Hey Poptropicans! The Poptropica Creators have been on a roll lately with their social media, bringing us throwbacks, fun facts, and even a splash of magnanimity! Let’s pop in and take a look.
The Poptropica Creators’ Blog and Instagram spotlighted Jeff Kinney — the man who started Poptropica, yet is better known as the author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series — and invited fans to “let Mr. Kinney know how much Poptropica means to everyone” by sharing Poptropica memories that they promise they’ll share on social media and even with Mr. Kinney himself! You can create fan art, write letters, make videos, and more with the hashtag #ThanksKinney so the Creators can see.
Jeff Kinney with the proposed Dr. Hare’s Lair LEGO set which ran an unsuccessful but fun campaign in 2013. 
Jeff Kinney celebrating Poptropica’s 9th birthday with a cake at Pop HQ in 2016.
On Instagram, the PHB (we’re @poptropicahare) asked if Jeff Kinney still gets involved with Poptropica’s development. The Creators liked the comment, but didn’t answer. Guess we’ll take that as a no…?
Other fans have been wondering about the founder’s silence about the game he created as well. In 2018, the PHB published a guest post that touches on Mr. Kinney’s deep investment into Wimpy Kid at the expense of leaving Poptropica behind. Even if he doesn’t come back to Poptropica, we hope his vision for the game can remain.
Still, #ThanksKinney for starting it all! And if you have Poptropica memories or creations to share, the deadline is September 20 (Sunday).
The Creators have been active on Instagram with two new stories featuring fan posts: one an animation of a dancing Binary Bard from @neon.bug, the other a fun fact about Monster Carnival characters from @happyclonetrooper. By the way, for more Poptropica fun facts, check out the trivia section at the end of all our PHB island guides!
Oh, and there’s more from Instagram: in an unusual act of spontaneous generosity, the Creators also reached out to Dimension Bros, the YouTuber duo behind Poptropica Month, to offer them free memberships! Here’s Theo’s first reaction of experiencing the Poptropica heavens open with access to newly unlocked features, including thousands of bonus credits to spend in the stores:
Theo also shared with the PHB that the gifted membership doesn’t expire until December 31, 2022 according to his account settings—which adds up to about 2 years and 4 months! That’s literally impossible for us regular plebs to attain, not counting auto-renewals, since you can only buy up to a year of membership at once.
This also seems to be the first time the Creators have ever given out free memberships outside of people winning their (and occasionally the PHB’s) contests. Pretty cool—hey Creators, want to hook us up too? 😉
In other news, as you may have noticed, the PHB website has a new look! Our previous theme from WordPress (which is the blogging platform we use) has been retired, so to keep things running for future updates, we’ve switched over to a new theme called Dara.
It may take a little getting used to, but we’ve tried to find one with similar elements to the previous. This new theme comes with bigger fonts and easy access to the PHB’s socials via the buttons on top, so we hope you’ll come to love it like we do!
And finally, after 8 days of tasks, achievements, and recycled gameplay, the activities on Paradise Island have come to a stop—at least for now. If you’ve made it past the day with the PoptropiCon “festival,” future days simply consist of logging in for daily credit rewards, which you can use to decorate your island, home, pets, or character.
With Poptropica’s birthday month in full swing, there’s plenty going on in the fandom these days! Join in on creating and/or watching Poptropica Month videos, party with Dr. Beev stans next week, make something mask-related for Community Creations, and of course, give a #ThanksKinney for making this all possible. Pop on, Poptropicans. 🎉
~Slanted Fish 🐠
🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺 