On January 30, Club Penguin announced that they would be closing the original Club Penguin game on March 29. In its place, they will be opening a game called Club Penguin Island that is a mobile-device-only game.

Though I strongly believe that this is a terrible business decision, I don’t want to focus on that. I want to focus on what this website used to mean to me and what it still means to me.

I joined Club Penguin on August 6, 2006. At this time, I was only 8 years old. I don’t remember how I found the site or what led me to join, but on that fateful day, a penguin named Gluglucute was born.

Club Penguin was much simpler back when I first joined. If you log on now, the map is extensive and full of different areas. There are so many different games to play and clothing items to buy, it’s difficult to keep track of everything. I almost don’t recognize the world when I log on today.

When I joined, Club Penguin was not owned by Disney; they were owned by Miniclip. Many older players argue that the game was more enjoyable and creative before Disney bought it, and I would agree. The parties that would be thrown in-game and the new content was always original. One party that sticks out to me the most is the water party. In 2008, the entire world of Club Penguin was decorated with various pools and waterslides. As a kid, I loved going to water parks, so my favorite game being transformed into one excited me to no end.

I have so many memories doing all sorts of things in that game. I recall eagerly searching for Rockhopper, a red pirate penguin that would talk to you and give you a special wallpaper if you could find him. The servers would always overflow on the day his ship pulled into the harbor, and there were various sites that aided players’ pursuits of this penguin.

I remember pretending to be a baby and sitting in the Pet Shop, a store where you could buy puffles. “Babies” would say things like, “Waa!” “I need a mommy!” and other penguins would come “adopt” you. I also remember pretending to be a boy, “dating” various girl penguins, and the drama unfolding when they figured out that they were just my side piece.

But most of all, I remember the friends that I made through this game.

I didn’t make them in the actual game itself. It would be pretty hard to make long-lasting friends solely through the game because of its strict filter. There would be no way to find each other outside of the game. No, I joined a forum called “Miniclip Club Penguin Forums.” MCCP. It was Miniclip’s official Club Penguin forum. I’m not exactly sure why I joined this particular community either – it was when I was 10 or 11 years old in 6^th grade.

Unfortunately, this particular forum had a rule that you could not be on the board unless you were 13 years old. Anyone exposed to be underage would be banned until they were of age. I couldn’t wait two more years to participate in this community, so I claimed to be 15 years old because I noticed a lot of the cooler kids on there were around that age. I stuck with the alias of “Natalie” and used my older sister’s pictures in case anyone wanted to know what I looked like.

By the time I joined the forum, I felt like everyone already knew everyone. Friend groups were already established and I felt like an outsider looking in. It wasn’t until a thread called “Tina click this” that I began to inch my way into the community.

“Tina click this” was a joke thread, centered around a user named Tina. She had a massive crush on a boy named Jordan that everyone would tease her about, and I came into the thread fangirling over guys with her as well. (Obviously, this was before my gay awakening.) I began talking with more users and eventually got added to an MCCP group chat on MSN. I felt awkward at first, but after a couple of weeks, I fit in perfectly with the others.

I made a lot of friends and have a lot of memories of MCCP. I remember participating in various roleplays that would span across 50 to 100 pages. I remember the chats in a xat.com room called “The Important Snakes.” I remember kissing the admin and moderators’ asses in an attempt to be promoted myself.

Sadly, all good things have to come to an end eventually. I don’t remember the exact chronology of the events, but MCCP was shut down later. After over two years of my time on the forum, it came to an abrupt end.

But that didn’t stop me from keeping in touch with my friends. I remained the closest in touch with Tina, a boy named Link, and “Melaugh” (who later became Aatthew and finally the alias you know him as now, Marack). I also kept in contact with my roleplaying friends, Bianca and Kailey. I obviously revealed to them my real age, name, and appearance in time.

It’s interesting to see how we have all grown since our time on MCCP. I’ve watched Tina go through countless more Jordan’s (though a couple of them were definitely not as nice as him). Link occasionally tweets me girls to see if I could consider them hot. Marack evolved from an awkward straight boy on the Internet who loves Pokémon to a bold, opinionated, bisexual boy on the Internet who still loves Pokémon.

As for myself, if you went back in time and showed my past self that this is who I would become, I probably wouldn’t believe you. I was still very close-minded and ignorant when I was in MCCP, which is a given, considering I was only about 10 or 11 years old. I was homophobic, slightly racist, and claimed to be conservative just because a boy I considered cute on the forums was an avid conservative. I even made an embarrassing post saying that gay people should hide their affections and save them for the closet (ironically, I didn’t know the whole closet metaphor when I wrote that.)

We have all watched each other grow into the people that we are today. Not even two weeks ago, I was added into a Facebook Messenger group chat full of old people from the forums and it was interesting to see where these familiar faces ended up.

I have since made many close Internet friendships, but MCCP was my first and deepest experience with forming this type of friendship. It’s crazy to think about: I met these people through Club Penguin nearly a decade ago, and we’re still in touch to this day. I haven’t met any of them in person yet, but I definitely plan on it in the near future.

3,384 days ago, I decided to join Club Penguin. If I hadn't discovered this game, I would probably be in the same place I am today, but I wouldn't have met the wonderful and unique people who joined the forum for the same reason I did.

Though Club Penguin may be coming to an end, the friendships that I have made through it will last a lifetime. So, thank you, Club Penguin. Thank you for all of the memories. Thank you for making my childhood even brighter. And thank you for all of the memories that I will continue to create with the friends I have made because of you.