We all played on different websites when we were younger: Webkinz, Neopets, Disney and I'm sure you can name a few more. My favorite was Club Penguin. It's a site centered around a penguin that you personally create and lead through the world with the goal of making friends, earning coins, adopting pets, getting a penguin boyfriend, becoming a ninja, solving super-secret spy mysteries and giving tours:
My penguin was a spy, ninja, tour guide, game-winning badass. At one point I was so obsessed with the game that I had over 30,000 coins and could buy anything that was for sale on the website (shoes, shirts, pants, backgrounds, necklaces):
(Some of the 612 clothing items that I owned).
However, the magic of the website soon wears off as soon as a non-member attempts to purchase anything other than the standard 15 penguin colors. Warnings and advertisements consistently appear on the penguin island and they attempt to convince ten year olds to buy memberships:
A non-member cannot buy clothing, adopt a nonstandard pet, visit certain parts of the island and experience the majority of the things for the website. Every link leads to the same page:
a list of the membership prices that are actually inflated from what they used to be in 2007. Every month of membership actually costs real money that parents have to supply. In addition to that, the charge will continue to occur if a parent does not cancel the membership on their credit card.
After weeks of begging in 2007 I had convinced my parents to purchase me a membership for 6 months. In these 6 months I managed to collect all 612 of my items and decorate my igloo with countless furniture items. The other children on the website were nicer to me because of all the things I had and they wanted to play more games. Unfortunately, the other non-membership penguins were left out. Players even went as far to ignore them if they didn't have proof that they paid a monthly fee.
I didn't know it at the time, but this was my first experience with classism. For the first time in my life I witnessed children outwardly excluding others behind the veil of a computer screen for simple things like clothing, the size of their homes and specialty pets. People that literally could not afford the memberships were publicly ridiculed on the website with extreme bullying because of the lack of real consequences. Club penguin perpetuates the idea that money can buy acceptance. It's an extremely manipulative idea to encourage, especially in young minds.
Anything worthwhile has to be purchased in the game and some rewards are more easily won by paying the monthly fee (I say this as I just spent an hour attempting to become a snow ninja in an arduous effort that proved fruitless).
In other words: Disney, haven't you learned by now? Stop trying to spread damaging ideas to children. Maybe just let them all enjoy a creative website without the restraint of having to purchase fake online goods to have a fun time.
