Cyberpets
Way back in the late 90s/early 2000s, web graphics called cyberpets were a cool thing you could add to your web site. These were usually pixel-drawn animals, objects, and fantasy creatures that you could fill out a guestbook or form to "adopt," with some adoption agencies requiring that you show them where you'll be putting their art, etc. Anyway, these were some of my formative experiences online, and I remember idolizing certain sites for their atmosphere or their iconic cyberpet graphics. I was under the age of 10, so my art skills were not yet up to par for joining the cyberpet community, but I watched eagerly from the sidelines and tried valiantly to understand how to make my own adopted cyberpets web pages to "live" on.
Full disclosure: In many cases, I dug these images out of the Wayback Machine after hours of searching through broken images and defunct sites. Many examples are other people's "adopted" pets if I couldn't find an official site graphic. I'm not trying to "steal them" by putting them up here--I just want to bring them back to the surface so others can also appreciate them!
I can always link to your site or credit you if one of these ancient images happens to be "your cyberpet"--just let me know, I don't bite! I'm @pseudocities on most sites, or you can email me (you'll have to modify the address before sending ;3).
Did you make these?!
If you are one of the artists behind these cyberpets, please get at me, seriously, you have no idea what a huge inspiration your work was to tiny me!! I will wax poetic at you about very old art you made, and you might enjoy that, right?? Of course you would! Reach out to me if you're one of these artists, forreal I would love to connect.Artist: Jona of Jona's Weyr
[Wayback Machine link to Jona's Weyr via Geocities] // [Wayback Machine link to Jona's Weyr via Passagen.se c.2003]Orphan Dragon Adoptions (ODA)
This was some of my favorite artwork!! One time, I won a special variety of this dragon because I entered an art contest (I was SO EXCITED because my entry was mouse-drawn and not very good...!!).
5/10/2022: GOOD NEWS, I FOUND SOME MORE, AWWWW YESSS
Society for Dracony Competing League (SfDCL)
This site had a complex game mechanic to it where you could train your dracony and battle/compete with other user's draconies... There were different sub-species with tactical advantages/disadvantages and it seriously ruled (but I was not good at participating lol) 5/10/2022: ADDED A BUNCH MORE subspecies I found, yessss!! Though, I think I may only have the v1 art at this point, due to the thicker lineart. If I remember correctly, there were updated versions of many of these species with thin lines (matching the Sonwien young one). So, the search continues...
Artist: Wendy Orion Lee/Syriiu
Cypris.org
[Wayback Machine Cypris.org Link c.2003]Cypris.org was my very first obsession with cyberpets--I was fascinated with the variety of creatures and the layout of the pages (all pages had midis and distinct styling--very atmospheric!). I also almost never got an egg to hatch lol--I have a feeling Cypris.org was quite popular in its hayday (c.2001-2005) and probably a lot for the owner to keep up with!
5/10/2022: Adding all the critters in a big blob for now!!
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