The Rise and Fall of Gaia Online
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 พ.ย. 2019
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I feel like this video really shaved a few years off of my life, but tbh I also think this is one of my absolute best. The script is a solid 12 pages long, and it took about 3 weeks to finish. This is my first time making a video this long, too. That being said, I really hope you enjoy it!
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The KnowYourMeme piece on Gaia. Most of the information I talk about regarding the fall of Gaia is documented here.
knowyourmeme.com/memes/events...
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Thanks to Billiam for reading that review! If you haven't already, check out his channel, too (watch his Gaia video!)
/ billiamthies
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Thanks to @MechaManDan on Twitter, for helping me edit a few segments of this video.
/ mechamandan
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Thanks to @_seaPancake on Twitter for doing the art in my end card! Check out more of her work here:
/ _seapancake
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Thumbnail layout by @OGmagicalgirl
/ ogmagicalgirl
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Twitter: / redbardiscool
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Insta: / redbardiscool
MAL: myanimelist.net/animelist/redb...
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#gaia #gaiaonline #goldemort - เกม
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!
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.
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
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
"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..
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
Came to learn about Gaia Online, and left with a degree in economics.
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
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
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 😮
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.
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.
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?
Wow! I met my wife in 2009 on Gaia and now it’s 2021. Man does time fly. This video definitely brought back good memories for us, thanks!
it always sounds silly to say out loud but it really is surpising how you can find the love of your life on silly online hangout games/websites, thats how i met mine lol :)
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.
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
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
“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
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
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.
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!!!
Oh god....rewatching this during twitter's downfall is...really something...
Is like story repeating itself but in other context.
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.
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!! 🥰
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
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 ⭕️
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.
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
"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.
I did not expect to get a crash course in inflation and economic policy in a video about a 2000's anime website
“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
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.
"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
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 ..
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 made a new account I think two years ago, and it's crazy-if not straight-up disturbing-how much they try to present themselves as a teen-friendly site, despite all the ero-based items people wear. One of the first things I saw was a backdrop of someone's avatar in a filthy public bathroom with a visible glory hole made into one of the stalls! I am still absolutely gobsmacked by its existence, and people are defending it, saying it's not presenting anything overtly sexual, which is a BS excuse! EVERYONE knows what is being implied there, and just because it doesn't show someone getting sucked off doesn't mean it isn't blatantly sexual!
A LOT of people defended that point when I brought it up in someone else's thread who also agrees that a shitton of their outfits is extremely revealing and unacceptable for anyone under eighteen. I've also seen avatars that were naked but were considered passable because they have a small amount of censorship on top of the female breasts and coochie. So it's not just the admins who act as if this is all acceptable to advertise to children, but so many of the users think it's okay too, and it honestly makes me feel that many of the users are predators. No one in their right mind would think that a thirteen-year-old (the lowest age someone can make an account) should be seeing that!
But you are right about the inconsistencies within their rules on what kinds of topics you can make, and it's so bizarre. They have made a ton of threads saying that no one is allowed to post anything sexual, especially in the RP forums, so it's like, what the fuck do you want admins? I recall people saying there was once a side website for users over eighteen, but that failed for some reason. Those older users didn't want to use it or something, but I don't know why they wouldn't unless they wanted to have access to kids while having very sexual-looking avatars.
It's just a bad look for anyone who wants to use it which sucks as many virtual items look so cute, and I've come across some nice people. I've also got an addiction to these kinds of sites, but it's almost a blessing that I don't have money to spend because I'd want to buy so many of them. Sorry if this is super long, I just wanted to share my thoughts. I wish you and anyone else who reads this a wonderful and happy day, weeks, months, and years!
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
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 😂
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
I miss the friends I made in Gaia and the art forums where you got commissions for items or real money. People always seemed so much kinder than the internet of today :/
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 :)
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 mean, almost 5000 players online is still a "lot" for a game like Gaia, a lot of games get less players nowadays and are still rentable. I never really played the game but back in 2007 I would use their avatars in other forums, using the Tektek avatar maker.
i remember that! You know what, as a kid Iam very scared to search for that site. Since in my language, it resemble 'tetek' which is... n*pple.
It took another big sister that speak my language to assure me that I wont be having my parents barging in angrily to my room cuz i might open something i should open that i started to use that site.
only for a few months, cuz then gaia banned it and tried to make their own, which is a big failure.
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.
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?
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 ....
I remember my time on Gaia, I joined waaaay back when it was Go Gaia after I stumbled upon it by chance. Back then, you were considered loaded if you had fairy wings. I loved Gaia, I went to Expo and met DJ Hellsing and got all the freebees and it's where I first started RPing. I eventually applied to be a mod and got into the training, however the mod I trained under never specified things with me even after I asked so I failed the training because I did the tasks I was given but apparently that wasn't good enough. Was then told I'd be considered for training again in the future and never heard from them again no matter how much I enquired.
My account still exists there and I pop on every now and then just to see how much of a shit slide it's become. Everything went to shit when Lanzer left.
DJ Hellsing may not be working for Gaia anymore, but he's still out there and actually making board games now. He has a couple out now (I actually met him at an event in 07 myself, and still friends with him on his personal FB account), they look pretty good.
