I always vaguely feel like I missed out because I had never even heard of Gaia Online until I heard of people cringing with fondness at RPing there

I'm not even 100% sure what gaia online IS

Forums For Weebs

From context I've gathered that it's some kind of chat service that lets you also have a customizeable avatar walk around?

Oh it's a forum

but with avatars and systems around them yeah

with rare items and such

huh

I don't think it gets to walk around though

that was later

also an mmo to play your avatar in

fun fact: you got in-site currency by logging on, browsing, playing games, etc that you spent on your items, but the original currency had a massive inflation spike so bad that they had to straight up replace it to reset the site's economy

my impression of it was always like neopets except with fashion instead of pets

God I was sooooo into gaia in middle school

Yeah

I sent them physical dollars in an envelope to buy some cool items/forum currency because my parents did not trust Internet to handle credit card info responsibly

I got the elemental set

omg i was so jealous of ppl who donated and got the items from it

as someone who still logs into gaia from time to time it was kind of like...

it was kind of The Site, at one point, for people to go for anime talking and teenage RP. a lil congregation of people and their shared interest that got around surprisingly well through word of mouth

it basically is forums for weebs, especially now, dead as it is

but it's where me and quite a few others i imagine started cutting their teeth in the RP world

yep

The MMO was later removed. :V

yeah i was never part of gaia online either and often get similar feelings when it's mentioned