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17 Nostalgic Websites from the Early 2000s

17 Nostalgic Websites from the Early 2000s

Remember the early 2000s nostalgic websites you browsed on the internet as a kid?

If you were born in the 90s, you probably grew up on the internet using websites we look back on now as nostalgic.

I was born in 1995, and started going on the computer at a super young age.

Today I thought we’d walk down memory lane and reminisce our old and fave nostalgic kids websites.

When I was in primary school I had relatives who were preteens, and I often watched as they browsed websites like Asian Avenue and Neopets.

One of my cousins even created my very first MSN account for me when I was in grade 4, which she named “cuti_gal68”.

I remember sneaking onto Neopets during computer labs in elementary school, and even sneaking onto the family computer late at night to play Runescape.

Also, remember when “rawr” and “g2g bye” were a regular thing in people’s vocabularies?

Here are some of my favourite old nostalgic kids websites from the early to mid-2000s.

Let me know if you remember any other popular ones from back in the day!


Nostalgic kids websites from the early 2000s


1. Dollz Mania

Remember playing those drag-and-drop dress-up games?

I used to spend hours and hours dressing up dollz, screenshotting the finished products, and saving them all in a massive MS Paint file.

The preppy ones were my favourite and the goth ones terrified me.

I think I even tried designing my own dollz drag-and-drop website at one point.

Playing with dollz was my guilty pleasure.


2. MSN Messenger

Not really a website, but remember spending hours just chatting on MSN?

When conversations were as simple and pointless as “sup”-“nm u”-“nm”?

When you’d obsessively stare at your crush’s email until they logged online?

I used to be obsessed with making my own MSN icons and customizing my personal message.

It was even a trend to use funky lettering and shortcodes to customize your personal message.

I thought I was so cool for “designing” personal messages like:

` ` { & тнe [b]s н α d o w[/b] oғ тнe [b]d α ч[/b] , wιʟʟ [b][c=4]e m в r α c e[/c][/b] тнe worʟd ιn [b]ɢ r α ч[/b] ; ×

And we can’t forget about chatting with Smarter Child. He freaked me out.


MSN Icon

3. Piczo

Ah, the good ol’ days of Piczo.

Piczo allowed you to create websites by dragging and dropping elements, so you didn’t really need to know any HTML.

It’s actually where I first started to get a taste of graphic design.

My friends and I made things like celebrity “blends”, MSN icons, and fixed backgrounds using Photoshop.

This was a time where being emo or scene was seen as ~cool~.


4. MySpace

Tbh I wasn’t a frequent MySpace user.

I don’t know if it was just my age group, or if it just didn’t pick up as much in Canada.

All my Canadian friends were on Facebook while all my American friends were on MySpace.

I added all my ~Runescape friends~ on there.


5. Bebo

Bebo was another popular social networking site back in the day that obvs does not exist anymore.

You could customize your profile using skins (like WordPress themes) and friends could draw things on your “White Board”.

You could also create quizzes about yourself to see if your friends really knew you lol.

Those were the days!


6. Freewebs (now Webs)

Throwback to when people created webpages for the sake of nothing but fun.

Freewebs allowed you to create free websites, and you could customize them completely using HTML and CSS.

I was pretty nerdy about this stuff, so I created a lot of random sites to practice my HTML skills.

None of them were good, but at least it was good practice for this website 😉


7. Photobucket

I used to upload all my photos on here so I could use my 1337 HTML skillz and <img src=””> them onto my websites.

Photobucket still exists, but it’s a jumbled mess of ads in your face and you have to pay to use it now. Boo.


8. DeviantArt

I didn’t use DeviantArt myself, but my sister did.

It was basically a forum for artists to share their work and give each other feedback.


9. Barbie.com

I don’t know what was so fun about feeding Baby Krissy or making over Barbie… but I spent hours doing it.

It was my guilty pleasure tbh.

I think there were some great MyScene games I really liked as well. Those were the days.


10. Neopets

Remember sneaking onto Neopets during computer lab and having to switch browsers every time the teacher walked by?

I spent way too much time on Neopets back in the day…

I used to collect their monthly magazines, toys, and plushies, and I was so excited when they collaborated with McDonald’s for Happy Meal toys that one time.

