large amount (“over a million”) of players. Why would they need to accept more advertisements if that was the case? The COVID-19 pandemic has had an effect on businesses, but as an online game, has Poptropica been growing or shrinking in attention? The branching out on ads seems to suggest the latter.

As of now, fans have many questions, many of which we may not see answers to soon. Hopefully we can still have fun while we wait with contests, upcoming quests, and the next Dream Island!

Castori honorem ~ Maryann/Smart Bubbles

Candy Crazed, Fan Art Features, Social Media

Sugary high Instagram highlights 🍭

Slanted Fish

Happy weekend, Poptropicans! The Pop Creators’ Instagram stories have been popping with previews and fan art. Let’s take a look!

First, they dropped some hype for the Candy Crazed Mini Quest, which is dropping next Thursday, May 27. They also posted a reminder for the Fairytale Fanfic Challenge deadline, which has now passed as of this PHB post. But hey, we’ll have some literary talent to look forward to!

Following that, we have a series of fantastic fan art featuring all sorts of Poptropica characters old, new, and invented. Enjoy!

That’s all for this update. Check out our posts below to catch up on other news from this week, from new items across the stores to Pop music highlights to more fan art features! Keep on popping on, Poptropicans.

~🐠

Candy Crazed, Creators' Blog Guest Posts, Sneak Peeks, Social Media

Be our guest for this sweet new quest 🍭🍬

Gentle Dolphin

Hey, Poptropicans! The Creators suddenly announced a brand new mini quest coming soon to Poptropica.

Go crazy for the Candy Crazed Mini Quest! Here’s a sweet peek at the upcoming quest which supposedly ties into Fairytale Island:

The announcement also revealed two new characters who will be making their debut in this quest. Meet chewy chums Dot and Gummy! While they may not be major characters in the story, they are cute faces who help liven the sugary atmosphere. Who wants one of these guys as a follower?

It’s strange that a new mini quest was announced just one week after the release of the Lost Cubs Mini Quest. The promo art is super cute and colorful, but how will the finished product play out? Will it be a sweet surprise or a terrible toothache? We will find out for ourselves when this mini quest comes out next week on Thursday, May 27!

The Creators’ Blog also put out another call for guest writers. Do you love Poptropica and want to share your love with other fans? This time, the Creators are allowing guest writers to submit more than just their writing. Guests can also submit their fan art and fan videos, too!

If you are at least 13 years old, feel free to apply through Pop’s official Submissions page. Let the Creators know what you can contribute to the official Poptropica Creators’ Blog. You can submit anything as long as it relates to Poptropica.

If writing for the Creators’ Blog isn’t your thing, then you could submit a guest post to us here at the Poptropica Help Blog! There’s no age limit for writers, and your work will reach a similar audience of Poptropica players. You can learn more by visiting our Write for the PHB page.

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

—Gentle Dolphin 🐬

Fan Art Features, Social Media

Artistic additions, instant and imminent 🎨

Agent Bubbles

As we in the Northern Hemisphere pass through spring (and allergy season…it’s not nice being allergic to almost every native plant where I live!) and reach the end of the school season, many Poptropica fans have more time to be creative! The Creators have recently showcased 15 new fan drawings on their Instagram story, which you can see here.

We have several Fairytale Island fanarts, as well as crossovers with Pop and other games! It’s nice to see this burst of creativity in the fandom, especially while we wait for updates on the other Dream Island Contest winners.

On a similar note, the Creators have also posted a reminder that the Fairytale Fanfic Challenge ends this Friday, so if any of you are still interested in participating or are still finishing up your works, keep that in mind!

And that ends all the news for today! Good luck to all your artistic endeavors, whether they be prose or pictures!

Castori honorem ~ Maryann/Smart Bubbles