I wonder if I have you guys added. I'm friends on gaia with a few married couples that met on gaia xD lol. I also still have friends I stay in contact with to this day that I met on gaia.
I still remember that. I spent over 100 dollars of christmas money on gaia cash, bought some items, sold them a day before the gold boom, it destroyed my will to continue gaia after that. Shit sucked.
Nah seriously when stoped playing Gaia for good I grinded for years and made 6 billion gold. Logged on after 10 years of no activity to see that I can barely buy basic items 😂. Gaia's economy is beyond inflated
I remember watching bootleg films in a virtual theater. We're throwing popcorn at the screen and roleplaying like we're actual irl moviegoers. I remember someone roleplaying as an usher then shushing anyone trying to chat lmao.
I wonder what they could do to bring in more players. Honestly I believe that even if the hyperinflation never happened, the site would still have lost many players mainly because of time simply moving forward. I remember I stopped playing around 2012ish because I started getting older and many of my friends that I used to play with around 2008(9)-2011 stopped coming on. Came back to check on the site around 2014 and found out about the inflation. Been coming back on every now and then to check what's going on and I see the total number of gaians online decrease each time. As time moves on people lose interest, so I believe was gonna lose a lot of its player base, but the inflation drastically sped up the process.
Beginning your own online community is essentially running a country. It’s not the exact same, but if you ever wanna see how good you are at running a country this would be a good test.
@@Damento12 Too true. I was one of those people with about 6 accounts, these days I can only log in to one of them because a girl I was dating at the time used my current email to set it up. On top of it I contacted support to ask for help with the other accounts (deleting them) and they never responded.
The downfall was 110% the introduction of cash. No better way to alienate your young users than by making them pay for something they didn't previously have to, especially when Cash was so integral to the game. RIP Gaia, miss those long 2007 nights on Towns.
Also mass bans. These young uns turned into adults. Cursing and naughty rp was common back then. The inflation made them tried to appeal to younger audience over current player base and banned them over new regulations. Hundreds of thousands loyal players played since the opening gets banned after the hard work they put. They deserved this downfall
as an old admin from the golden age of gaia, I can tell you watching this video was like being thanos on titan. the world of gaia online was beautiful and in the years I was admin I took pride in helping the site and players. I was around since the very beginning but only became an admin when the site basically exploded with new players, but I would give anything to go back to those days. I watched my fellow admins get fired and/or resign but I kept going because I still had hope. I slowly watched as the world I came to know and love slowly crash down around me and by 2015 I finally resigned, stating that I could no longer do my job to the best of my abilities. it was sad, and watching this video just reminds me of the times I had with my friends. thank you.
Zachary Brown i look back at the time and smile. When i wasnt on duty i had another account and lurked on zomg. Sometimes i do occasionally visit the site, just to see how it is. To my amazement there still is quite a few people who stayed, tho its nothing like how it used to be, at the very least none of the people i talked to on a daily basis play it anymore.
I used an auto page refresher to farm gold and got my baby seal slippers. I was riding high on that drug. I had no reason to keep going, but keep going I did. I flew too close to the sun and wham, there was the ban. I look back on those days and I dont regret them. They taught me a lesson. Never get too cocky. *Inhales deep take on cigarette* Good to talk about it. Makes you feel free.
sakume alot of the time when i was on duty and bored, i would hide in random POHs in the towns that were known to have some naughty rp to happen and i would just wait until they did the dirty with the spam crouching. Fun times, felt like i was a detective on a scope out
Thats how I eventually got my Devil Tail. It was sooooooo much work! I don't think I ever took it off of my avatar since I got it. It is probably still equipped.
I flat out refused to use the peasant clothes and didn't show my face/Avatar to anyone until I had gotten enough gold to by an average to slightly fancy outfit X'D
Golden age is over, boyo. The wild west is done. Now the corporations rule. Try not to think about how there are kids growing up right now that will think THIS is as good as it gets.
@@deadinside9565 I know those days are over, girly. It’s still sad though. And even sadder how corporate the current web is. I remember being able to set up an entire forum website myself and having it build up tons of users, moderating other forums, helping to moderate websites run by a group of people just passionate about a subject, and we controlled everything about our experiences there. We used MySpace, Beebo, and LiveJournal but those were like 5% of our time spent. The rest was on sites _we_ made, sites _we_ curated. The most corporate we got was using AIM (does anyone else remember AIM Radio?). I remember learning html to edit my MySpace page and to run my forums, having to know html to format my posts. I’m not trying to be all "we walked ten miles uphill to school in the snow" or anything like that. It just felt like there were so many possibilities then, and the web now feels so small, like it’s made of just a few websites and apps almost.
One of my fondest memories of Gaia was drawing my friends' avatars, then bringing my sketchbook to the library to scan and send them. I remember people taking photos of themselves with a note saying thank you. Really meant a lot.
I remember taking part in a drawing challenge where one dude had equipped SO MANY items to his avatar, you couldn't even see it anymore. So the challenge was for people to draw the jumbled incoherent mess for fun. I did it in just pencil and shading because I was in my "No colours, ever!" Artsy phase and I still have that drawing to this day. I'm still pretty proud of it
I made an account in 2004 during my senior year of highschool. I left the same year. About 4 years later, about to graduate college, I signed back in out of curiosity and didn't recognize the place. Then I searched for my old posts and.... Oh GOD I was SO CRINGEY T___T I've never owned a fedora or trenchcoat but holy fuck I might as well have. At this point the term neckbeard as a pejorative didn't exist yet. I did a massive scouring of every post I made and deleted the embarrassing ones.
I often look back at websites that are still functional, like Blingee and see what I type as a profile header..... the least I talk about that, the better. 😂😂 We’ve all had that online phase.
Probably because of the whole “second life = No life” concept of it. I mean, I get it, but it’s still no ones business what you do in your free time, and one shouldn’t care what others may think either.
@@FluffyMiku also quick update: buccaneer boardwalk premium pass map doesn't work and you would be stuck indefinitely if you enter there. There is a workaround to use the old map, just Google "buccaneer boardwalk stuck" or something like that
tbh gaia cant even handle the amount of users that play NOW. trying to log into any chatroom can take many relogs and closing and reopening the tab due to there only being 40 slots when usually theres 38-39 people online per chatroom. if gaia got the amount of users it used to, i think the whole website would crash. they need to fix SO badly.
@@RedBardIsCool I don't want to go into too much detail here, as I am signed on with my real name. Let's just say there were often two sets of rules for users, some really abusive people were outright overlooked even after investigation proved just how icky they were, and some other stuff that....yeah. I loved the site, and was hugely active even before I was a moderator - I met some of my lifelong friends there. I was there the Today Show morning if the clip is still up somewhere on youtube - holding an 'ILU GCD' sign, if that says anything.
Dudeee, I remember when they had the cinema that was sponsored by Skittles I think and I watched Spirited Away in like 16 parts back when people posted movies in parts on youtube roflmao
so a great site with a loyal fanbase and employess hits its first speed bump and sells to a new company to help prevent more only for the new greedy uncaring patronizing ceo to drive away the loyal staff by being arseholes and basically scream in the remaing fans face everyday GIVE ME MONEY and ignored and censored all there crtiscm gee was the ceo a former ea ceo cause there tactics are results and nearly the exact same
I remember going to a Gaia panel in '07 and it was full of weebs and awkward teenagers wearing water meat whales and zomg hats. They showed concept art of the mmo and we all gasped and thought it was the coolest thing ever. I went with a friend and my dad (bless his heart) and we ended up winning this 4ft Kiki kitty plush. I wish I was making this up.
I had created this picture that once went viral. On the "Avatar Creator" site I made members of MCR ((My Chemical Romance)) and I cut and cropped them into my MS paint and I had shared it on the forums. Little did I know that it would be passed all over Gaia. I wish I watermarked it.
@@GregShadow1 Deadass. lol Now I'm grouped with everyone else in history who never got the cred they so deserved. But hey, if you ever see it somewhere in your corner of the interwebs, just know did that lol.
Logged in to check on my avatar after this and found myself wearing the Bee Movie suit & 2008 Barack Obama mask. I thrived on that website, ran a guild of thousands of Harry Potter fans & LGBTQ+ media, had a lot of friends. My heart aches at what we lost.
There's still a pretty active community left on Gaia. It may be pretty small, only capping at about 3000 users per day but for a forum site that's still really good. They're trying to rework the flash games and I feel like people are really trying to keep it alive
@@jessiec8736 Up to this point the site is still alive, not to the golden year standards but is there, and with effort you can get items in platinum and is somewhat stable.
@@clouddream7755 Yeah, I miss it. It was fun to watch the videos and throw food at eachother. Didn't like that there was a video limit, had to keep replacing videos if I was putting on a show. Also, remember when they would show anime on Gaia?
