if you had to write a thesis paper about neopets...

[jally_muse]

Anybody have any working cultural (or otherwise) theories about neopets? It is such an oddly complicated society and I am always curious as to what academia would have to say about it. I have a lot of topic ideas :)

 

 

 

 

[carlyle]

I once told my history teacher that Neopets had a socialist economy. Everyone had equal opportunity, everyone worked for the "government", and prices were dictated by the community. He had a good laugh, but I said immediately afterwards that I played Neopets during my childhood to avoid derision... :sad01_anim:

 

However, I imagine that Neopets shares much in common with many Internet communities. Thus, I'm sure that there are papers that do address Neopets in the topic of online human interaction. Could you share more about what makes Neopets unique, though? That I would be very interested to hear about.

[jally_muse]

I would be really interested in a paper on trans* and gender issues in neopets. Having pets that switch back and forth between female and male as well as the gendered paintbrushes. Seems like an interesting topic to me.

[brynchilla]

If I were to take it as a thesis topic, I would do something more related to how Neopets can be an educational place. I've learned a lot from playing Neopets, and I'm sure other have as well.

 

I'm not sure about the gender thing. Personally, I think Neoepts (the society, not the site) is rather lax about it. You can have female pets that are kings, and male pets that are queens. And the only difference is eyelashes. (Which is a little weird. I've seen guys with some AMAZING eyelashes.)

 

It's annoying when people laugh at the different learning possibilities Neopets has to offer. Just because it's family friendly, that doesn't mean you can't learn things from it.

[passiflora]

I'm sure there are many things you could write a paper on, but I think the most obvious answer would be the economy, and maybe the effect of Habitarium on inflation in particular. However, following the inflation/deflation of any item over a period of time would be interesting.

 

There could also be neopets historians (and I guess some people already have petpages dedicated to this kind of things) - it's a pretty old site. The fact that the site is so old can also create an interesting dynamic between old and new players.

 

 

As far as culture goes, I'm not sure if I have any "theories" but I'd say that there are probably numerous cultures on the site itself, i.e. each land/world has it's own culture, and there are also unique cultures surrounding items or activities like meepits, avatar collecting, etc. I'm sure there are some parallels that can be drawn to our own society.

[1_holly]

I think it would be interesting to read about what makes people keep coming back, especially those who have account 10+ years old. For a site which initially looks like it is aimed at children there are a lot of teenagers and adults who also play. For example, which features (eg. stock market and food club) make it more 'attractive' to older people and why?

 

Also maybe what changes, if any, should or need to made to neopets in the future to keep people playing?

[x_emrys_x]

I agree that the economy in neo would be an interesting topic. you can make as much money as you want, as long as you are willing to take the time for it. there are also many opportunities for free food - movie theater, omelette, jelly, soup kitchen, etc. Although neo is a free site, there are ways to gain the non-free (high class) items, such as the scarab game, so no one is completely left out. You can donate all your items to charity (money tree) spend it all on training, or just watch the neopoints build up in the bank.

[lovedwallflower]

I would love to read more about how the Neopian economy works and what the limitations are to its growth and/or general development.

 

Another interesting one would be on the way that Neopets has changed with the times as a comment on the audience that it is trying to cater for.