For all us oldies..

[ElementalInsanity]

Yeah, I definitely feel like I'm not exactly connected to the CS community, although for me part of that is that I've been actively avoiding a lot of potential interactions (e.g. I've had my PMs turned off since 2013).

I often feel like I'm talking at people rather than talking with people. Suits me just fine though lol

Also

^^ me

Without knowing where that's from, I have to say THAT IS PERFECT

Oh my god me. Honestly I never ever thought I’d be on CS this long.

[nickjr]

What made you guys stick around for so long? I'm rather curious~

I stick around partly because I'm a compulsive hoarder. I don't think many of the people who have collections of pets in here fully understand what hoarding is. Or what it feels like to mindlessly collect something and the anxiety it gives some people to part with their things. Anyway... I come from a long line of hoarders. And I've found this nice neat little outlet for my obsessions that fits nearly into the palm of my hand and doesn't ruin my life or the lives of the people I love.

And partly I stick around for the events. Every day during the events is like Christmas morning with the new pets and items.

Along with all of that is the nostalgia I feel looking through my pets and hoards. I'll click on a random pet and look at the trade that brought it to me. Reminiscing over long ago friendships and interactions. Most of the people I was closest to are long gone. Some I bump into occasionally and some are now staff lol even Admins. All fine with me because it's way more comfortable to watch from a distance and just "people watch" I guess I've always felt sort of disconnected now that I think about it. But the distance is definitely getting farther as the years go by.

I don't think I'm as much of a compulsive hoarder, but I'm still a bit of a hoarder (NO. DO NOT THROW AWAY MY 8TH GRADE STUFF. nononononono) and I can definitely relate to everything you said.

I'm also really, really clingy.

[Skiv]

What made you guys stick around for so long? I'm rather curious~

The community.
I really enjoy interacting with others on the forums, I can never wait for the next event because it's so much fun to spend my time on here during all the excitement. CS is fun to play, but I doubt I would've stuck around for as long if I hadn't gotten into discussing it with other users and bonding over stuff like hoards or event-induced all-nighters.
This site has always been a place for me to come to and have good-hearted fun on at the end of the day, and heaven knows it was a welcome refuge for me during some of my worse years especially.

Which is why I have to say I can't relate to the whole discussion from the last pages, because I never actually felt disconnected from users on here regardless of their join dates.^^ Looking at my CS friends they're from all kinds of years, and when I look at who I'm regularly chatting with on discord, a lot of those people are also new-ish.
I've never felt like I'm somehow no longer part of the community or like there's something that makes me an outsider. It makes me sad to see that this is apparently a case for many others :c

I'm already giddy with excitement about the upcoming Easter event~
I remember the Dream/Nightmare event being my absolute FAVE, and I stayed up SO late for those! Also the Medieval one! It's amazing the amount of work they put into them. Another great thing about this site.

I think it's wonderful you never felt that disconnection! It might be due to my hiatus. Years ago my "group of people" were always there to chat with. My sister had an account for a brief amount of time, wasn't her niche though. We had similar interests at the time, interests that were actually current and we could go back and forth about it. Aaah they're all gone now :') I'm so happy to see other seasoned users still here, lest I feel even more alone aha~

@Possum: I used to be incredibly apprehensive about hoarding, because of "well what about the rest of us??" but I've come to understand that it's perfectly harmless~ People enjoy CS for different reasons! And hoarding is just another way to enjoy your time here~
I find myself snatching multiples of PPS pets because aw dang I can't help it :'') So cute....

Is the whole "list" thing rather new?? I honestly don't remember it that well...then again a lot of pets are just sitting in accounts so it sort of makes sense that trading has been severely compromised when dealing with older pets.

[Julia]

Did you guys notice that if you put &pageSize=100 behind the link when browsing through your pet groups you can actually see more than 20 pets? I wish I had known that earlier, I was shocked. 8D

And I've just realised that 100% of the people on my friendlist haven't been online for at least a year.
Some of them weren't active since 2010. I'm getting old!

What made you guys stick around for so long? I'm rather curious~

Mostly nostalgia. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Chicken Smoothie will always be part of my life. 8D My trading knowledge has become pretty rusty though. I have no idea about values anymore, which isn't an advantage when the 18th of December comes around, but I enjoy participating in every event (especially the summer events!).

Btw: I was super surprised when I realised that store pets became so valuable without me noticing. People went like crazy for my raven dog. And I'm a bit disappointed that we still don't know that much about item rarities and can only lock or unlock our items (I'm still hoping that at some point we can put items in "groups" and lock them away).

