Club Penguin

**Club Penguin**, commonly abbreviated as CP, was a children's massively multiplayer online game (MMO) developed by New Horizon Interactive. Using cartoon penguin avatars, players could chat, play mini games and participate in other activities with one another in a snow-covered virtual world. Though a large amount of the game could be played for free, some of features we're not available unless a membership was purchased. On March 29th, 2017, Club Penguin was shut down by its parent company, Disney.

## History

#### Experimental Versions

In 2000, RocketSnail Games released the game *Experimental Penguins*, in which players could interact with each other using penguin avatars. The following year, the game was taken offline. In 2002, *Penguin Chat* was released by RocketSnail Games as the successor to *Experimental Penguins*, which was subsequently followed by *Penguin Chat 2* (2003) and *Penguin Chat 3* (2005).

#### Club Penguin

On October 24th, 2005, *Club Penguin* was released as a web browser game on the Flash site Miniclip to the general public after a short beta-testing period. In August 2007, Disney bought *Club Penguin* for $350 million and an additional $350 million in potential bonuses.

#### Shutdown

On January 30th, 2017, Club Penguin announced that they would be discontinuing Club Penguin game on desktop and mobile devices on March 29th, 2017 and launching the game *Club Penguin Island* for mobile as a replacement. That day, a thread about the news was posted to Reddit's /r/bannedfromclubpenguin where it gained over 15,500 upvotes. The Daily Dot also covered the news, giving a rundown of Club Penguin's long history and its relation to memes. On March 28th, Redditor Vajazle uploaded a screenshot of his 10-year-old account, and thanked the game's developers on the /r/gaming subreddit (shown below, left). That day, artist Shadman tweeted an illustration of a blue-colored penguin committing suicide with a handgun along with the hashtag "#clubpenguin".

On March 29th, 2017, fans prepared for the game's shutdown that evening at midnight. That day, the /r/bannedfromclubpenguin subreddit went private, displaying the noticed "You've all been banned from /r/bannedfromclubpenguin".

#### Club Penguin Rewritten

In February 2017, a closed beta for the remake *Club Penguin Rewritten* was launched. By October that year, the game accumulated upwards of one million registered accounts. On October 10th, a complaint was filed against the game by Disney Interactive. On February 26th, 2018, *Club Penguin Rewritten* published an announcement that the game would be discontinued the following month. That day, YouTuber Drivr2joe uploaded a video about the impending shutdown.

On March 4th, 2018, the game was discontinued and the official website was updated with a "Closing Doors" message placed on the front page.

On April 26th, 2018, *Club Penguin Rewritten* was relaunched. The version reached over 4 million registered users on April 20th, 2019.

#### Club Penguin Online

On January 3rd, 2018, *Club Penguin Online*, a *Club Penguin* private server similar to *Club Penguin Rewritten*, was launched. On June 13th, 2019, the version reached over 3 million registered users.

On August 28th, 2019, YouTuber LazarBeam posted a let's play video of the game titled "Club Penguin is Back".

In the following hours, Redditor ManiMassala mada a PSA post stating that "club penguin servers are back online" in /r/teenagers subreddit which gained over 24,100 upvotes in eight hours.

In the following hours, multiple posts and memes about *Club Penguin Online* and *Club Penguin Rewritten* were made by users on Reddit.

## Features

*Club Penguin* players can interact with each other in a variety of virtual locations navigated with their penguin avatars. The game was designed for children of ages 6 to 14, but players of any age can join the game. Developers employed a number of child safety features to confront this, including an "Ultimate Safe Chat" mode in which users can only select comments from a menu of pre-chosen terms.

## Related Memes

#### Tip The Iceberg

**Tip the Iceberg** is a Club Penguin game in which players attempt to tip the secret Iceberg location by dancing while wearing a hard hat, miners helmet, construction hat or green hard hat item to make the penguin avatar use a large drill.

On January 31st, 2017, YouTuber punpun uploaded a video to YouTube of the penguins finally tipping the iceberg, revealing a secret dancefloor.

#### Club Penguin Bans

Since the game was designed for children, rules prohibit any inappropriate, violent or suggestive themes. If a player breaks the rules, a moderator will ban their account. On February 25th, 2013, the /r/bannedfromclubpenguin subreddit was launched, featuring screenshots of users being banned from the online game.

#### Purple Republic

The Purple Republic is a group originating on 4chan’s /v/ board dedicated to raiding *Club Penguin* servers with purple penguins, similar to the Anonymous *Pool’s Closed* phenomenon associated with Habbo Hotel.