@@AlejandroRodolfoMendez Ah I see, thanks for the info. Venezuela seems to get the spotlight for inflation right now. But I am aware that back then Zimbabwe took the spot.
Totally remember that, I loved building avatars with it with my friends on Gaia. One of the reasons that I left as well after the gold generators started. -edit- I logged into Gaia again last night to see how much my inventory was worth. They apparently nuked that site as well.
every now and then i get tempted to look up my old Gaia account but then I remember all the over-a-decade-old memes on my profile and cant find the strength to do it.
I cant even find my old profile, cant remember my username and literally every email address ive ever used gets no password reset emails from gaiaonline. I wanna go back for a little bit and reminisce, but I cant.
@@ChaotiX1 I tried to get back on but the email was not getting anything. Even checked in my spam and nothing after multiple times. But strangely Gaia email appeared in my spam a few days later ....
Oh boy, I remember Gaia Online. I used to be on it DAILY. Every day after school, I'd get home and would be on my computer constantly. I lost tons of sleep since my friends and I were on it. Yes, I was one of those geeks that did role-plays. Now, it's basically a thing of the past--I let go of it over ten years ago. But, those were one of the good ole days, I'll admit. My account is _still_ there, of course.
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@@IAmAnEvilTaco Agreed. I did, and still do, write fanfic from time to time as well, so it went hand in hand. I've also been involved with quality role-playing beyond Gaia Online too, so it's like a pastime hobby in a sense. I just hardly have time outside of work and classes nowadays.
My heart... I literally have two friends that I managed to stay friends with to this day lol sometimes we still RP... we have like some amazing stories still going haha
I worked at Gaia from 2015 to 2018, left of my own volition. (I was actually hired by the person you quoted at 28:59, one of the best product managers Gaia ever had.) I'm hesitant to leave this comment, which might go unnoticed regardless, but I feel I should provide more info on the later years and why the gap where things were outwardly more calm actually were the most destructive years Gaia had from the company side. First and foremost, Gaia's employees were fully aware of the issues going on, but weren't allowed/able to make changes to make things better. That quote at 28:59 is apt because the daily/monthly revenue goals weren't based on projections, they were based on the amount of money Gary and Jason wanted to make, which is to say, "more". No matter what a day's goal was, the expectation was that we had to exceed it by as much as possible. They would threaten cuts for everything, even when revenue was exceeding any reasonable expectation. It wasn't about keeping the company afloat, it was about lining their pockets at the expense of the site and the company as a whole. Working at Gaia under Gary and Jason was hell, and it was always one rash decision or another that led me to watch many of my colleagues leave the company for good in the time I worked there. Gary and Jason's goal, as it turns out, was to make Gaia look as rich as possible so they could sell it at a profit, which is precisely what they did. By the time they finalized the sale of the company in late 2016, they were making us sell Gaia Cash at 68% off, which even if you don't know the ins and outs of Gaia is an unreasonable amount to discount anything you actively rely on for revenue. But, to their end it didn't matter. They made the company look profitable and had a good amount of money in Gaia's account by the time of the sale. And then, they gave themselves all that money on their way out the door, leaving Gaia in a financial hole it likely never will recover from. There were a lot of little things I'm glazing over here, for fear of making a long story longer, but essentially financial struggles were somewhat warded off until late 2018, and then the reality of Gaia's dwindling finances couldn't be held off any longer. There were multiple rounds of layoffs starting in late November 2018 and continuing on into 2019, and from what I've seen in the few times I've visited the site since, things don't look like they're going to be able to get better in the wake of it. It's rough, especially because I know how many people on staff who cared deeply about Gaia's success and wanted (and still want) it to stay alive and afloat, none more than Lanzer himself. But, personally speaking anyway, I don't think there's any way to undo the damage that was done under Gary and Jason, and I felt that way even before they sold it off. It's just a shame how things have played out, given the nostalgia so many rightfully have for Gaia. I think that's all I've got to say, apologies for the long-winded comment.
Wow, thank you for that insightful comment. It must have been really tough to have to face that. I appreciate the added information. It is a shame, that some people are allowed to deal so much damage and just walk off, but that is how the cutthroat world of corporate business works, I guess. Gaia might not be able to recover, which is a bit of a shame... But here is to hoping it can at least serve as a lesson, one way or another. If nothing else, as someone who used to frequent the site in my early teens, I appreciate the explanation, sad and hard as the reality of the situation is. Here is to hoping you will end up somewhere better for the future.
Yo that's insane, as a local and old member that shit is hella sad esp since Flash has been on the fall for the last 6 years. Honestly it's capable for Gaia 2 still make a comeback. Can't let Jason and Gray return when it do thoo
Gaia Online: the story of some poor decision-making leading to a website being hijacked by two greedy sociopaths that proceeded to plow the site and company into the floor.
@@zeta2712 I remember when a million was a lot. I think I stopped logging in around shortly after zOMG! went into beta, by then I'd found other communities and hung out there more.
Thank you TH-cam recommended algorithm, this was completely unrelated to everything I watch, yet still relevant to me. Long term data mining am I right?
Doesn't necessarily have to be that "deep" of data mining. Algorithm just has to make the connection between your interest in anime and your age. This was an extremely popular site at its peak after all.
It just proves two things: 1. Communities are generational. Nobody goes back to the same toys they played when they were 6 when they're pushing 40. 2. Going fully corporate is the biggest mistake a fan driven community can ever make on ANY platform.
I started playing Pokemon Red when I was 6 and I regularly go back and play though it! I'm turning 30 next month. I'll get back to you in 10 years if you'd like 😁
@@velvet_echo Ty for saying this, same! I still have my nintendo 64 and Ps2 and play them regularly! I’m 31 lol. Also while I’ve played WoW on and off through the years based on income and how busy my life is at the time, I know there are people who are playing it 18 years later still who also were into it as kids in 2004 when it came out.
#1 Have you ever heard of Old School Runescape? Its literally still one of the biggest mmorpgs today and it came out in 2001. Lots of the player base is well into their 30s and even older.
Gaia is such a distant memory for me, I can't even remember how old I was when I used it. All I remember was some weird fishing game, and drawing people's avatars for gold.
I'm embarrassed to say that I can relate to that. Gaia Online was like a magnet for oppurtunistic perverts. Leaving was for sure the right thing to do.
Yikes, I remember that too. I actually remember when the "Love" tower was still clickable on Go-Gaia. It was a personals board. It got shut down really quick because of the amount of people soliciting sex. And it was clearly adults looking for minors to roleplay adult scenarios with. I also remember having a Gaia marriage to someone. Didn't last long irl (because he was older and lived in a different country), but he still reached out to me after we broke up. Then he got super mad when I started dating my now husband, and exploded when I got pregnant with my son. He started that by asking if I even knew who the father was, then after I blocked him (this was on MSN), he leaked all of our more embarrassing rps to my friends. That was doubly creepy because we had broken up at least 4 years before all this, which meant that he saved them. I left Gaia after we broke up anyway, because he spread some nasty rumours about me in our guild, and since he was more popular than I, it just wasn't worth it anymore.
@@KaiyaCorrbin omg me too! I was also a big Neopets person. I periodically checked my accounts in college (2011/2012) and inflation was insane. We had awesome childhoods though :)
When this video started: I'm going to log back on for old time sake. A little after the Midway point: Nope I'm not touching this ever again. The end of the video: I'm going to log back on for old times sake.
Ah tektek another victim of goldemortb it the dust because the owner refused to not show ads which allowed the site to be maintained indefinitely for free
Richard Hicks Actually, Gaia took it down because Tekton was advertising his own version of Gaia. Why Gaia couldn’t have hired him on somehow rather than shooting down what was essentially a really good asset beloved by Gaia users is beyond me. “Hey Tekton, we want your avatar maker. Design one for us so we don’t have to take legal action?” is totally not something they could have said... *sigh*
Oof yes, I miss old Gaia so much... I keep trying to get back into it, but every time I just kinda dress my avatar up, check the market, become overwhelmed at inflation and the sheer number of items, check the forums, then kinda quit. It was such a fun site early on, and really a great entry point for the weebs of today. Also, I fucking love your videos! Keep being awesome!
