I was so stupid
By Gothic
My rantings on my experience on Neopets from the beginning, what kind of player I was, how much abuse I took, and what it took for me to stop.
Note: My memory is a tad fuzzy so my timeline may not be exact :/
My neopets experience started off one summer when I was twelve years old. My best friend and I went to the library and she showed me the Neopets site on the library computer. Being a privileged child I went home to my own computer and further explored. I set up an account with 4 similarly named Blue Zafara's. I was a happy little newbie, exploring the fun features and playing the games. I watched as the more games I played for fun, the more of these neopoint things I had. So, I began to wonder. I was a child with a simple concept of money. But money was good and it got you things. So I searched for 'toys' to buy with this 'money'. I found paint brushes to make the pixels beautiful. I adored my first account, Blossychick {I was known as Blossy back then}, and my most favorite pet, a poogle named Kuuchink. I dreamed of getting a dog one day and naming it Kuuchink too. I was so stupid.
As my account got various things, the lab ray, a well trained poogle, all pets painted, I began to make sides. I made several. I loved those pets, I couldn't get enough of them. I wanted more and more painted pets. I logged in, did dailies on them all, and worked my young preteen bum off. In the end, I was iced for using multiple accounts to gain neopoints. I returned and restarted. I was so stupid.
I found the boards awhile later. The Fan Club, the heated battle of FCers VS GCers! The FC Reindeer at christmas time. All memories you old fans will remember. The boards were good times. Thats were I discovered scammers, too. And spammers and chain letters. The darker side emerged. But I stayed, I played. I avoided the scams. I fell for many. I was never stupid enough to give out my password, but I did fall for a trading scam. I was so mad. I worked hard for those neopoints. Now my pet wouldn't get painted. I was so stupid.
I then became known as Lea for awhile, I believe this was when I was 13. This was back when baby paint brushes were 200K. Those were the days. Players were treated better and the site was funner. Ad free too. Anyway, I continued on as Lea and became the FC Reindeer, Random the Reindeer. It was my Christmas Gelert. Oh I was so proud of that little pixel for being the choosen special reindeer. I bought several baby paint brushes and had loads of baby pets. I discovered the joy of petpages and slaved for hours making pretty petpages for my baby gelert, lupe, kougra, and one other which I forget. I found graphics and blogs and oh what fun it was to get compliments on my pets and their petpages. I was living the life. I was so stupid.
Then I was frozen again, I forget why. I think for having too many accounts. I always loved neopets too much, that was my problem. I loved having the pets. I wanted more. They froze me, I returned. I wanted more. I was so stupid.
I changed tunes. This was about 8th grade, before I turned 14, when I was getting angsty. I became known as Gothicity {For those who care, Goth + Toxicity, the name of an early System of a Down album}. I fell in love with lupes. I had one particular one called Sly. I began to roleplay her. She was the Grey Lupe, before Grey was even a lupe color. I was such an inventive child. I then recreated a Blossy account and started Blossy's Adoptions. A very early adoption agency, a guild. It was very popular and worked well. Members got great pets, and I zapped pets to put back into the system. It worked well until I was frozen again. But I returned. I was so stupid.
I then became obsessed with Gelerts for a little while, around age 14. I made a gelert pack that roamed the plains. The leader was Beldone, the wisest gelert of the pack. I slaved to buy his Faerie Paint Brush, and I did buy it. I bought his 'brothers' paint brush, checkered, for 80K and his other 'brothers' shadow brush for 80k too. Those were the days. I roleplayed and had so much fun on the Fan Club board. Roleplay was my outlet, my venue, for frustration. About that time I had difficulties at home starting. It was so refreshing to control these lives, being a shy silly little girl. I was so stupid.
Shortly after I abandoned Gelerts in favor of Lupes again. I was about 15 then. I carved out a new name for myself. Blossy, Lea, Gothicity, everything was in the past. I called myself Bex, a play on my name Beck {Rebecca}. I liked this nickname and told all my silly neofriends. I decided that games weren't enough after that and decided to try my hand at darker matters. I set up a guild and advertised a Paint Brush Raffle. It worked great, I made thousands of neopoints then deleted the guild and transfered the points. I rolled in the stolen neopoints and giggled about it. Sure, I felt a bit bad, but it was only a few thousand a player, they could take it. It wasn't anything near what I paid in scams when I was a newbie. I deserved it. I was so stupid.
I did that single scam, then decided to make a neofriend and scam them into giving me their password. A girl came along, I am sad to say I forget her name, and we became friends. Eventually she told me her password, as all good neofriends should to establish trust, and I hacked her. A petpetpet, this was when they first came out, appeared on her account on a random event and I transferred it to my account. I checked her points, she had about 170K, I think. I bought a petpetpet, an unbuyable at the time, and sent that to my account too. Then I checked her other neofriends. Me and one other person. I bought a dozen codestones and sent them to the other friend. Who would the neopets team look at, someone who was sent two items, or someone who was sent a dozen? I planned it well and talked to my neofriend the next day. She was so sad she was scammed, I did feel guilty. She gave me her account, I_am_evil_not_really. I took it with glee. I was so stupid.
