Neopets and my prison pen pal.

I am an elder millennial. My brother, born six  years after me, is a young millennial. One of the key differences is technology. For example, I read an article by an elder millennial saying that "the thought of learning Snapchat makes me want to take a long, peaceful nap," and I FEEL that. My brother, on the other hand, is an avid Snapchatter. 

Elder millennials have very clear memories of the days before the internet. We got an internet connection at my house when I was 13 years old. Sure, we had the internet at school, but my formative years were spent largely without it. 

When we did get the internet, it was the year 2000. I went hog wild - or as hog wild as a dorky 13-year-old would go. I stayed up late chatting away on MSN Messenger. I spent hours waiting for terrible early YouTube videos to load (it was dial-up, after all). I joined a Simon and Garfunkel chat room and met one of my dearest friends (her name is Sue, and we have now been friends for 22 years). 

And then there was Neopets.

Neopets was (is?) a site where you could "adopt" a virtual pet - they were all made-up animals that you could name and put clothes on and "paint" them different colors. You had to play games on the site to earn points to "buy" the clothes and whatever else. I cringe when I think of how much time I spent on that stupid website. I don't remember what my Neopets' names were, but I know you could have four per account. I had a variety over the years, but I know I had some iteration of these four:

  

  

(these are all examples of how you could "paint" them.)

I could go on about the ins and outs of the Neo-world, but that's not what this post is actually about.

(If you also played Neopets in the early 2000s, check out this article for a trip down memory lane: https://www.buzzfeed.com/impossiblynikki/things-only-people-who-played-neopets-will-remembe-9lrzxccruu )

It's about meeting an accused murderer on Neopets.

OH YEAH you read that right.

Neopets had a chat board where you could post about anything you wanted. You could ask for advice on how to beat a game, offer to trade paintbrushes to customize your pets, or just say hello. I don't remember what exactly I posted - as this was 23 years ago - but someone named Shannon answered my post.

Neopets had "Neomail" where users could exchange private messages through the website. Shannon and I started chatting through Neomail and eventually graduated to MSN Messenger. She was friendly, interested in a lot of the same things I was interested in, and willing to listen to what I had to say.

Shannon was in her mid-20s and had a girlfriend named Tasha. I don't remember what either of them did for a living, but I do remember they were both super into Neopets. 

And then things got weird.

One day, Shannon told me she'd be going away for a while. My 13-year-old brain did not comprehend quite what she was saying; I thought maybe she was going on a trip. So I was all like "cool where are you going" and she was all like "federal prison."

...

I wish I could remember what exactly I said. Thankfully, this conversation was over MSN Messenger, which bought me a little time to compose something a little compassionate. I do know I asked her to tell me what happened if she was comfortable, and she said she was tangled up in a bad crowd several years back and someone was murdered. She ended up being charged as an accessory and sentenced to several years in a North Carolina prison.

"Will you write to me?" she asked.

"Of course," I said, because what do you say when your internet friend tells you she's going to prison and wants to get letters.

I wrote her a time or two, but my teenage life wasn't particularly set up for bouts of letter-writing. Online chatting and sending short messages through Neomail I could handle, but this was somehow too much. Also the reality of it - when I mailed a letter to an actually prison - really kind of shook me. I was 13, after all.

The letter writing ended unceremoniously when a letter arrived for me bearing the return address for a penitentiary along with an inmate number... and my parents got the mail that day. Mom and Dad didn't tell me I had to stop, but I felt like this was more than I could handle. So I ghosted my prison pen pal. Decades later, I do feel bad about that. 

So that's how Neopets gave me a short-lived prison pen pal.