i'm glad moshi monsters is gone, i think

Sometime in 2009, I saw an ad on TV (most likely Nickelodeon) about Moshi Monsters, or what I'd like to call my earliest exposure to social media. If you don't know what Moshi Monsters is, it's this social website where you get to take care of your very own, well, Moshi Monster.

This site is 10% virtual pet and 90% social media. The only virtual pet part is that you have to feed it. It's mostly social media because you can interact with other players via the bulletin board in your house. You also have a friend tree where you can see your friends and friend requests. Of course, you can accept and decline it. I don't know if the friends I made there are my relatives or not because every time I get a friend request, my mom says it's cousin X or my relative Y. Plus, I recall that my mom says I'm not doing that much in there except reading the news. Is this where my news addiction started?

I forgot all about the site as 2010 approached, and when the pandemic hit, I planned to return there, but the site shut down in 2019, a year prior to the start of the chaos. Was I devastated that it shut down? Somehow, no. I moved on pretty quickly, but every time I think about it, I'm glad that I didn't become obsessed with it.

Recently, it hit me. I'm glad that it shut down because I wasn't sure on how to delete your account there. I was ready to say goodbye anyway. Nowadays, I don't think I'm a fan of these types of websites anymore. Maybe it's because of the virtual pet aspect of it, but it's mostly because these types of websites are what a lot of people who are into crypto call metaverses. Kinda ruins my point of view as to which sites are crypto-run or not, but I guess they aren't wrong: all websites which functions like that are metaverses.

I just let the site serve as a reminder that I have interacted with strangers online before, and I hated it because I wasn't ready. Advice to the young: you're only allowed on the internet when you're a teen, but with an adult until you yourself are an adult. And most importantly, don't get addicted.