A Deep Dive Into Animal Jam

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I used to “date” girls by dressing up as a boy Arctic wolf and saying “I share this account with my sister”

I was actually a very well known “trader” on Animal Jam for a couple years or so. I had accumulated every single rare nonmember/member item in the game at one point, and so a lot of people would come to me in hopes I could get them their “dream item”. I also had a big “clan” full of friends and we would all wear matching fox hats every time we were together. I still think of it fondly as a really fun internet time, but it’s also funny because one day my AJ girlfriend of 6 years (only person that knew my pswrd!) decided to get on and take everything I ever had LOL. she never even confessed to it in the end! bloody teenagers.

i've never played animal jam in my life but the pillow room had me in hysterics. the fact that it doubled at a love den and adoption centre is absolutely unhinged. imagine you're trying to find a new mom and you see two wolves across the room doing the jump emote on each other.

i’m no longer ashamed to admit that at the age of 9, for probably 3 months straight i would log onto my bestfriends animal jam account and change the colour/facial features of all her animals because i was severely jealous her mom would buy her the premium gift cards so she had artic wolfs and shit.. we’re still bestfriends to this day, we actually live together and i just told her the truth about this a month ago💀 we had a good laugh

back in my days “NFT” meant not for trade and “slamming” meant you tricked someone out of their parents money!

danggg u got the rare spikes on irl haha :D

Yesterday I came to the realization that probably one of the biggest reasons I am going to college for wildlife and conservation, is playing Animal Jam so much as a child. I would read every animal factoid that popped up or that I could click on. I would go into deep dives off of certain facts and look things up, etc etc. I’m addicted to the subject of environmental science because of this game.

Stumbled across this after making a new account and getting the membership I wasn't allowed to have as a child. I grew up with verbally abusive parents. It was screaming whenever I was home from school. Animal Jam was my safe place and I'll play it as long as it exists. It really seemed to soothe my inner child to finally have the coveted arctic wolf.

The stakes in animal jam felt so high as a kid. “If I don’t win this game, I won’t own that clothing item, and I will die because of it.”

as someone who’s played since the beta days this feels like a veteran volunteering to oversee a honorary event

I used to play the claw machine for like hours, then put all the plushies down in my den, advertise a plushy shop at my den in the busy areas, and then trade the plushies for things that were actually valuable, and then if I didn't like the way the valuable thing looked I'd just sell it. Made hella gems.

"Though lets be honest, none of us really payed attention to it as kids" SPEAK FOR URSELF!!! I spent hours finding all the animals and reading all the little biographies and absorbing all the animal info the game had. Still a shock I wasn't diagnosed as a kid. I think loving being able to be a funny little animal is what really made me not fall prey to the membership shit, funnily enough. The bit about WildWorks still doing well for themselves and Feral being successful really didn't age well LOL. I hadn't heard of the rock bridge one before but I remember participating in the ice jumping, fire dances, and drum jumping in the bunny parties.

"homestuck?" "for godness sake no" THIS SENT ME LMAO

I remember crying SO HARD when I was scammed on animal jam when I was like 11. I legit stayed up all night crying and sobbing 💀 after that day I quit and ironically enough started my warrior cats phase a week later

Clicked this over breakfast and ended up sitting through the whole thing. Brings back some great memories. Thanks for putting this all together :)

I remember trading with someone and then getting scammed. They sent me buddy request after and gave me back my scammed items. Turns out they had felt bad and apologized, they were actually really nice

I'll recite a little poem that may bring back some memory for all of us: "Lions roar, eagles soar, non-members deserve more!" Edit: hOLY- AT 38:27 YOU CAN SEE MY STORY- I WAS THE ONE WHO MADE "A- The Creepy Wolf". WHO KNEW 3RD GRADE ME DRAFTING UP A STUPID CLICHE 'CREEPYPASTA' ON A SCHOOL COMPUTER AND REWRITING IT AT HOME WOULD MAKE IT THIS FAR??

Hey, I'm a staff member of the Animal Jam Archives. I just wanted to say that, as someone who's been in this community since 2012, you did an amazing job with this video. It made me nostalgic and happy, but also a sad that the good old days are gone. This game means a lot to me and I'm glad we finally got a decent (and even better than decent!) Animal Jam retrospective.

I am by no means an AJ expert, I was more of a Toontown girl as a kid. However the Employee Corral is a relatively common thing in development, Whilst it may seem to serve no purpose, it could act as a way to permanently enshrine those who have helped make the game possible. The best example I can give is in the game Hollow Knight. There's a secret area in the game called the Shrine of Believers, which has quotes from all of the 200+ kickstarter backers. It could very well be the same principle here