Honestly, I remember logging in after school literally every day, hanging out in the town's with my friends, sticking to the forums for hours. It was such a magical time. I was a really impatient kid with a horribly small attention span, so I never read any announcements, and I never knew how deeply terrible this whole issue was to the community and it's members! O:
This unlocked so many memories of my teens, the online friends, the mini-games - the pre-facebook social media era felt way funnier than what we have nowadays. My account is 10 years old now, joined because a few online friends joined and told me to do so, it was so fun until the prices went crazy. I remember being in love with a Rapunzel wig item that at the time was priced at 1 Million gc, grinded a lot and sold a lot of beloved items trying to reach that money goal but eventually felt burnout and left the place. A few years later, logged again only to find that item costing like a billion or so and got so mad I left again, lol. It's sad that all of this happened, because it was a really fun and beloved social media/game
Remember sweetheart ring? I wanted it ever since I was 9, and last year I think, since flash announced soon it will close down, the sweetheart ring price reduced a lot, its still batshit expensive, but manageable, i literally spend 80% of my remaining gold purchasing it. so, in the last few months of zomg, i managed to complete my long childhood wish, at the age of 19. 😂
I remember being a kid and seeing this girl with a huge elaborate profile section opening up layers continuously and trying to find the html codes to copy it lol
Oh man. One of my favourite things to do was put my spare Nitemare Scarf on the marketplace, and watch the scam PMs roll in. I used to troll them and then would post screenshots to my journal and called it "The Zoo of Stupidity" it was great.
I used to hang out on Gaia! I once conducted a wedding ceremony between two other users I didn't even know. They just wandered up to me in the village area or whatever it was called and asked me to be the minister. Luckily I remembered all the words from the last real life wedding I was at. I wonder if they're still together? XD
@@DJVirgoNeun1 They're going to need to hire a team of professionals to figure out How the Hell you can convert all that shit to a different platform. Does HTML5 do everything flash used to do? Hmm... I wonder if javascript by itself could solve this. But damn that's a lot of recoding/newcoding. Might even make the most sense to code a remote VM that can run the flash so that technically no flash is running on the user's local computer, just javascript that is accessing an instanced VM that is running the old-school flash... but there still needs to be a way to save the variables from the VM instance if you wanted to do things like save high scores or something... I'm probably talking about crap that's above my pay grade, just thinking aloud here. ha ha
Just realized I could still log in to my old Gaia account. A message I got on the 18 of Febuary 2015 read,
"Your item Blue Ink was successfully sold to Minuet Lynn for 55,000,000 gold. A 5% transaction fee was deducted from the sale price. The calculated fee is 2,750,000 gold. The remaining total of 52,250,000 gold has been transferred to your account." Jesus.
I'll be honest, what I disliked is just how 'child friendly' they tried to be... So many strict rules when it came to art or roleplay content (and I'm not just talking like OMG SEX), but then they would have incredibly--INCREDIBLY--sexual avatar items and the like as if that wasn't 'adult'. They had a double standard between what THEY could put out and what we could create even in privacy. I never liked that. I gave them up a long time ago, but if I need inspiration for new art, I go back and do freebies. Lol.
Haha I just got a strike on my Gaia acc. today for even mentioning that I also draw Ecchi and NSFW art in my artshop forum. It's crazy but you're right though, they are extremely hypocritical with their rules.
I'm actually still on Gaia online! i had several accounts in the 2000's but i rejoined just out of nostalgia in 2017 luckily at that. the website really is in a shambles and is so much quieter than it used to be, alot of the website is becoming unusable, i don't think anyone has been able to submit to the art arenas for a very long time, and site holiday events have been hit and miss at best or absolutely hated, especially this current Halloween one. in the Gaia retrospectives i've seen no one seems to mention that ZOMG was closed down in 2014 and then reopened in 2017, that and gaia's short and unfortunate and short foray into NSFW territory with Tentacl
@@imblue9839 i use it all the time but it seems the site is having technical issues today, they said theyre trying to fix it so maybe try again tomorrow!
@@Tengokuchi Well i never owned my own computer until my late teens so i needed browser games that didn't require downloads. Library computers in my area had slow internet speeds with 1 hour a day time limits so yeah.
I remember I had a "girlfriend" who wore a nurse costume and we went to a house party together and then I went outside, forgot what house it was and never saw her again
@@jazwhoaskedforthis Yeah dude I'm not fishing for likes. That was an actual thing back in the super early days of that forum. Before Gaiatown and a few other things.
Say what ya will about 4Kids they at the very least gave us good and/or catchy openings to their shows. The One Piece Rap, Ultimate Muscle, Shaman King, TMNT (2003), and Yu-Gi-Oh are still my favorites.
A lot of pet games actually do the same thing! Flight rising has always had auction house fees that have steadily increased as the old item issue began to climb, and they introduced recolours once some exclusive items hit the four year mark
I actually met my husband on Gaia when I was a teenager and we have now been together for 10 years. I also used to run a bump making shop back in The days when you barely needed to be able to work photoshop to run a shop on Gaia. 😁
So, I've been checking my account maybe once a year or more and when I did so last week I noticed a problem. There's a lot of racists that are using the forums. Like, In The News had someone bringing up positive points about white supremacists and later admitted to being one. And there were others sharing their sentiments. That cut me deep, because I remember all the good times on Gaia. I reached out to Gaia and am waiting to hear back. I hope something happens for the better.
So - is this just the story of the Weimar Republic? (Basically Germany after WW1 and before Nazis took over) Gaia had hyperinflation after manageable inflation - Weimar had hyperinflation after manageable inflation Gaia had economic crisis - Weimar had economic crisis Gaia had a golden age - Weimar had a golden age Gaia was taken over by racists - Weimar was taken over by racists
Most of the places the Western Anime Community hung out in the early 2000s have either always been populated by racists (who were either 'ironic' about it back then or played it low key) or *have* become dominated by them as certain types of 'nerd' have begun to skew into extreme reactionary politics over the last decade or so, possibly threatened by the presence of the rest of us in spaces that used to be 'theirs'. The anime community in general is a lot like the gaming community these days - a pretty unpredictable mix of the sort of liberal/leftism common to not-Normie communities of our generation, and hardcore reactionaries. Seriously, I can't let anime-adjacent videos autoplay because if I do I'll wake up to someone ranting about Feminism and how progressives are ruining anime to a comment's section all about how they should start organizing attacks on intellectuals.
Rewatching this for nostalgia and I’m SO tempted to log back in and read through my old messages between my fiancé and I from our middle/high school days. It was our only way to communicate outside of school for awhile.
You had to get them right after they came out. If you were a well established user, buying one was easy. I had the whole naruto outfit saved in my wardrobe to swap into whenenver I wanted to play zOMG!
Yeah, I nabbed all the rare stuff as it came out. I even had a angelic halo. However, I was permanently banned for ASKING about gold selling, and Ebay acc selling. I tried to talk them down, saying I was just curious, not that I was doing it. Banned before anything even happened, couple hundred dollars invested as a teen from a small time job, nothing I could do. If only I still had that acc, maaannnnn
Due to this video, I experienced warzone flashbacks to GaiaOnline. Thus causing me to log in. I have now read through old PMs from 2009-2012, all my fish are dead and I remembered I spent money on Gaia cash. My avatar is still dope tho
@@Demyn Saaame I have most of what I wanted back then. I logged in one day and instantly got called out for having an old style avi when I went into the forums hahah
"Move over MySpace, Gaia Online is here"
This is the most disgustingly mid-2000s thing I've ever heard, I love it.
Myspace: Oh No Gaia! *Your Going Down With Me*
@@TheBombyExtra MySpace: *"IF I'M GOING DOWN, I'M TAKING YOU WITH ME, YOU WEABOO SON OF A BITCH!"*
@@logicaloverdrive8197 Reading this in GrayStillPlays' voice makes it infinitely better.
Back before the shit hit hit the fan
Facebook is next..
Ha! I met my wife of 5 years, 15 years ago on Gaia! We have a 3 year old and... god this video made me feel old.
This video makes me feel young
wholesome comment
I also met my husband the same way! We just had our ten year this past summer.
WOW
I wonder if I have you guys added. I'm friends on gaia with a few married couples that met on gaia xD lol. I also still have friends I stay in contact with to this day that I met on gaia.
I can't believe I lived through the "Bee Movie" promotion, my character still has that suit
ya like j a z z
Yeah, I still have the cap from when John cena did an ama on Gaia. Him and randy orton shitposted for like a week, it was weird.
Same 😂😂
Same here! It looked so ridiculous xD
Do you remember when The Last Mimzy released? They were promoting that!
2008 gaia: economics are important any must be carefully monitored
2013 gaia: haha gaia gold go brrrrrr
2020 USA
The very state of a person that goes to Gaia for 5 fucking years.
I still remember that. I spent over 100 dollars of christmas money on gaia cash, bought some items, sold them a day before the gold boom, it destroyed my will to continue gaia after that. Shit sucked.
I never played Gaia, but it's interesting how much of the story parallels Neopets - and probably other sites from the era, too.
