Lil' Update

Heyyy Jammers, I hope you're doing as well as possible! I'm here with a quick update about the rest of this month.

So... I think I forgot that February only has 28 days. I have a couple of essays to write within that time, so I don't think I'll be able to fulfill my goal of posting three more times before the month is up ^^;

Here are some topics I plan to write about next (in no particular order):

• The item economy - pros, cons, and how its current problems could be solved

• Reasons behind the lack of educational/nature-based content on AJ

• Identifying animals - you'll see, it's just a silly idea I have that I hope you'll like :)

• A cool AJ art rabbit hole I found

...and there will be more post topics to come! I have a folder on my computer full of post ideas that I continuously add to.

If I finish my things early, then I'll definitely try and squeeze in one more post before next month! 

But if not, as might be the case, I'll be seeing y'all in March T^T

~DoomyPanda

Snapshot of AJ from 9 Years Ago

Hey Jammers! Today I woke up, saw the date, and realized that nine years ago today, I logged into Animal Jam for the first time!

Yup. I'm an ancient Jammer :') 

To celebrate, here's an old screenshot I dug up out of the abyss:

This was from a couple of months after I joined. At the time, AJHQ was doing something for the first time: they made an animal unavailable. 

From April 12th to August 30th 2012, you could not become a monkey. Instead, on the screen where you would create a new animal, there was big red ENDANGERED banner over the monkey icon. 

This was to raise awareness about how humans abusing the natural world make endangered species vanish every single day. 

Much like the efforts to raise money for real-life conservation/species rescue efforts, there was a big push to donate gems at the Conservation Museum to save the monkeys. Over the course of four months, Jammers donated over 1 Million gems to the Conservation Museum, and thus monkeys returned in August!

Because wildlife conservation is honestly even more urgent today than it was nine years ago, I really wish AJHQ would do something like this again. Maybe the gems donated could get translated into actual money donated by AJHQ to real-life conservation efforts for that animal! 

Moving on, another thing about this screenshot is that the location where I took it looks different now. As you can see now, the Zios passageway to the Adventure Base Camp was originally a simple boarded up doorway. 

And one more thing...

The Glove my panda was wearing used to be ridiculously rare. Seriously– you might not think much of them now, but Gloves were the items that everybody wanted during 2011 and 2012. 

When Jammers would try to break the ice in Mt Shiveer or the bridge in Coral Canyons, there would always be someone yelling "IF IT BREAKS YOU GET A GLOVE" to encourage people. Of course, outside of urban legend, that never actually happened... or did it? X)

There were a few unique gloves given as monthly member's gifts (yes– that was a thing in 2012!) that were particularly high-demand: the Lava Glove, the Mummy Glove, the Dragon Glove, and the Legendary Glove. 

Nowadays, you can easily buy them or trade for them, but I remember my friend and I used to literally pray to the Mira statue to somehow give us a Lava Glove xD

But don't get me wrong, the situation with Gloves was nowhere near what we have with Spikes today. Gloves were super rare, yeah, but the trading system was less messed up so it was much easier to get the items you wanted. You didn't need to spend months amassing 25+ "lesser" Gloves to work your way up.

For now, that's all I'll say about that. The topic of our messed up Spike economy will be a post for another day...

I hope you enjoyed this mini history lesson! Before the end of the month, I'll try to stick to my goal and make at least three more posts :)

See you in Jamaa!

Please Don't Buy Items for Actual Money + Headdress PSA

Hey Jammers! With my goal of steadily increasing the amount of posts per month on Animal Jam Stream, I think I'm gonna focus on shorter content-focused posts with less long rants. 

I'm assuming y'all will be fine with that. Besides, most of the posts on Animal Jam Stream are already like that. I guess these past couple years have just been more rant-heavy as I've become more and more emo about AJ. 

Anyways, let's begin today's topic, shall we?

Today's topic is...

...all about why you shouldn't freaking do this!

I wish it was obvious to everyone, but according to the massive amount of these listings on Google, apparently not. 

Before we get into why exactly you shouldn't buy or sell virtual items for real money, I want you to take a closer look at that last image:

The original listing for that collar was ten thousand dollars.

It's supposed to make the reduction to $500 look reasonable, which it absolutely isn't. That was most definitely intentional on part of the seller. I'm not 100% sure what the 'DO NOT BUY' means, but it might be a kind of disclaimer so that if you buy the item, the seller isn't required to actually give it to you. I could be wrong, but from my research, that's be a possibility.

And hey look, here's another person selling the same item for $5 each:

But before you get excited, that doesn't mean you should rush over and try your luck at getting a spike from a seller who has no actual obligation to actually give you the item. 

I think of this kind of thing as advanced scamming. Not only can the person easily avoid gifting/trading you the item you pay for, but actual money is involved, as well as potential account information and maybe even credit card numbers. 

Not only that– buying or selling AJ items for real money goes directly against the terms of Animal Jam, so it can definitely get you banned. 

Screenshot from Animal Jam's Terms of Service.

But aside from that... I just hope you see how it's a bad idea to pay any amount of money for a pixelated item with no actual worth. I'm not saying items can't have sentimental value, of course– just don't break any laws or rules to get them. 

– – –

I don't exactly remember how I stumbled upon listings for Headdresses, but seeing them honestly made me kinda sad.

A while back, Wildworks had informally announced that they would never bring back Headdresses to stores. This was for a very good reason: having them as in-game items is deeply disrespectful to the Indigenous cultures for whom they hold great importance. It treats those cultures and the violent suppression they've faced like a joke. 

However, it feels like the intention to be respectful was only surface level, because announcing that an item is never to come back to stores without outright deleting it only increases its demand. I think it's safe to say that Headdresses are now one of the most high-demand items because AJHQ wasn't brave enough to actually delete them. Now Headdresses have an even greater presence in the game.

I'm not saying that the players who trade for and collect Headdresses are bad people. Most people aren't taught the history and just want more aesthetically pleasing, high-demand items to create looks with. 

It's still a good idea to do what you can to educate yourself and not perpetuate the demand for Headdresses, but ultimately, the responsibility falls on AJHQ to delete them once and for all if they're actually serious about respecting Indigenous cultures.

– – –

Welp... there goes my goal of writing a short, condensed post for today (:

I hope you enjoyed reading anyway. Let me know your thoughts in the comments if you feel like sharing 'em! As always, all points of view are welcome to be shared as long as everyone is kind to each other. 

Seeya~

Happy February~

 Hey Jammers! I hope ya'll are well. I have online school in a few minutes, but let's see if I can pull off a quick post before then...

So, I seem to have missed a significant blog milestone xD

I swear– a few days ago as I noticed the view count beginning to go up from 666400, I promised myself I would keep checking back and take a screenshot of the blessed moment when it hits 666666... but unfortunately, fate had other plans. It completely slipped my mind and I spent the day doing normal student things instead of obsessively refreshing my page. Oh well.

But regardless... thank you all so much, for reading what I write. While I'm not sure how many pageviews are real people, bots, or just one person refreshing their page over and over again to boost morale, I so appreciate each and every one of you who checks back, or stumbles upon my small virtual garden in the wider jungle of the internet C:

I don't have much else to say right now, as my class is starting pretty soon, but you'll be seeing more posts from me soon in the coming weeks! 

I didn't come up with this on New Years, but my New Years Resolution for Animal Jam Stream is for each month to have at least one more post than the last. So this month, you can expect a minimum of 5 posts! Ideally, not including this one. I want to find a lot more content for ya :D

See you in Jamaa, and I hope you have as great a day as you can!