Neopets.com was the greatest fantasy world of all time

Followed closely by the Church of Scientology.

Step aside Lord of the Rings, Broken Earth, Mistborn, and Dungeons & Dragons. The 1999-2005 era of Neopets was the greatest fantasy world of all time.

Welcome to the The Worldbuilding Hall of Fame, the sporadic series where we celebrate and discuss pop culture phenomenons made famous by their exceptional worldbuilding. Think Y2K computer games, celebrity personas, consumer brands (shoutout to my pride and joy, Aura Bora), retail stores, cursed airports, and cults.

Worldbuilding is not limited to the sci-fi and fantasy genre. It’s all around us. It could be anywhere. It's like trying to catch smoke... like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands.

Worldbuilding:
The process of creating a detailed and immersive fictional universe. This includes things like geography, creatures, culture, lore, religion, languages, and magic systems.

Welcome to Neopia

In 1999, I sat at our family computer station becoming permanently nearsighted via the Kid Pix Studio Deluxe balloon pen tool. The modem fan was burning the baby hairs off my calves. The corners of my lips were split and bleeding from an Otter Pop. The Corrs was playing. I was just 5 years old and already wondering to myself, could life get any better?

Little did I know, Adam Powell and Donna Williams were about to launch Neopets.com, the greatest virtual pet site ever created. I would spend the next 25 years and 10,000+ hours learning how to read, gamble, stock trade, chase Meercas, and keep a family of five from falling on hard times.

To this day, I firmly believe Neopets was the greatest fantasy world every created. Also, to this day I’m still an active player thanks to a stranger who sent me my login info on Twitter following a massive Neopets data breach in 2022. My favorite data breach to date 💕

So, what makes Neopets so great?

Here’s the thing, I don’t have all day. Though, I know this makes it seems like I do. So instead of writing a thesis on every beautiful corner of Neopia, I’m going to summarize things in a controversial listicle.