Shortly after I gave up on the scams and played around with my new found main. I turned 16 then. I was a restocker now. I was on the straight and narrow. No more scams for me. I was a good girl, and realized how wrong it was. So I restocked, I gamed, I worked hard. I even started a new guild, The Everyday Neopians. It drew in many people and I became close with them. Now these were real neofriends. I raced home everyday to talk to them on AIM and we became so close, my guild members and me. I'm not sorry for that, I do love them and they are all good people. I don't plan to stop talking to them, but I do acknowledge that I started to ignore my real life friends. My best friend even found me so inclined to play online rather than go outside that she broke in through my window to try and get to me. She only got through half the window before she called me for help. She got stuck, because i'd rather restock until dawn then go down to Burger King with her. I was so stupid.
I continued on my stolen main, I got a Grey Lupe, I had a blast. It was frozen. Oh well, I said, I had my side account still. Necrologist. It was a fun account, there were painted pets on it. I wasn't down for the count yet! I had plenty of sides. Summer passed and I got a Draik. I made a million neopoints in a week from snipping lab maps. I painted my Draik Darigan and I was on top of the world. School started, my junior year, but I didn't really care. I went home to neopets everyday after school around 3pm and played until 11pm at night. I was so stupid.
I tried auto refreshing. Now that was great! I even got a lab map piece once. I left it on too long though.. The account was frozen that I used it on though. Right before I had gotten frozen I got a Baby Jubjub from a friend who used an auto adopter. That brought me into the auto adopting world. The joy it was! I was so stupid.
Auto adopter programs! Those were the thing, all right! Why browse the pound when it will do it for you? So I got one, and got amazing pets. Sure most were stolen transfers, and many were frozen soon after, but I got a couple great pets out of it, so what? I continued, playing until dawn on saturday nights. I even remember applying for a Faerie Draik around then, I stayed up until 6am working on the application. The person self froze the account with the draik on it. I cried. I was so stupid.
I still auto adopted... until I was frozen too many times. Then neopets changed the pound around so my adopter wouldn't work anyway. I tried my hand at auto buying. It was great! I sat and painted a chess piece painting while my computer would make a ping sound everytime I got a restock item. I always smiled at the ping and jumped up, checking what item, what it was worth. That painting I was working on has never been completed. I was so stupid.
The auto buying account was frozen after I made about 200-300K from it. I was depressed, but easy come easy go, right? So I kept snipping the lab maps. I got to snipping over 100 of them and felt so proud. I was so stupid.
In october of 2005 I was frozen on most of my sides. My roleplaying pets were lost. I was angry, angry at the system. I hadn't done anything wrong but have too many accounts. Was it so wrong to love neopets so much? I had stayed up all night on weekends to do the lab. I had donated to the money tree once in awhile. I had pets up for adoption. Was it so wrong? Yes, it was. I was so stupid.
After that freezing I only had Necrologist and a few others left. I was quite mad, but I stayed. After all, my main had a great set of pets, a great guild, I had my neofriends to support me. Why shouldn't I stay? I created new labs and I learned of snipping. Premium was given on my account and I was off like a rocket. I gained a million neopoints and I was on top of the world again. Nothing could get me down. I once refreshed for 21 hours, over three days, just to snipe a Krawk Trans. I did snipe it, and sold the entire thing to get a Royal Paint Brush for a Kougra, Kesabel. 21 hours to get one pixel just to make another. I was so stupid.
I snipped and learned of better things to snipe, I became more elite. I had almost 2 million invested in the stock market and after 2 months of saving I had almost 3.5 million in pure sitting in my bank. Now that was on top of the world. I had two Royal pets, my Darigan Draik, and a soon to be royal Cybunny on my main account. I had two labs, several other accounts filled with painted pets. Buying a baby paint brush was no big deal. I decided to get a third lab, one night. I always had petpetpets for sale in my shop, yeah I was a high roller now. I was so stupid.
Life was good. I was a good person. I had pets up for adoption. I had pets given away, I had given neopoints away. I donated to the money tree about once a week. I drew my pets. I made the best lookups for them. I donated loads to my guild. I was never a stranger when it came to donating, to friends. I hated beggers, though. I loved making my friends happy, and why not? I had the neopoints to do it. So what was the problem? I still questioned TNT and verbally spoke of my dislike for their system, the way they treated their players. I, Bex, was overall a good, sucessful 17 year old neopian. I was so stupid.
June the 5th came, a day before 6/6/06. I didn't really care, in fact being gothic I liked the day and planned to 'birth' a few cybunnies {from when I stayed up until 4am to make 22 cybunnies. Few of which I kept} on that day for fun. I was frozen for 'using a cheat program'. I hadn't touched one in months, never used one on my main. Perplexed, I mailed TNT. I learned my best neofriend was iced too, for the same reason. She recieved a reply, they wouldn't even give her the 'details' of the program. They straight up kept her frozen without explaining why, and she was a premium player. She was PAYING them for this site. Neopets is stupid. The staff abuses its players. If you are sucessful, you'll be frozen. If you have fun, you'll be frozen. There is no point to play. It's no longer fun. It was fun, once, but now.. It is too full of rules, too short staffed, too unfair, too impersonal. It becomes an obsession. I think back and shiver at the thought of all I missed out on. The teen years I wasted because I wanted that new paint brush or that fun petpet. So, yesterday, I deleted every neopet related bookmark, image, and file. My home page is no longer neopets. I am tired of the opressive site. I am sick of my wasted moments. I am going to escape it. I've taken the first step, and I, Bex, will be free. I was so stupid.. But no longer.