Nah seriously when stoped playing Gaia for good I grinded for years and made 6 billion gold. Logged on after 10 years of no activity to see that I can barely buy basic items 😂. Gaia's economy is beyond inflated
Gaia: installs micro transactions
EA: write that down write that down
grenadio the first 😂😂😂
EA: writes tic-tac-toe
after this video im really am suprsied that gary and jason wernt former EA employees
what I expected: "down the rabbit hole, weebs, drama, nostalgia"
what I got: "a course in economics and inflation"
10/10 would equate again
mellow me I’ve literally watched this 3 times today cause it’s honestly just a really good video
Because Capitalism ruins everything.
Agreed! Also a trip down memory lane for me...though I cannot remember when I last logged in.
Same!!
Same!
Gaia Online... *smokes cigarette* that's a name I haven't heard in a long time.
Fremie xD
Smoking is bad for you, dontcha know? You should quit.
Hahah, Cigarette was my friend back in '03.
And this is a surprisingly deep commentary on how even online worlds are affected by economics. Eh.
Right?
I remember watching bootleg films in a virtual theater. We're throwing popcorn at the screen and roleplaying like we're actual irl moviegoers. I remember someone roleplaying as an usher then shushing anyone trying to chat lmao.
omggg and the whole skittles ads and items related to movie promos that were made were glorious
I can’t believe I forgot about this. 😂
omggg yessss this was a core memory lol
This! Hahaha
Lmao
This sounds like a fallen civilization story
It kinda is.
A trip down the economic battlefield... For what was once a site with over 80k users now a ghost townish
Only Needs a Mongol raid and it's legit.
I wonder what they could do to bring in more players. Honestly I believe that even if the hyperinflation never happened, the site would still have lost many players mainly because of time simply moving forward. I remember I stopped playing around 2012ish because I started getting older and many of my friends that I used to play with around 2008(9)-2011 stopped coming on. Came back to check on the site around 2014 and found out about the inflation. Been coming back on every now and then to check what's going on and I see the total number of gaians online decrease each time. As time moves on people lose interest, so I believe was gonna lose a lot of its player base, but the inflation drastically sped up the process.
Beginning your own online community is essentially running a country. It’s not the exact same, but if you ever wanna see how good you are at running a country this would be a good test.
I’m damn sure the reason why Gaia Online died was because everyone forgot their passwords.
And the dummy emails.
@@Damento12 Too true. I was one of those people with about 6 accounts, these days I can only log in to one of them because a girl I was dating at the time used my current email to set it up. On top of it I contacted support to ask for help with the other accounts (deleting them) and they never responded.
Or got banned. XD
Yep. I don’t even know the password or email for my original accounts 😂
I forgot me password never looked back.
Yo this is like finding out about all the family drama that happened when you were kid and had no clue it was going on.
RedPorkPadThai HONESTLY THOUGH
My cousin found out that his dad(my uncle) isn't his dad and there's someone else.
@Takatama81 My mistake was trying to get back into it in 2010.
@@justjess6636 you poor soul
I hate how accurate that is.
I just wanted to rp, man.
The downfall was 110% the introduction of cash. No better way to alienate your young users than by making them pay for something they didn't previously have to, especially when Cash was so integral to the game. RIP Gaia, miss those long 2007 nights on Towns.
Also mass bans. These young uns turned into adults. Cursing and naughty rp was common back then. The inflation made them tried to appeal to younger audience over current player base and banned them over new regulations. Hundreds of thousands loyal players played since the opening gets banned after the hard work they put.
They deserved this downfall
I agree.
as an old admin from the golden age of gaia, I can tell you watching this video was like being thanos on titan. the world of gaia online was beautiful and in the years I was admin I took pride in helping the site and players. I was around since the very beginning but only became an admin when the site basically exploded with new players, but I would give anything to go back to those days. I watched my fellow admins get fired and/or resign but I kept going because I still had hope. I slowly watched as the world I came to know and love slowly crash down around me and by 2015 I finally resigned, stating that I could no longer do my job to the best of my abilities. it was sad, and watching this video just reminds me of the times I had with my friends. thank you.
Dang man, I'm sorry you had to watch it go like that.
Zachary Brown i look back at the time and smile. When i wasnt on duty i had another account and lurked on zomg. Sometimes i do occasionally visit the site, just to see how it is. To my amazement there still is quite a few people who stayed, tho its nothing like how it used to be, at the very least none of the people i talked to on a daily basis play it anymore.
I used an auto page refresher to farm gold and got my baby seal slippers. I was riding high on that drug. I had no reason to keep going, but keep going I did. I flew too close to the sun and wham, there was the ban. I look back on those days and I dont regret them. They taught me a lesson. Never get too cocky. *Inhales deep take on cigarette* Good to talk about it. Makes you feel free.
sakume alot of the time when i was on duty and bored, i would hide in random POHs in the towns that were known to have some naughty rp to happen and i would just wait until they did the dirty with the spam crouching. Fun times, felt like i was a detective on a scope out
Which forum did you frequent?
The really rich Gaians were the kids with good art skills. They'd essentially do commissions for gaia gold instead of real money.
Alexabix I remember those days. Or the adoptables.
Thats how I eventually got my Devil Tail. It was sooooooo much work! I don't think I ever took it off of my avatar since I got it. It is probably still equipped.
Guilty 😬
Broken Max OMG THE ADOPTABLES, so many flashbacks! I used to buy them so many times.
And collect special items then wait. I still have my demonic guitar and some other things.
God I remeber when the "peasant cloths" were no longer given and new users got a bundle of nice basic cloths and some gold.....the old users rioted.
I flat out refused to use the peasant clothes and didn't show my face/Avatar to anyone until I had gotten enough gold to by an average to slightly fancy outfit X'D
Still mad. We had to EARN the 20g to get those items back in MY time!
That was the craziest thing when I made a new avatar!! Amazing how annoyed I was then. XD
Then they did even better starter clothes.
They did!!!
I miss 00’s internet so much. It just, ironically, feels harder to connect with people now.
I totally agree, that was an amazing time to be a teen.
To get that vibe, try playing online games with a heavy social aspect. MMORPG especially
Killed by google, facebook, amazon.
We are never going back.
Golden age is over, boyo. The wild west is done. Now the corporations rule.
Try not to think about how there are kids growing up right now that will think THIS is as good as it gets.
@@deadinside9565 I know those days are over, girly. It’s still sad though. And even sadder how corporate the current web is. I remember being able to set up an entire forum website myself and having it build up tons of users, moderating other forums, helping to moderate websites run by a group of people just passionate about a subject, and we controlled everything about our experiences there. We used MySpace, Beebo, and LiveJournal but those were like 5% of our time spent. The rest was on sites _we_ made, sites _we_ curated. The most corporate we got was using AIM (does anyone else remember AIM Radio?). I remember learning html to edit my MySpace page and to run my forums, having to know html to format my posts.
I’m not trying to be all "we walked ten miles uphill to school in the snow" or anything like that. It just felt like there were so many possibilities then, and the web now feels so small, like it’s made of just a few websites and apps almost.
"In the end, 'twas Booty killed the beast."
I would like this, but it is at 69 likes
Fif Gallag it’s gone beyond 69 likes now, you’re safe to come back and like it
No sir, it was a shotgun
@@Flowtail I made it 690 likes.
So basically: Old crummy businessmen ruin the fun for everyone.
Old crummy businessmen created everything you enjoy. Except minecraft, that was some obese Norwegian furry.
@@abradolfhonkler9287 then they're not crummy are they
@@GrimBirthday That was kinda my point.
Abradolf Honkler seeing as the internet itself wasn’t made by businessmen at all... uhh .. no
@@abradolfhonkler9287 Please. Notch is Swedish. From Stockholm. There's a reason there's a syndrome named after that. ;D
One of my fondest memories of Gaia was drawing my friends' avatars, then bringing my sketchbook to the library to scan and send them. I remember people taking photos of themselves with a note saying thank you. Really meant a lot.
I had to scan a photo to upload to my signature back in the day, 2003 was wildin
Same here! It was fun and the fastest way for me to make gold. Good times! :)
Yes! I used to sell art for gaia gold! 🥰
I remember taking part in a drawing challenge where one dude had equipped SO MANY items to his avatar, you couldn't even see it anymore. So the challenge was for people to draw the jumbled incoherent mess for fun.
I did it in just pencil and shading because I was in my "No colours, ever!" Artsy phase and I still have that drawing to this day. I'm still pretty proud of it
Bro that is so wholesome
I made an account in 2004 during my senior year of highschool. I left the same year. About 4 years later, about to graduate college, I signed back in out of curiosity and didn't recognize the place. Then I searched for my old posts and....
Oh GOD I was SO CRINGEY T___T
I've never owned a fedora or trenchcoat but holy fuck I might as well have. At this point the term neckbeard as a pejorative didn't exist yet. I did a massive scouring of every post I made and deleted the embarrassing ones.
