Adobe Flash And How It Changed My Life

ALASKA, CP Army Hub Headquarters, Superhero123’s Desk – Today it’s the first day of 2021. We can finally say goodbye to 2020, a year plagued by the worst pandemic since 1918. A pandemic that ruined social interaction and inter-human relationships, and also brought a lot of fellow women and men into the brink of financial collapse. It’s therefore perhaps narcissistic, that at this point and time I am writing a post about myself. However, today it’s not only the first day of 2021. It’s also the first day that Adobe Flash isn’t being supported by all major browsers. And I just have to write a post about the technology that shaped my life like few others. If I’m being more specific, I consider Adobe Flash to be within the top 5 factors that shaped who I am today. This definitely sounds ridiculous, but in case you think Adobe Flash hasn’t majorly affected your life, if you are over 10 years old and especially if you are a club penguin army addict you need to reconsider. And I will explain why by pinpointing exactly how in my case, Adobe Flash changed my life.

Of course, Adobe Flash didn’t directly change my life. That’s because Adobe Flash isn’t some form of consumable media, but an engine to deliver that kind of content in a way that is understandable and pleasant to the human eye. However, all the information I consumed via the internet on my childhood and early teen years, the years that one discovers themselves more than any other age, came through websites running on Adobe Flash. And those websites were, in order the magnitude of effect they had on me, Club Penguin, Xat and YouTube.

Leaked footage of me “normally” playing Club Penguin, without the reason being armies, back in 2012 (shocking ikr xdddd)

Club Penguin was the first massive multiplayer online game I played, and the one that managed to have the most lasting impact on me. After I was introduced to it in primary school (through Miniclip btw, a website that then had solely Flash games), it became the main online hangout place for me with my irl friends, on which all of us developed our first “internet communication” skills. It was the first time I spoke to anyone not living in my home country, the first time I held an actual conversation in English (not my native language), and the first time I used emotes. Keep in mind, those are all activities I practice everyday on my current life all those years after and for multiple hours, both for professional and leisure purposes. However, there is way more on the effect Club Penguin had on me, and part of it stems from its link to my next Flash adventure, which is my involvement with Xat.

For those who weren’t around when it was at its prime, Xat is an online chat service, that allows you to make your own personalized chatrooms (kinda like basic discord servers). It then run entirely in Flash, and it was widely used by the Club Penguin community because of its very kid-friendly interface (way catchier than classic IRC chatrooms). I was introduced to the website by one of the irl friends I played Club Penguin with, because back then Xat was full of “Club Penguin tracking chats”. Those were chatrooms determined to finding Club Penguin Mascots in real-time and reporting their locations to the chat’s users, in order to go and find them, and also served as prime Club Penguin discussion hangouts. As a Club Penguin addict back then, I was instantly hooked. With the help of a Xat chatroom called “Riffy888” I found almost every mascot, and also massively improved my chatting skills. Heck, I even acquired some basic economics knowledge from Xat’s trading system. It also opened the door for me for two Club Penguin subcultures that I ended up investing countless hours on, each of which deserves its own paragraph.

How Riffy888 looked like at its prime (sorry for bad image quality :(( this is old af)

The first subculture is the CPPS community. Through friends I made on Xat, as well as advertising, I first got in touch with Club Penguin Private Servers and was quickly amazed by the less restrictive gameplay they offered, by offering the membership features for free, and with more relaxed chat filters. What impressed me even more though was that those servers were able to implement completely new features, and therefore allowed you do things than you could only dream of in the original game. Wall hacks, unlimited coins, legacy rare items, and way more contributed towards an experience extremely captivating for a Club Penguin fan like myself. By getting in contact with the developers of many servers, I realized that building games isn’t at all something only for huge corporations or adults with years of studying under their belt. It was when I realized that everyone can creative interactive experiences, and share them via the internet. Intrigued by this prospect, I decided to pickup programming and start my own path in game development. This was a decision that changed my life forever, since it directly influenced many of the life decisions I took from that point onwards, leading to me currently studying Computer Engineering :D. Also through my CPPS endeavours I acquired System Administration (practically it taught me how to use Ubuntu and SSH/FTP for those more tech savy) and Database Administration experience, and those are skills I also use daily for real life projects of mine.

Footage from my first CPPS, SuperCP.eu 😀

The second Club Penguin subculture Xat opened access for me is our community, the Club Penguin Army community. I was recruited to it through the Riffy888 chat, after I received a DM about joining the Hot Sauce Army. Although I never achieved anything in that army, its the beginning of a catalyst that led to me leading Smart Penguins, the army that I wrote history with in the AUSIA division. Through Club Penguin Armies I acquired a variety of skills that I still use daily for my day to day life and works. Examples are WordPress administration, Human Resource management, organization skills, improved strategic thinking and further increased my English skills significantly. CPA also taught me about how people think and act in stressful situations, and perhaps most importantly to be VERY careful about trusting people online. Through armies I also found my closest internet friends (and maybe more), many of whom I speak to daily even today.

An emotional moment between me, and my online bff Astro (now known as Guncotton)

I can’t finish this post without writing a paragraph about YouTube though. YouTube, a then Flash driven platform, served as a supplementary to all the activities I previously mentioned. Watching mascot meet-ups furthered my hype for meeting them, watching historical army conflicts of the past furthered my determination to lead an army to similar heights, and watching CPPS gameplays made me want to create a server like those. I have also watched an unreal amount of tutorials on the platform, including those that served as my first steps into computer programming. There are also many YouTubers that through their videos helped me discover areas that till then I didn’t have much of an interest in, like science, history and art.

So overall, Adobe Flash has indirectly: Greatly affect the major I took and by extension my professional career by also giving me technical expertise in many areas years ahead of everyone else, massively improve my understanding of human behaviour, greatly increase my English level, teach me basic economics, given me lessons on human resource management, help me acquire organization skills, and of course serve as my main source of entertainment for about 8 years. I believe that now the absurd statement I made, about Flash being one of the top 5 factors that have influenced who I am today, makes more sense. Had Adobe Flash never been released been released in a different timeframe, I would be a different person now.

Farewell Adobe Flash, and thank you for making me who I am. For us who remain though, I wish you all an amazing 2021 with no pandemics, only travels, fun and love.

What do YOU think? Has Adobe Flash impact your life greatly? Let us know in the comments below!

Superhero123

CP Army Hub Advisor (yes i’m an advisor now xdddd)

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