I went back to my Gaia last year after...geez, almost a decade, and I apparently avoided that entire mess. It’s basically desolate, which is tragic because I can now “do better” on it by being more accessible and participate in it. Tragically, I’m not sure if it’s my computer or their site, but I log into their flash-related worlds, and they NEVER load properly or they’re too damn slow.
Let’s hope they can eventually fix this issue, because I would gladly hop on back there.
Flash got discontinued a couple months ago before 2021 so no one would be able to have access to any of the flash games or worlds anymore.
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.
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.
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.
This went from a video about an old website to practically a “how NOT to run your in-game economy” slideshow
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 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.
My sister still plays after all these years.
Gaia was also moderately influenced by Ragnarok Online. IIRC the founders were RO players, and early iRO players adopted Gaia as a social hub. You can see lot of Gaia's early items taken straight from RO
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.
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
watching all this con footage makes me a lil, actually a lotta sad. I mean quarantine is valid and important and I'm staying home outside of grocery shopping and the occasional walk in the forest, but man... I miss con hopping TToTT
This video managed to both make me incredibly nostalgic for Gaia, and incredibly grateful that I stopped using it when I did.
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
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?
I remember making good friends in a guild there on Gaia, called The Community Chest. Those were the great days of Gaia, back when the main way of generating gold was through answering polls and interacting in forums. When real money came in, the website went from being a place about chatting and making friends, to a place about buying as much gold as possible so you could look how you wanted.
Around that same time Gaia changed things so users made almost zero gold through polls and chatting; in this way, the incentive to interact with others vanished. Also, the majority of the user base--young folks without a real-world source of income to donate--was COMPLETELY cut out of the fun. After that change, even if you interacted with others all day, you'd make the equivalent of pennies. That was the real death-blow to the site. The users who'd brought so much life and love to the place were discouraged from playing because they didn't have money. Inflation only put the nails in the coffin by making more and more users realize, they had no way to generate gold quickly enough to keep up.
The gold generators were probably a desperate gambit to try and get the leaving users to stay via a lotto mechanic. "You can still get rich in one way! See, there's a lottery! It's not hopeless!"
...But it was.
It's so weird to me that I was on the site since around 2004 and then fell off of it right before its downfall. I thought the cash system was dumb but I was more into a couple very specific forums and decking out my avatar (with what I could afford) than anything else. I finalized that avatar probably around 2008-2009. Then around 2012-2013ish (which was long after I stopped buying new items) my group I hung out with in Barton Town went their separate ways, I had a big move about a year after that, and I just kind of left it behind. I never knew the economy imploded like that, I completely missed it.
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.
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.
Gaia and habbohotel were my jam back when i was a teen.
I joined Gaia in 2011 and then the userbase was so much larger compared to how it is now, I can only imagine what it would have been like around 2007.
dont care + ur a furry
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
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.
Good times around 2007-2010. Towns theme music is so nostalgic today.
I swear I was online like, 5 days a week. Despite not owning a computer. (Me and my friends regularly took over the libraries "teen room")
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 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 really wish there were still games like this that were popular.
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.
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 didn't expect to be watching a video essay on video game inflation at 4 am, but here I am. This was incredibly interesting and fascinating and I really enjoyed it, even though it's the first I'm hearing of this platform. Great video! Really interesting to see.
My wife and I got our anime selves married on here when it was a huge thing.. Possibly our accounts are still there if I can only remember who and what they were called.. She's deceased and I forgot!
Oh god im sorry for your loss like actually that caught me off guard :')
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
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
Gaia Online was where I first started really writing. I learned from other roleplayers and LIVED on the forums. This was such a trip! Thanks for making this video ❤️
The halcyon days of Gaia were such a treat to experience. I really miss those days, especially all the friends I made online during those years. I've been on Gaia since the mid-2000s (I think I joined right around the last few days of Go Gaia, lost that account, and made a new account in 2007).
The first time I noticed a major change with Gaia was in late 2012. Friends I had began to abandon their accounts. To this day, I can scroll my friend list and still see that the last time they signed on was over a decade ago. The site still seemed active and I could always make more friends, but around 2019 I noticed a severe decline in the active user base. It's sad to see Gaia so empty these days.
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 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*
Wow, it's probably been more than a decade since I last heard anything about Gaia online. This is a blast from the past!
I remember joining back in 2005 when I was 12. I left when I was 14 back in 2007 because it was starting to become corporate with the gaia cash and school and other stuff was taking over my life. If I can remember my old login info, I might check in to see how my account is doing now.
good times. the friend that introduced me to gaia passed away several years ago. this video brought back some strong feels. cheers.
My condolences.
I'm sure they're watching over you. Good luck in life, friend.
@Dan KC Um
I miss the old gaia online
this is actually a legit modern history and economics lesson
100% agreed.
I just found my Gaia profile. Last logged on in may 2009. I looked through my friends list and man I really really miss those days…
Interesting subject, accessible, informative, entertaining, and most importantly boxxy. Subscribed. Now let’s go binge watch all your other videos yay!