It’s okay bro we’ve all been there ☺️☺️☺️
I often look back at websites that are still functional, like Blingee and see what I type as a profile header..... the least I talk about that, the better. 😂😂
We’ve all had that online phase.
the amount of times i commented “bump” in gaia forums truly gives me shivers
Me too
OMFGGGGG YEAH
bump
~Bump~
Bump in hopes of a reply? or bump to get a response?
I still don't understand why my oldest brother made me not tell anyone about this site.
@just someone
I don't know, maybe he was ashamed of it or something.
Whatever the case was he surely isn't ashamed of it now.
Literally me too, that's fucking hilarious
It has to be something about not wanting anyone finding out of his internet persona or his friends
Probably because of the whole “second life = No life” concept of it. I mean, I get it, but it’s still no ones business what you do in your free time, and one shouldn’t care what others may think either.
Frisby 2007 I thought it was gatekeeping at first but your statement makes more sense
I literally learned how to code because of Gaia (making those custom profiles and cursors were on another level for my 10 yr old ass)
Saame! XD
Dude, I'm sayin'!!! That and making profile layouts for neopets taught me and my friends some coding. I was never that great at it though. Lol
Same but in C# for other reasons.. :)
literally everyone i know has a basic grasp of coding either because of gaia or tumblr
Same!!! I have so many vivid memories coding all my profiles and reading about it in the forums
Came to learn about Gaia Online, and left with a degree in economics.
For me, Gaia died when they shut down zOMG and then strung us along making us think they would put it back eventually.
The new/old owners brought it back the year they took back over though. :)
It's now back online!!! Well only a few people is playing right now, so ;(
Really it’s back!! Let me find my password
@@FluffyMiku also quick update: buccaneer boardwalk premium pass map doesn't work and you would be stuck indefinitely if you enter there. There is a workaround to use the old map, just Google "buccaneer boardwalk stuck" or something like that
They ruined Gaia by shutting down zOMG! :/ I loved that game so much! I would spend hours playing it with friends.
Met my bestie, 15 years ago on Gaiaonline, still best friends, saved my life when I tried to OD. Can't believe this is what Gaia has become.
Do you want to share the story? Because I would really like to hear it
oh?
What's OD
@@PrinzschwartzchHeisenburger Overdosed
Glad they saved your life!! 🥰
"Move over MySpace, Gaia Online is here" needs to be a T-shirt. It want to wear that beautiful headline loud and proud.
You've said it and now I need it too
I think I might go to custom a custom shirt website.
Same
tbh gaia cant even handle the amount of users that play NOW.
trying to log into any chatroom can take many relogs and closing and reopening the tab due to there only being 40 slots when usually theres 38-39 people online per chatroom.
if gaia got the amount of users it used to, i think the whole website would crash.
they need to fix SO badly.
I miss the gaia days, it was literally the only positive part of middle school
Ellie Park thedollpalace was my shit in middle school
omg same! I felt so famous in this game (in contrast to irl) xD
The rp threads, good memories. And then it went to complete shit after 2010.
Edit: Blame all of the Vampire Rps. *sage nod*
The Naruto RPs were popping. I remember making two accounts so I could date myself in the RP and seem important.
Same I spent real money to get the hair i wanted 😂
I joined in 2006.
On my 10-year gaiaversary I said “I’ll probably never quit this site”
I have’t logged in in over a year :(
I feel this
KingSlayerKat what a nerd
Bruh
This is so sad
I'll buy your account from you
Oh the stories I could tell from being a Mod on that site....
Got any good ones you wanna share?
Pls tell us some
op please
I was a member on that site, and your name looks vaguely familiar. Did you run forums?
@@RedBardIsCool I don't want to go into too much detail here, as I am signed on with my real name. Let's just say there were often two sets of rules for users, some really abusive people were outright overlooked even after investigation proved just how icky they were, and some other stuff that....yeah.
I loved the site, and was hugely active even before I was a moderator - I met some of my lifelong friends there. I was there the Today Show morning if the clip is still up somewhere on youtube - holding an 'ILU GCD' sign, if that says anything.
I study economics at school. As soon as I heard the words "gold generator" I knew everything was going to go down into a massive dumpster-fire.
Dudeee, I remember when they had the cinema that was sponsored by Skittles I think and I watched Spirited Away in like 16 parts back when people posted movies in parts on youtube roflmao
what the heck I watched Night of the Living Dead a lot lmao
I watched the South Park movie and those stick figure videos. Lol
I remember doing that and watching kung fu panda
Omfg I forgot you could watch movies. I used to watch a lot of anime and Miyazaki movies. And throw fire at the screen and other gaians :p
Yo I forgot about gaia cinema I miss that oh my heart just broke
Now that Gaia isn’t absolute trash we should make accounts now lol
People have been :)
no it's still absolute trash
I'll re-activate my old account
Can't access mine. I need to log in to my account to access account recovery.
LOL it’s still trash
We all had great times on Gaia. And then the heartache of a friend that never logged in ever again...
Ahh that heartache :(
"A friend?" More like "all friends."
Go make real friends.
so a great site with a loyal fanbase and employess hits its first speed bump and sells to a new company to help prevent more only for the new greedy uncaring patronizing ceo to drive away the loyal staff by being arseholes and basically scream in the remaing fans face everyday GIVE ME MONEY and ignored and censored all there crtiscm gee was the ceo a former ea ceo cause there tactics are results and nearly the exact same
I remember having a gaia online party with all my school friends on the weekend. Good memories.
I remember going to a Gaia panel in '07 and it was full of weebs and awkward teenagers wearing water meat whales and zomg hats. They showed concept art of the mmo and we all gasped and thought it was the coolest thing ever. I went with a friend and my dad (bless his heart) and we ended up winning this 4ft Kiki kitty plush. I wish I was making this up.
That Kiki plush would go for thousands 😮
I once got "married" on Gaia as a teen to my long distance college boyfriend.
Yikes.
Oh my god, people had actual weddings in the Towns, and like there would be a crowd of their friends there all attending, aaaaaaaaaah I remember those
Did you adopt any Gaia babies?
I met my first virtual girlfriend in Gaia.
Turns out she was a man.
@@yurinabesima Lmao
What I was expecting: Weeb Club Penguin.
What I got: _Weeb Zimbabwe._
More like _Weeb Venezuela_
@@thehermit8618 Zimbabwe is the place with the highest inflation in the whole world currently.
Getting some post ww1 germany vibes tbh
@@spaceyale really? I could swear no other country topped Venezuela's inflation
@@thehermit8618
No. Zimbabwe.
I had created this picture that once went viral. On the "Avatar Creator" site I made members of MCR ((My Chemical Romance)) and I cut and cropped them into my MS paint and I had shared it on the forums. Little did I know that it would be passed all over Gaia. I wish I watermarked it.
@@GregShadow1 Deadass. lol Now I'm grouped with everyone else in history who never got the cred they so deserved.
But hey, if you ever see it somewhere in your corner of the interwebs, just know did that lol.
Holy shit, I remember this. This was every wannabe emo teen's sig on the forums
I know the feels :/ I did the same thing for myspace... bitch stole my logo and then it went around...I was furious!!! It was for my use only -.-
I remember seeing that post and damn it you make me feel old.
Wait, really? I'm too young to have been around that time, but imma look it up.
Logged in to check on my avatar after this and found myself wearing the Bee Movie suit & 2008 Barack Obama mask. I thrived on that website, ran a guild of thousands of Harry Potter fans & LGBTQ+ media, had a lot of friends. My heart aches at what we lost.
Gosh, I know that heart-aching feeling, knowing you’ve lost something so nostalgic and great and that you’ll never have it again. *Pain.*
There's still a pretty active community left on Gaia. It may be pretty small, only capping at about 3000 users per day but for a forum site that's still really good. They're trying to rework the flash games and I feel like people are really trying to keep it alive
@@jessiec8736 Up to this point the site is still alive, not to the golden year standards but is there, and with effort you can get items in platinum and is somewhat stable.
I still remember when they had the video lounge back then, where you could throw popcorn. Good times.
😭😭
i forgot all about that, i remember i would go with my "boyfriend"
@@clouddream7755 Yeah, I miss it. It was fun to watch the videos and throw food at eachother. Didn't like that there was a video limit, had to keep replacing videos if I was putting on a show. Also, remember when they would show anime on Gaia?
Omg the good old days
@@Chaos-232 Ikr?
This went way to quickly from a Weeb Club Penguin to a virtual Venezuela. And I loved It, 10/10 documentary.
more like zimbabwe actually.
If we're counting the new CEO as USA, maybe
@@AlejandroRodolfoMendez I thought Zimbabwe's inflation isn't as high as Venezuela.
@@thegrayyernaut no, even as high it is, Zimbabwe was higher, also other countries had higher inflation counting hungry and Germany.
@@AlejandroRodolfoMendez Ah I see, thanks for the info. Venezuela seems to get the spotlight for inflation right now.