I'm sure, of course, that not only CS has changed in those 10 years, we changed as well. I had more time for online games when I was a teen. :3 I still get super excited for events though. Been waiting for a week for the easter event to start.

And I can't believe CS will be celebrating their tenth birthday in a few days!

[ShortyGinger]

What made you guys stick around for so long? I'm rather curious~

I'm only really here for nostalgia as well. I'm not fond of talking on forums in general. I prefer talking to people that I can get really personal with, and a website such as this prevents me from truly expressing myself. Also, I'm not an artsy creative person; I haven't really liked a lot of the monthly designs since like 2012 or so. It just feels like a concept can only be done so many times, and I definitely don't have an eye for art. So I guess I'll sit here collecting mostly the older pets and the more striking event pets. For some reason I can't escape here. I think I'll just pop on for events now....

[rabbithaver]

What made you guys stick around for so long? I'm rather curious~

masochism
i mean... this site was a major part of my formative years. i'm an adult now, and looking back, i wouldn't be the same person if i hadn't found CS and decided to join. this is going to sound dumb and sentimental, but it was a big coping mechanism for me when i was struggling through some significant abuse, and i truly was convinced i wouldn't survive. during that time i would go to school, be taunted with slurs, threatened, physically attacked, and all that. i couldn't even walk home without the fear that my abusive classmates would follow me home, because they already knew where i lived, and they had no problem making good on their threats to hurt me. but when i got home i could log on to ChickenSmoothie and talk to my friends, and everything would be okay.

i jokingly call it chucklesmooth dot hell, but i do love this website and its community. it never has been perfect and there has always been drama, but i see so much good here. it brings so much joy and happiness to so many people. i see a lot of kids who are having a great time, and that's what is important to me. i got my mom into it in 2010, and now she's obsessed with it. when i see how happy it makes her, i can't help but get back into it myself.

i dunno. i can't believe it's ten years old already, but here's to ten years more. i'm glad to be a part of this silly website.

[nyanine]

Now I’m curious about the layout back then... have you guys tried using the web archive?

check this out

[Barb_]

What made you guys stick around for so long? I'm rather curious~

masochism
i mean... this site was a major part of my formative years. i'm an adult now and looking back, i wouldn't be the same person if i hadn't found CS and decided to join. this is going to sound dumb and sentimental, but it was a big coping mechanism for me when i was struggling with some significant abuse, and i truly was convinced i wouldn't survive. during that time i would go to school, be taunted with slurs, threatened, physically attacked, and all that. i couldn't even walk home without the fear that my abusive classmates would follow me home because they already knew where i lived, and they had no problem making good on their threats to hurt me. but when i got home i could log on to ChickenSmoothie and talk to my friends, and everything would be okay.

i jokingly call it chucklesmooth dot hell, but i do love this website and its community. it has never been perfect and there has always been drama, but i see so much good here. it brings so much joy and happiness to so many people. i see a lot of kids who are having a great time, and that's what is important to me. i got my mom into it in 2010, and now she's obsessed with it. when i see how happy it makes her, i can't help but get back into it myself.

i dunno. i can't believe it's ten years old already, but here's to ten years more. i'm glad to be a part of this silly website.

MSL, my daughter got me into it too. She laughs now and says I'm more into it than she is now. We both joined in 2011, me in Oct and she in Sept. 2011.

[rabbithaver]

Now I’m curious about the layout back then... have you guys tried using the web archive?

oh lord, the old web layout. back then, the pet adopt site and the forums were two different websites. you'd have to click through a single link, and you couldn't just go from one to the other super easily. it was a huge pain.

on the pet adoption site, the species you could adopt were listed on the left. you clicked these banners that were drawn like wooden signs that led you to the adoption pages. the whole site was kind of a beige, if i remember right? i could be wrong, this until mid-2009 if memory serves. bear with me, i have pretty significant brain trauma that has messed with my memory, and i could be wrong.

[nyanine]

Now I’m curious about the layout back then... have you guys tried using the web archive?

oh lord, the old web layout. back then, the pet adopt site and the forums were two different websites. you'd have to click through a single link, and you couldn't just go from one to the other super easily. it was a huge pain.

on the pet adoption site, the species you could adopt were listed on the left. you clicked these banners that were drawn like wooden signs that led you to the adoption pages. the whole site was kind of a beige, if i remember right? i could be wrong, this until mid-2009 if memory serves. bear with me, i have pretty significant brain trauma that has messed with my memory, and i could be wrong.

I checked the web archive... yeah, there were a series of links on the left. It may have been beige, but it just comes up as a kind of bare web page, no colors. It’s so different now...