No one ever thought it would come to this, but on January 30th, 2017 the cat, or more accurately the puffle, was out of the bag. Disney announced that Club Penguin, the digital hangout for tweens masquerading as artic fowl, was shutting down. It was replaced by Club Penguin Island on March 29th, which is only available on mobile devices. Needless to say, this loss has touched the lives of millions of people. When the closure of Club Penguin was announced, I was speechless, but perhaps not as speechless as the CP members, who paid $7.95 a month in order to purchase digital clothing and adopting more than two imaginary balls of fluff.
Perhaps one of the most appealing features for tweens was the ability to talk to other tweens over the internet. This feature was simultaneously the worst fear for any parent that realized a creep could walk the streets of Club Penguin and hang out with children. Like other virtual platforms designed for kids, there are certain words or phrases that won't send after you type them. I'll let you fill in the blanks yourselves. The most paranoid of parents placed their children into Ultimate Safe Chat mode (yes, that's the official name) and effectively turned their child into waddling pariah, doomed to choose predetermined phrases from a chat menu and to be ignored even by the lowest stratums of middle school royalty. CP was also equipped with a report button, allowing players to report any behavior that broke the sacred code of penguin conduct i.e. swearing, revealing personal information. I was a lowly non-member, and I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to report any penguin decked out in exclusive, member-only clothing. The only thing that held back my index finger was the fear of being banned for falsely reporting a kid who successfully convinced their parents that owning a black puffle was worth eight bucks a month. Looking back, I have respect for any child cunning enough to pull off that seemingly impossible negotiation.
When I logged back into CP to say my final good byes, I entered a world that was familiar but different. The Plaza, which had originally only been home to the Pet Shop, the Stage and the Pizza Parlor, now had a Puffle Hotel and a Mall. Jaded by the renovations, I waddled around the land I used to know so intimately, and even though I knew where I was going, I had no idea where I was. In hopes of finding my bearings, I went to the tour guide booth. Players that had an account for more than forty-five days could take a quiz comprised of eight questions. Answer at least seven correctly, and you get a stylish hat with a question mark on it. When wearing it, you could guide other penguins around the virtual island, taking all the fun out of exploring the icy wonderland. I was guided by a neon green penguin, but I was much more fascinated by the other penguins around me, rather than the facts spouting from the beak of my guide. Despite the fact that the penguin avatars all looked like oddly colored pears with feet, that didn't stop the melodrama of budding tween romances. I saw penguins ask out other penguins using romantic phrases such as "u got bf?" or "ur igloo or mine?" As we made our way to Town, we found ourselves in the midst of a political protest. I kid you not. About twenty penguins were chanting "He will not divide us." over and over again. In retrospect, I should have screenshotted the spectacle and tweeted it to Trump, but the likelihood of him responding was too high.
A few days later, CP made headlines once again. One of the most infamous locations of CP was the iceberg. There had been legends circulating for years that, under perfect conditions, it could be tipped over. A few penguins claimed to have tipped the iceberg before, but until now, it had been a myth. During the final party hosted on CP, if enough penguins were present and fulfilled a certain set of criteria, the iceberg would flip, revealing a dancefloor. To an outsider, this may seem miniscule, unimportant, but to any CP player, tipping the iceberg was a dream no one thought would ever be realized. Not in our time at least. A plaque is revealed when the iceberg is tipped, and on it is a quote that will probably be my first tattoo. "Together, we can build an island, create a community, change the world... and even tip an iceberg. Waddle on."