But I am aware that back then Zimbabwe took the spot.
remember when they nuked TEKTEK :( and nobody could make dream avis anymore. I'm still resentful about that
Totally remember that, I loved building avatars with it with my friends on Gaia. One of the reasons that I left as well after the gold generators started.
-edit- I logged into Gaia again last night to see how much my inventory was worth. They apparently nuked that site as well.
YESSSSS I never played gaia BUT I absolutely ADORED tektek smh 😭😭😭😭
I know that's right. Those were dark times right there. Then the gold system was all broken
oh shit is that what happened, I'm still hella mad
Oh my gosh, that was a sad day! But then didn't the creators of it make another version of it or something?
I didn't know that the words "panda hat" in this context would give me war flashbacks but here we are
Remove "in this context" and you're golden.
every now and then i get tempted to look up my old Gaia account but then I remember all the over-a-decade-old memes on my profile and cant find the strength to do it.
Do it, it's good for a laugh.
Take a dive, I did LOL
I feel like you have a few “shoop da whoop” memes in there laying dormant
I cant even find my old profile, cant remember my username and literally every email address ive ever used gets no password reset emails from gaiaonline.
I wanna go back for a little bit and reminisce, but I cant.
@@ChaotiX1 I tried to get back on but the email was not getting anything. Even checked in my spam and nothing after multiple times. But strangely Gaia email appeared in my spam a few days later ....
Oh boy, I remember Gaia Online. I used to be on it DAILY. Every day after school, I'd get home and would be on my computer constantly. I lost tons of sleep since my friends and I were on it. Yes, I was one of those geeks that did role-plays. Now, it's basically a thing of the past--I let go of it over ten years ago. But, those were one of the good ole days, I'll admit. My account is _still_ there, of course.
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Nothing wrong with rp. It’s a gateway drug to writing fiction.
@@IAmAnEvilTaco
Agreed. I did, and still do, write fanfic from time to time as well, so it went hand in hand. I've also been involved with quality role-playing beyond Gaia Online too, so it's like a pastime hobby in a sense. I just hardly have time outside of work and classes nowadays.
My heart... I literally have two friends that I managed to stay friends with to this day lol sometimes we still RP... we have like some amazing stories still going haha
Same! I know I pulled my fair share of all nighters with my friends in the towns
I learned how to play blackjack on Gaia when I was 10 lol
Morgan Holmes fuckin badass 10 yo
Legit how I learned to play blackjack lol
That was the game I would always play to earn gold
we stan
it was that or fallout new vegas lmao
“Equipable yaoi paddles.”
Whoa hold on there, that’s straying a bit too far away from “user friendly content”!
Well I mean they also sold skimpy outfits and had a lot of role playing. I think yaoi paddles aren’t that much of a surprise
@@Denturess Roleplay isn’t inherently inappropriate, but I see what you mean.
M they were based off the anime fandom of america at the time so that’s why yaoi paddles aren’t surprising
asmRTPOP I’m well aware lol
I worked at Gaia from 2015 to 2018, left of my own volition. (I was actually hired by the person you quoted at 28:59, one of the best product managers Gaia ever had.) I'm hesitant to leave this comment, which might go unnoticed regardless, but I feel I should provide more info on the later years and why the gap where things were outwardly more calm actually were the most destructive years Gaia had from the company side.
First and foremost, Gaia's employees were fully aware of the issues going on, but weren't allowed/able to make changes to make things better. That quote at 28:59 is apt because the daily/monthly revenue goals weren't based on projections, they were based on the amount of money Gary and Jason wanted to make, which is to say, "more". No matter what a day's goal was, the expectation was that we had to exceed it by as much as possible. They would threaten cuts for everything, even when revenue was exceeding any reasonable expectation. It wasn't about keeping the company afloat, it was about lining their pockets at the expense of the site and the company as a whole. Working at Gaia under Gary and Jason was hell, and it was always one rash decision or another that led me to watch many of my colleagues leave the company for good in the time I worked there.
Gary and Jason's goal, as it turns out, was to make Gaia look as rich as possible so they could sell it at a profit, which is precisely what they did. By the time they finalized the sale of the company in late 2016, they were making us sell Gaia Cash at 68% off, which even if you don't know the ins and outs of Gaia is an unreasonable amount to discount anything you actively rely on for revenue. But, to their end it didn't matter. They made the company look profitable and had a good amount of money in Gaia's account by the time of the sale.
And then, they gave themselves all that money on their way out the door, leaving Gaia in a financial hole it likely never will recover from.
There were a lot of little things I'm glazing over here, for fear of making a long story longer, but essentially financial struggles were somewhat warded off until late 2018, and then the reality of Gaia's dwindling finances couldn't be held off any longer. There were multiple rounds of layoffs starting in late November 2018 and continuing on into 2019, and from what I've seen in the few times I've visited the site since, things don't look like they're going to be able to get better in the wake of it.
It's rough, especially because I know how many people on staff who cared deeply about Gaia's success and wanted (and still want) it to stay alive and afloat, none more than Lanzer himself. But, personally speaking anyway, I don't think there's any way to undo the damage that was done under Gary and Jason, and I felt that way even before they sold it off. It's just a shame how things have played out, given the nostalgia so many rightfully have for Gaia.
I think that's all I've got to say, apologies for the long-winded comment.
It's fine. It was a good read and I'm hella glad you got out fo that mess.
Wow, thank you for that insightful comment. It must have been really tough to have to face that. I appreciate the added information. It is a shame, that some people are allowed to deal so much damage and just walk off, but that is how the cutthroat world of corporate business works, I guess.
Gaia might not be able to recover, which is a bit of a shame... But here is to hoping it can at least serve as a lesson, one way or another. If nothing else, as someone who used to frequent the site in my early teens, I appreciate the explanation, sad and hard as the reality of the situation is.
Here is to hoping you will end up somewhere better for the future.
So basically they pulled a Romney.
If Derek Liu cared so much why'd he sell it? It was his decision that ultimately lead to the demise of the website.
Yo that's insane, as a local and old member that shit is hella sad esp since Flash has been on the fall for the last 6 years. Honestly it's capable for Gaia 2 still make a comeback. Can't let Jason and Gray return when it do thoo
Gaia Online: the story of some poor decision-making leading to a website being hijacked by two greedy sociopaths that proceeded to plow the site and company into the floor.
Are you talking about Giaonline or Neopets?
@@BrightWulph Oh yeah, them too
@@BrightWulph Both.
@Thage
Remember when 100,000,000,000
Was a lot of gold. .
@@zeta2712 I remember when a million was a lot. I think I stopped logging in around shortly after zOMG! went into beta, by then I'd found other communities and hung out there more.
Thank you TH-cam recommended algorithm, this was completely unrelated to everything I watch, yet still relevant to me.
Long term data mining am I right?
Indeed.
Not a single lie was told.
i am both impressed and terrified.
Exactly
Doesn't necessarily have to be that "deep" of data mining. Algorithm just has to make the connection between your interest in anime and your age. This was an extremely popular site at its peak after all.
It just proves two things:
1. Communities are generational. Nobody goes back to the same toys they played when they were 6 when they're pushing 40.
2. Going fully corporate is the biggest mistake a fan driven community can ever make on ANY platform.
I started playing Pokemon Red when I was 6 and I regularly go back and play though it! I'm turning 30 next month. I'll get back to you in 10 years if you'd like 😁
@@velvet_echo Ty for saying this, same! I still have my nintendo 64 and Ps2 and play them regularly! I’m 31 lol.
Also while I’ve played WoW on and off through the years based on income and how busy my life is at the time, I know there are people who are playing it 18 years later still who also were into it as kids in 2004 when it came out.
Oh boy, how do I introduce you to autistics?
#1 Have you ever heard of Old School Runescape? Its literally still one of the biggest mmorpgs today and it came out in 2001. Lots of the player base is well into their 30s and even older.
@@springsbliss4094 I feel like since smartphones, everybody today has an attention span of a fly. We're overstimulated
Gaia is such a distant memory for me, I can't even remember how old I was when I used it. All I remember was some weird fishing game, and drawing people's avatars for gold.
Same here. I think I was most active on it in 2004 - '05 but I honestly can't remember. I know it was before 06' though.
I remember being some ones pet in 2006 in Gaia.
True dark times
@Hydra le epik boomer meme XD
I'm embarrassed to say that I can relate to that. Gaia Online was like a magnet for oppurtunistic perverts. Leaving was for sure the right thing to do.
I remember those guys being rampant in Towns fountain
Yikes, I remember that too. I actually remember when the "Love" tower was still clickable on Go-Gaia. It was a personals board. It got shut down really quick because of the amount of people soliciting sex. And it was clearly adults looking for minors to roleplay adult scenarios with.
