Anyone know hellopet?

Ever had that one thing you remember in your childhood that you sometimes feel like you and only you are nostalgic for or remember about, I feel like everyone has that one thing, and while this was more of my preteenhood was hellopet.

What is hellopet? Why is it one of those pet care apps I think? Idk despite me using the app alot I never really used the pet features (though I do know that if you want pets can appear on your phone screen even if you close the app), the main reason why I used this app was because of the apps “pet chat”, basically some sort of social media feature within the app, and as a young kid who had little to no social media access because my parents wouldn’t allow me (probably for the better tbh) pet chat was like a magnum opus to me.

Although I never posted anything in it, idk I think I was just paranoid my parents would find out and get in big trouble, even then I remember every day just like going through the pet chat, mainly it’s gallery section, just scrolling through the memes, art, gacha, and other stuff that people were posting. At least through the years of 2019-2020, I think somewhere around late 2020 I’ve deleted the app for some reason that I don’t remember, though thats not to say it wasn’t a memorable year because man there are so many people and things I remember from that period I used it including:

A period where people thought that the app was going to close the pet chat so people started making like petitions and protests against it

This one roleplay account that roleplayed as a lightfury (y’know, the dragon type from how to train your dragon) baby named Luna

This one account I remember having a pretty interesting artstyle and posted alot about their ocs (I believe one of their oc’s was named squirrel)

This one gacha cringe account that would post and commentate over questionable gacha content that was posted on hello pet (along with other sites but mainly as hello pet) while also roleplaying as the character Bruno Bucciarati from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (you be surprised to know how prevalent roleplay accounts were, at least during my time on there)

This one account who posted traced Star Versus The Forces Of Evil art of their oc and when people were calling them out for tracing they kept denying it

A person who made their irl version of themself in gacha (which had wings and wolf ears) and someone thought that they actually had wings and wolf ears in real life only for the person to reply that it’s just cosplay

This one gacha fnaf account that was my first introduction to the concept of age regression (that wasn’t through in a sexual/fetish lens), I mean could there have been other and better ways to learn about it, idk I know it’s not the worse way (that crown goes to deviantart)

Various Steven Universe accounts that I used to keep up on religiously since I had a big Steven Universe hyperfixation around this time

So now I’m done looking through memory lane now comes the big question, what is hello pet, specifically the pet chat like nowadays? Well for this I decided to redownload the app and not only surprisingly the pet chat is still here after all of these years but I noticed the types of people and posts that are on there.

For one the types of fandoms and communities on there have seem to change, no longer is it how to train your dragon, pixel pets, steven universe, hazbin hotel, five nights at freddies, and idk some animes I’m not familiar with. Now it’s genshin impact, the amazing digital circus, vocaloid, cookie run, and idk whatever roblox game is popular idk I haven’t really kept up and don’t care about newer roblox games outside of FUNHOUSE by Vibingleaf I mostly just play yume nikki fangames and games I’m nostalgic for. Obviously what mostly gets posted there is going to change over time since what media is popular ends up changing over time, though if there’s some things that managed to stay the same, the furry, oc, and gacha communities still seem to thrive well.

I also feel like the moderation has gotten worse in a way? Obviously that’s not to say things haven’t slipped through the cracks during my time (I’m pretty sure I remember someone posting artwork that they 100% didn’t make of some anime boy in a bunny suit in a suggestive pose). Before I want to get into what I saw and so people don’t think I’m some uptight puritan I should probably give some context, I describe HelloPet as being a very preeteen-early teen centric app, which makes sense, and I should also mention that one of the reasons HelloPet warned about shutting down the Pet Chat was because of being being inappropriate, and while I can’t find the rules for the Pet Chat, I would imagine it’s the same as alot of rules for kid centric sites and apps, so with that heres a bunch of “interesting” things I found:

Multiple people venting about some pretty heavy things (not saying you can’t vent at all online we all be with bad issues and I vent about my struggles through ways, but for a kid-based website I feel some of the topics I’ve seen users vent about are a bit much, especially since no content warnings are given), I’ve also seen people be too comfortable about things and just talk about like gross stuff without warning (not like anything nsfw, but a warning would be nice)

Fetish art, mainly like vore and inflation, though half of it was from probably likes kids posting it to be like “EW WTF IS THIS” since I’ve often seen this happen even on places like scratch. I don’t know if this needs to be said but I don’t care if it’s not explicit, if art is made for the specific purpose of fulfilling a fetish please either tag/warn it as mature and/or post it mature spaces, even if you’re making fun of it because you’re still exposing people to said content (btw no shade to anyone who has a kink or fetish, as long as it doesn’t involve seriously harming yourself or others in reality or involves children and animals I’m not going to shame you, you do you. I’m just kind of pissed at the amount of times people don’t tag said content as mature as someone who was exposed to so much fetish content during my time on the internet without my consent or knowing it was).

On a similar note, for some reason scrolling I noticed there was an add for this “gacha heat” game involving gacha characters from miraculous ladybug in a suggestive situation, and I kind of wonder if the app approved of this or not

Straight up usage of slurs, thankfully the only times I seen them being used was in the context of reclamation

Okay this, while kind of strange doesn’t really fit here but I found this one account that like hated therians while also thirsting over fucking bill cliton, I’m not joking and even made like some hottest US presidents tierlist. Idk just feels questionable how this account was still up.

Obviously thats not to say that I’ve seen my fair share of questionable content during my time, but I thought at least there would be some moderation.

I also noticed how… empty it feels compared to how it used to be, Idk it could be just me misremembering things but I remember the app pet chat being alot more active then it is now, though it’s kind of hard to tell since the app doesn’t give the date other than what time it was posted (in fact compared to alot of like, social media, pet chat is VERY barebones, no search, no way to follow, and overall just pretty basic)

With all of that said though, it feels weird looking back onto this thing that felt so prominent to me for a short period of time, and seeing how much it’s evolved since those years, idk if feels very weird, looking back. Am I going to start using pet chat again? Probably no, I’m a adult, and while I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some other adults on there since they userbase is like primarily 12 year olds I feel weird being there, plus what 12 year old is going to listen to my 5 hour long yap session about something like cancelled video games or my Everhood trivia, plus with the type of art and things I write about I prefer to have an audience 16 and over, and even with the moderation I still don’t feel comfortable posting on there.