Neopets

Through our class discussions about online communities and their social and technological influences on society and human relationships, I have reflected on my own experiences with online communities. While stereotypically I have never immersed myself in an online gaming community, I have spent a great deal of my childhood playing Neopets, an online role-playing community for kids or the eternal child at heart. As I looked back on the years spent playing games to earn "neopoints", joining "guilds" to make new friends, and buying "items" to obtain "status", I realized that I made few virtual friends during those years. While our discussions and readings have emphasized the important role online communities have in fostering lifelong and valuable relationships and friendships with people we otherwise may have no idea existed, I found that my experience with Neopets gave me something more valuable in return: Photoshop. 

I first came across the existence of Photoshop in my attempts to start a guild. Guilds were the center of social life on Neopets and the only way of attracting new members and keeping old ones was through endless activities and most importantly, with beautiful, constantly changing layouts. Like any other "newbie", I had no idea what Photoshop was and was in complete awe of the layouts my more experienced peers were producing. After asking around, I found out, to my dismay, that these layouts were not the works of Microsoft Paint, but rather a software that costed around $500 at the time. Being naive and ignorant of internet culture, download trials, and illegal resources I could have utilized, I voiced my interest in learning Photoshop to my dad, who, after much begging, finally bought me a copy of Photoshop 7.0. By personality, I was too impatient to read through user manuels or borrow how-to books from the library. Instead, I decided through trial and error, I would eventually master this program. 

Unfortunately, as my skills in design improved with each month, I discovered that being able to make the layouts was only one half of the picture. I still had to learn how to code them. Thus began my year-long toil with HTML and CSS. I despised coding, mainly due to my lack of patience to read through tutorials and handbooks. My trial and error system of learning led to a weak, but passable foundation in coding. 

Even today, I still prefer designing over coding. But I'm aware of how valuable it would be for a web designer to be able to code their own designs. Looking back, I believe I have to thank Neopets, not for the virtual friendships I made or the time I perhaps wasted on the computer, but for exposing and leading me to my career path. If it weren't for Neopets, I never would have developed a desire or need to learn Photoshop. If it weren't for Neopets, I wouldn't have forced myself to learn how to write basic code. If it weren't for Neopets, I wouldn't have gone on to represent my high school's Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) chapter in the Electronic Career Portfolio competition. If it weren't for Neopets, I wouldn't have chosen to take the Computer Imaging class offered at Santa Clara under the Young Scholars Program. If it weren't for Neopets, I wouldn't have been directed by my instructor to apply for the Web Design program at this school. It it weren't for Neopets, I would probably be at a different school, and under a different major. 

It's funny how life works out.