I also remember having a Gaia marriage to someone. Didn't last long irl (because he was older and lived in a different country), but he still reached out to me after we broke up. Then he got super mad when I started dating my now husband, and exploded when I got pregnant with my son. He started that by asking if I even knew who the father was, then after I blocked him (this was on MSN), he leaked all of our more embarrassing rps to my friends. That was doubly creepy because we had broken up at least 4 years before all this, which meant that he saved them.
I left Gaia after we broke up anyway, because he spread some nasty rumours about me in our guild, and since he was more popular than I, it just wasn't worth it anymore.
LOL
Suddenly all the highschool memories of Gaia online flooded back. Oh god.
The cringe... The cringe...
Same lol.
Same
We had a Habbo Hotel advertisement billboard on our schools locker room.
That was a shock, site was known for cybering, and creepers.
Age 12-19, I'm 26 now. Most of it was rping, progressively more with friends I already had over the years.
It was pretty cool trick or treating on Gaia as a kid. I'd never been allowed to do so in real life, so I appreciated that.
I have so many feels about this. God I miss Gaia in its prime...
Me, as well...I spent a lot of my childhood on that site. And on Maplestory, which is another now-broken game. Ah, the good ol' days.
@@KaiyaCorrbin omg me too! I was also a big Neopets person. I periodically checked my accounts in college (2011/2012) and inflation was insane. We had awesome childhoods though :)
this is actually a legit modern history and economics lesson
100% agreed.
When this video started: I'm going to log back on for old time sake.
A little after the Midway point: Nope I'm not touching this ever again.
The end of the video: I'm going to log back on for old times sake.
💀 understandable
I wanted to sign up for shits and giggles but the site won't let me lol
Madeline LaTour it let me sign up no problem
Oh god....rewatching this during twitter's downfall is...really something...
Is like story repeating itself but in other context.
I remember the TekTek days when I could customize my dream avatar as my signature. I miss those days...
I actually came to Gaia through Tektek xD
Woow, that mention resurfaced so many memories I didnt know I still had.
I almost forgot about TekTek.
Ah tektek another victim of goldemortb it the dust because the owner refused to not show ads which allowed the site to be maintained indefinitely for free
Richard Hicks Actually, Gaia took it down because Tekton was advertising his own version of Gaia. Why Gaia couldn’t have hired him on somehow rather than shooting down what was essentially a really good asset beloved by Gaia users is beyond me. “Hey Tekton, we want your avatar maker. Design one for us so we don’t have to take legal action?” is totally not something they could have said... *sigh*
My friend literally met her boyfriend of 9 years on Gaia lol
Glad someone could find love on that awful site.
tbh Gaia was a great place to be in the late 2000s.
ik a few people who had found legit relationships on there
vjm3 Haha yeah you’re right. But she plans to marry him so good for Gaia i guess 😂
Sounds like me and my bf, but it's been 11 years now haha
I met people from there and have friendships with most of them
Oof yes, I miss old Gaia so much... I keep trying to get back into it, but every time I just kinda dress my avatar up, check the market, become overwhelmed at inflation and the sheer number of items, check the forums, then kinda quit. It was such a fun site early on, and really a great entry point for the weebs of today.
Also, I fucking love your videos! Keep being awesome!
Honestly, I remember logging in after school literally every day, hanging out in the town's with my friends, sticking to the forums for hours. It was such a magical time. I was a really impatient kid with a horribly small attention span, so I never read any announcements, and I never knew how deeply terrible this whole issue was to the community and it's members! O:
i think it's pretty easy to earn enough for really decent items now. posting on the forums regularly can make you around 4k(?) platinum a day.
Gaiaonline is a rp site anyway.
same here! plus none of my friends use gaia anymore lol
This unlocked so many memories of my teens, the online friends, the mini-games - the pre-facebook social media era felt way funnier than what we have nowadays.
My account is 10 years old now, joined because a few online friends joined and told me to do so, it was so fun until the prices went crazy. I remember being in love with a Rapunzel wig item that at the time was priced at 1 Million gc, grinded a lot and sold a lot of beloved items trying to reach that money goal but eventually felt burnout and left the place.
A few years later, logged again only to find that item costing like a billion or so and got so mad I left again, lol.
It's sad that all of this happened, because it was a really fun and beloved social media/game
Remember sweetheart ring? I wanted it ever since I was 9, and last year I think, since flash announced soon it will close down, the sweetheart ring price reduced a lot, its still batshit expensive, but manageable, i literally spend 80% of my remaining gold purchasing it.
so, in the last few months of zomg, i managed to complete my long childhood wish, at the age of 19. 😂
Damn I had that Rapunzel wig 😅 thankfully never spent a dime on gaiaonline. If I still have it you can have it, to complete the circle ⭕️
I remember being a kid and seeing this girl with a huge elaborate profile section opening up layers continuously and trying to find the html codes to copy it lol
I remember when was gifted a torn cape for my birthday 14 years ago. I was the edgiest darklord with swim shorts and flip-flops.
I saw rennel wear a cape and flip flops so i buyed a cape and flip flops
@@veronicasardo76 gggggggggnnnnnn..... uuuuhhhhh..... hhhhnnnnnn.....
*BOUGHT**!!!!! there... whew... sorry
Oh man. One of my favourite things to do was put my spare Nitemare Scarf on the marketplace, and watch the scam PMs roll in. I used to troll them and then would post screenshots to my journal and called it "The Zoo of Stupidity" it was great.
I used to hang out on Gaia! I once conducted a wedding ceremony between two other users I didn't even know. They just wandered up to me in the village area or whatever it was called and asked me to be the minister. Luckily I remembered all the words from the last real life wedding I was at. I wonder if they're still together? XD
I did not expect to get a crash course in inflation and economic policy in a video about a 2000's anime website
"The rise and Fall of gaiaonline"
Oh the foreboding, the site broke several hours ago.
The site broke Several years ago o
@@elvladiskov6174 I meant literally broke, it was completely messed up this Sunday, every image was gone basically.
@@EmA-oo9xk i t B R O K E ?
Flash is no longer gonna be supported so yeah, it's gonna be even more worse now
@@DJVirgoNeun1 They're going to need to hire a team of professionals to figure out How the Hell you can convert all that shit to a different platform. Does HTML5 do everything flash used to do? Hmm... I wonder if javascript by itself could solve this. But damn that's a lot of recoding/newcoding. Might even make the most sense to code a remote VM that can run the flash so that technically no flash is running on the user's local computer, just javascript that is accessing an instanced VM that is running the old-school flash... but there still needs to be a way to save the variables from the VM instance if you wanted to do things like save high scores or something... I'm probably talking about crap that's above my pay grade, just thinking aloud here. ha ha
CEO: I don't believe in inflation
Employee: Well I don't believe in this company. Here's my two week notice.
Gaia died when they started prioritizing gcash RIGs over all other items.
The word RIGs takes me back... Oh fuck....
Yep
That and when they over inflated the economy with those gold sinks.
Absofuckinglutely
Just realized I could still log in to my old Gaia account. A message I got on the 18 of Febuary 2015 read,
"Your item Blue Ink was successfully sold to Minuet Lynn for 55,000,000 gold.
A 5% transaction fee was deducted from the sale price. The calculated fee is 2,750,000 gold. The remaining total of 52,250,000 gold has been transferred to your account."
Jesus.
Thank you for including me! So honored to have a part on your channel!
:D Glad you had fun! And thank YOU for inspiring the video, haha
Ain't going to lie, I made an account and got lost. I walk into someone's house I think and they were naked and I got even more lost.
Can you do me a favor? I can't access my account, which means I can't see the marketplace. I'm just curious, how much is a g blade going for now?
@@blackghostcat right now the g blade is 8,500p
thats the lowest price, the average is 11,992 p
@@redfield4233 is that considered a lot?
Your comment made me laugh for some reason 😂
its like i watched my entire childhood in 30 minutes
I'll be honest, what I disliked is just how 'child friendly' they tried to be... So many strict rules when it came to art or roleplay content (and I'm not just talking like OMG SEX), but then they would have incredibly--INCREDIBLY--sexual avatar items and the like as if that wasn't 'adult'. They had a double standard between what THEY could put out and what we could create even in privacy.
I never liked that.
I gave them up a long time ago, but if I need inspiration for new art, I go back and do freebies. Lol.
Haha I just got a strike on my Gaia acc. today for even mentioning that I also draw Ecchi and NSFW art in my artshop forum.
It's crazy but you're right though, they are extremely hypocritical with their rules.
I'm actually still on Gaia online! i had several accounts in the 2000's but i rejoined just out of nostalgia in 2017 luckily at that. the website really is in a shambles and is so much quieter than it used to be, alot of the website is becoming unusable, i don't think anyone has been able to submit to the art arenas for a very long time, and site holiday events have been hit and miss at best or absolutely hated, especially this current Halloween one.
in the Gaia retrospectives i've seen no one seems to mention that ZOMG was closed down in 2014 and then reopened in 2017, that and gaia's short and unfortunate and short foray into NSFW territory with Tentacl
OH my god I forgot all about Tentacl. What a time that was.
