My Animal Jam Story

I started Animal Jam because of a shiny add in the 2011-2012 edition of a National Geographic magazine. It depicted Mira, looking rather old without her false eyelashes and present glitz, and Cosmo, who was wearing a scraggly brown hat with a flower poking out. They were both standing on the old, beachy Crystal Sands, devoid of waterslides and chlorine. It was beautiful and untouched.

And little me was immediately drawn into to it.

I created my first account, tt1289, as a younger child on my mom's laptop, though I can't say my exact age. I was drawn to the adorable, fluffy-looking rabbit with it's large cartoonish eyes, and selected it as my first animal.
At first I made my rabbit snow-white and adorned it simply with a blue pendant, nothing else. I named it Flora Snowymajor.
 I did little with my early days but chat with my few special buddies, play games, and make smoothies with my brother, who made the account edwingrim (the username that I had invented.)
After a while, I got so drawn into the magical pixelated world of Animal Jam that I began to log on almost every day, eager to decorate my small, pillow-covered den and make new buddies.
Eventually, I got a sixth-month membership for my birthday.
After a while, my interest slowly started to fade. I began to get on less and less, gravitating farther and farther away from the game that had once captivated my attention for so long.
Beta had ended. Monthly member gifts were now coming out.
My membership existed months after I quit, and from it I got an orange lava glove (and several more lava and dragon gloves from my storage accounts), as well as a short red spiked collar, a yellow New Year's Party Hat, and various other member gifts that later would make me "rare."
A year and a half later, I joined again on a balmy Easter evening. I was going to go on an egg hunt in 30 minutes, and I didn't have anything to do in the meantime, so I decided why not?
I was shocked at how much things had changed! The title page had become a vivid, brightly colored picture of the alphas clustered together, and I was very surprised when I noticed that Liza would raise her arm and snap a picture every so often.
I racked my brain to remember the name of my old account, but in the end, I couldn't, hence my present main account; Edwingrim2.
After going through the video (also new) and the tutorial with Liza, where she seemed to me considerably more... girly and purple, I made my rabbit, Juniper Quietivy. I then made her a bright peach color with pale green swirls, as swirls have been my favorite pattern since beta.
That day I went to The Claw, snagged a few plushies, watched the hilarious Gecko Song (one of the things that I remember was added to Animal Jam after beta), and generally had a great time doing old things that I had found so much pleasure in.
Eventually, I became lonely without any "real life" friends on Animal Jam, and introduced my best friend to AJ. She made an account under the username FluffiestSlug. We would chat on Animal Jam when we weren't at school in the afternoons, and gave each other tips on dens, Journey Books, and codes.
I continually customized and re-customized Juniper, until I settled on her current look; a green glove, head feather, and blanket. I then made a spunky penguin, whom I used very frequently to go underwater.
One day, I discovered Animal Jam Spirit Blog by punching 'animal jam blog' into the search bar, and from that blog discovered a plethora of fascinating Animal Jam blogs that I checked frequently (ie, Animal Jam Whip and Animal Jam Times). Inspired by these blogs, I created a makeshift blog called Animal Jam Harmony on Shutterfly with my good friend tabby0805. I posted every day, while she uploaded pictures and videos and gave me valuable input. We had an amazing experience! However, there was one thing missing; viewers.
So, Tabby and I got Blogger accounts and created a private blog called Animal Jam Harmony. The background was a few stalks of green bamboo, and we had no idea at all how to make a banner. Soon, we went out different blogging ways and she created a new blog, keeping the name Animal Jam Harmoney. I decided on Juniper's Animal Jam Grove, trying to make an atypical blog name. I never predicted that people would read it, but they did.
A few months later, on one drizzly gray afternoon, I asked my mom to open up the parent dashboard to see if we could discover any of my old accounts.
Bingo!
I found loads of storage accounts, including (but not limited to) teelauik, tt1289, and v0v0. I can't quite recall why I chose those usernames, but I can remember having fun creating and meagerly customizing each of them with a few items before making another few storage accounts.  I got quite rare off of old items, getting a reddish-pink short spiked collar, New Year's Party Hat, and several beta gloves which still hadn't come out at the time.
The next few days were a flurry of trading. I wasn't very experienced, having spent a chunk of my time on Animal Jam in a state of hibernation from virtual games, but soon I became more and more experienced about the rarity of certain items. I traded, traded, traded... and I enjoyed it.
One day, I traded my spike (I can't remember for what), and I immediately realized that it had been an overtrade on my part. However, I wasn't very attatched to the pixelated item, so I soon forgot all
about it. Later, my brother edwingrim said that he had a spare purple short spike that he would never use (since he was temporarily quitting) and gave THAT to me. However, I accidentally did another bad trade. Bye-bye, spike!
Soon after, my trading frenzy faded out and I mostly met buddies and made great Animal Jam memories that I will never forget. JAJG continued to get more and more views... and here we are today, views and followers still increasing with every day. I can't tell you how thankful I am to have amazing readers like you. <3
~Edwingrim2, 6/16/14