Are you actually still able to login? I just tried to signup and it won't let me lol
@@imblue9839 i use it all the time but it seems the site is having technical issues today, they said theyre trying to fix it so maybe try again tomorrow!
@@imblue9839 just checking the website now, it seems like it's having problems, maybe it'll be fixed in a few hours
Damn I didn't realize zOMG was back up again, it was my jam I'm going to play it a little just for the memories
The end of zomg
And overinflation of gold. That was literally the main problem.
Finally someone mentioned the end of zomg! That was the only thing I did on Gaia!
Fun fact ZOMG is back on the site
I played real MMOs so I didn't understand why people liked ZOMG.
@@Persephone42613 thanks for that but I stopped playing gaia around 2014
@@Tengokuchi Well i never owned my own computer until my late teens so i needed browser games that didn't require downloads. Library computers in my area had slow internet speeds with 1 hour a day time limits so yeah.
OH MY GOD I REMEMBER GETTING THAT USELESS BEE MOVIE SUIT HOLY SHIT THIS IS CRAZY NOSTALGIA LMAOOO
I remember when people spam gifted Lanzer with em.xD
Remember the skittles items?
That's around the time i quit
Same lol.
Omg I remember just dying for the kiki kitty. I desperately wanted one and I ended up getting one when they finally did the economic reset.
i purchased a cool chick pet and then zomg shut down.
the rage and resentment, man ..
Ah the good ol’ “girls find a lap to sit in” thread days.
Lana Botwin when people would say *glomp*
@@Kid_illithid i still say glomp D:
Yep, was in there too.
Smh..
Oh God...that brings memories xD
I remember I had a "girlfriend" who wore a nurse costume and we went to a house party together and then I went outside, forgot what house it was and never saw her again
I'm so old, I remember the days when Gaia actually had a brothel sub section. Yikes.
KevinSkye1 wait what
@@jazwhoaskedforthis Yeah dude I'm not fishing for likes. That was an actual thing back in the super early days of that forum. Before Gaiatown and a few other things.
@@KevinSkye1 I didn't say you were lol, it just seems so strange
@@jazwhoaskedforthis Times were different and teens and pre teens alike were starved for adult content. Lol
@@KevinSkye1 I probably would have gotten into it back then if I'd known about that section.
TAKE BACK WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT THE ONE PIECE 4KIDS RAP
Tbh I love it more than the Japanese opening.
Say what ya will about 4Kids they at the very least gave us good and/or catchy openings to their shows. The One Piece Rap, Ultimate Muscle, Shaman King, TMNT (2003), and Yu-Gi-Oh are still my favorites.
@@GraveKenshin1991
uhhum.... THE P O K E R A P
That damn rap is engraved in my brain.
GOTTA GOOOO, TO THE BATHROOOOOM!
“They introduced taxes to the marketplace and prevented inflation.”
...we are still talking about a video game, right?
A lot of pet games actually do the same thing! Flight rising has always had auction house fees that have steadily increased as the old item issue began to climb, and they introduced recolours once some exclusive items hit the four year mark
On a less casual example...
Crossout.
But i know nothing about its economical status. I just know taxes are a thing on that game's market.
OSRS did it.
Technically speaking, we are talking about a Social Media site
Me: I wish I could go back in time
Genie: Where to?
Me: back in like 2006, so I can get the Bee Movie suit in Gaia Online
I still have it :)
I think I still have mine. you want it?
@@TanukiYvvki noooo don't!
You want mine?
I fucking regret selling off the Scott Pilgrim shit years ago
I actually met my husband on Gaia when I was a teenager and we have now been together for 10 years. I also used to run a bump making shop back in The days when you barely needed to be able to work photoshop to run a shop on Gaia. 😁
Please tell me he was a teenager as well. PLEASE.
ha ha! that's amazing
@@JFJD what the hell
@@JFJD that was pretty rude, but yes we are the same age.
@@hiruki8 still the question itself is rude and digging into someone business when it isn't necessary.
the best time was when they made the "theater" and u got to watch movies for free no ads
Yeah and you could throw stuff at the screen like tomatoes and popcorn! XD People would get so annoyed lol
omg yes lmao I met a boy who lived in a town a few hours away from me one summer, so we would go on 'dates' at the theatre hahaha
Wow I forgot about that!
dude omg friends and I would have movie nights thanks to that feature!
I loved that feature so much
So, I've been checking my account maybe once a year or more and when I did so last week I noticed a problem. There's a lot of racists that are using the forums. Like, In The News had someone bringing up positive points about white supremacists and later admitted to being one. And there were others sharing their sentiments.
That cut me deep, because I remember all the good times on Gaia. I reached out to Gaia and am waiting to hear back. I hope something happens for the better.
So - is this just the story of the Weimar Republic? (Basically Germany after WW1 and before Nazis took over)
Gaia had hyperinflation after manageable inflation - Weimar had hyperinflation after manageable inflation
Gaia had economic crisis - Weimar had economic crisis
Gaia had a golden age - Weimar had a golden age
Gaia was taken over by racists - Weimar was taken over by racists
Why do fallen civilizations attract white supremacists? Probably think they can repopulate it with their "pur3 jeenz"
Most of the places the Western Anime Community hung out in the early 2000s have either always been populated by racists (who were either 'ironic' about it back then or played it low key) or *have* become dominated by them as certain types of 'nerd' have begun to skew into extreme reactionary politics over the last decade or so, possibly threatened by the presence of the rest of us in spaces that used to be 'theirs'. The anime community in general is a lot like the gaming community these days - a pretty unpredictable mix of the sort of liberal/leftism common to not-Normie communities of our generation, and hardcore reactionaries.
Seriously, I can't let anime-adjacent videos autoplay because if I do I'll wake up to someone ranting about Feminism and how progressives are ruining anime to a comment's section all about how they should start organizing attacks on intellectuals.
"by a user called MoldyLunchBox"
NOOOO! NOOO! DON'T! NOOoooooo
Jeremiah M. - HIIII I'M BOXXYYYYY
She was Queen!
I know MoldyLunchBox!!!!
"I AM BOXXY YOU SEE."
* touches soil *
Something happened here, and it held great power
So, uh, explanation for a rock man please
“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”
-Roy Batty
is that a bladerunner referrence?
Andrew Chen is that a jojo reference?
@@victormurillo2592 Is that a Bible Black reference?
This was frustrating to go through in real time, it's surreal seeing it in an overview.
Rewatching this for nostalgia and I’m SO tempted to log back in and read through my old messages between my fiancé and I from our middle/high school days. It was our only way to communicate outside of school for awhile.
its been over ten years and i still can't buy a headband
You had to get them right after they came out. If you were a well established user, buying one was easy. I had the whole naruto outfit saved in my wardrobe to swap into whenenver I wanted to play zOMG!
Yeah, I nabbed all the rare stuff as it came out. I even had a angelic halo.
However, I was permanently banned for ASKING about gold selling, and Ebay acc selling. I tried to talk them down, saying I was just curious, not that I was doing it.
Banned before anything even happened, couple hundred dollars invested as a teen from a small time job, nothing I could do.
If only I still had that acc, maaannnnn
Eh, you and me both.
I've got a few different re colors and the original sitting in storage
Mood
Ah yes, I remember back when a slice of bread was worth less than 10 billion gold
Kirb Y. That sounds a lot like Venezuela
@@Malum09 lmfao
Due to this video, I experienced warzone flashbacks to GaiaOnline. Thus causing me to log in. I have now read through old PMs from 2009-2012, all my fish are dead and I remembered I spent money on Gaia cash. My avatar is still dope tho
Wait, your fish are dead? Are they dead *because* you logged in so hard you forgot to feed them, or was that just a side note?
How did you feel looking through old PMs from over the years?
Gaia was so good at one point. I especially loved all the profile options, that was what made early social media special.
Oh my gooosh YES the coding options of your profile were endless
Did y’all know that boxxy is a voice actress now? Wild.
... Good for her, actually.
What’s her name? I’d like to check her out!
The queen of /b/
When you got tired of not being able to afford the over inflated items, you just ran the fishing bot, only to get tired of having all the items.
Yes then getting banned. That's what happened to me
@@callmewaves1160 Same here, but I did it on alt accounts then traded it all over to my main. Those were good times.
@@Demyn Saaame I have most of what I wanted back then. I logged in one day and instantly got called out for having an old style avi when I went into the forums hahah
When I was in elementary I bought a hoodie with my gaia character on it
Needless to say, i'm glad I have no idea where that hoodie is at now