Sadly I can’t access my old Neopets account because I faked a birthday to pretend I was 13 when I made it. *tear, tear*


Runescape from the early 2000s

11. Runescape

Remember the olden days of being a noob?

Runescape was a huge part of my childhood and probably one of my most favourite nostalgic kids websites.

What made the game so much fun was all the great friends I made on it, but I unfortunately don’t have any connections with any of them anymore.

Fun fact: I used to also make Runescape music videos.


12. MapleStory

Tbh I was never much of a MapleStory user, but my friends who weren’t on Runescape were playing MapleStory.

I downloaded the game, went up to level 11, and never played again.

It was a hard game to play, okay?!


13. Club Penguin

Club Penguin was such a wholesome place.

You just walked around as a penguin and made internet friends with strangers.

You can’t play it anymore, but it was fun while it lasted!


14. Habbo Hotel

I don’t think I ever actually played Habbo Hotel myself, but I remembered other people playing it.


15. AdventureQuest

AdventureQuest was like a bootleg version of Runescape.

It was fun, but I definitely preferred playing Runescape.


16. Scary Maze Game

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t quite meant for kids, but we all remember playing the scary maze game.

Or tricking our friends into playing the scary maze game.

If you’re in the mood for a little jump scare, you can watch a video of the scary maze game on YouTube.


17. Ask Jeeves

Before we were asking Google questions, we were asking Jeeves.

They actually still exist today, but they’re just “Ask”.


Nostalgic websites from the 2000s:

  1. Dollz Mania
  2. MSN Messenger
  3. Piczo
  4. MySpace
  5. Bebo
  6. Freewebs
  7. Photobucket
  8. DeviantArt
  9. Barbie.com
  10. Neopets
  11. Runescape
  12. MapleStory
  13. Club Penguin
  14. Habbo Hotel
  15. AdventureQuest
  16. Scary Maze Game
  17. Ask Jeeves

Of course there are tons more nostalgic websites from back then, but these were just the ones I was using.

It’s funny that kids nowadays are growing up on the internet as well, but in a completely different way.

I feel like it was a lot more carefree back then.

The early 2000s was definitely a great time for the internet.

Did you go on any of these old nostalgic kids websites back in the day? What are your favourite websites from the early 2000s? Let me know on Twitter or Instagram!

P.S. if you liked this post, you might like this post on things only OG Instagram users will remember, or any of my other lifestyle posts.

Jessica Lam | Toronto lifestyle, fashion, beauty, and travel blogger | Diary of a Toronto Girl, a Canadian lifestyle blog

Nostalgic kids websites that you might remember if you grew up during the early 2000s!
  1. I spent so much time on dollz mania, lol. And neo pets! I still have (and use!) my photo bucket accounts. Do you remember club penguin?!

  2. slynch223 says:

    Myspace, Photobucket, and Neopets!!! I didn’t use MSN messenger much, but was on AIM all the time! I remember how important it was to come up with the perfect away message!

  3. Jessica Lam says:

    Hahaha oh gosh! I wasn’t much of a Club Penguin user, but I did go on it a few times!!

  4. Jessica Lam says:

    I was the opposite haha – wasn’t on AIM that much! I found that my American friends were more AIM users and my Canadian friends were more MSN users!

  5. Cameron says:

    Oh my goodness – I was constantly on Myspace and messenger! Glad we have better things now haha!

  6. I definitely squealed when I got to Neopets on this list. I was just talking to my younger cousin the other day about all of the computer games I used to play back in the day, most notably Neopets and Club Penguin (and, okay, Endless Online *hides face*). And a big #TBT to when I used to code Myspace layouts just for funzies. It feels like so long ago!!! Loving all the nostalgia this post brings hahaha. Thanks Jessica!

  7. OMG I lived for Dollz and Neopets! The early 2000s were the best!

  8. thesophiadiaries says:

    actually never heard of most of these but I totally remember bebo and messenger xD messenger was actually amazing haha I kind of wish they kept it but just updated it instead xD

  9. Prerana says:

    I always got a good chuckle out of Hampster Dance. I checked and it’s still in operation! Though, far more elaborate now than it was back in the day…

    Prerana | http://broadcloth.co

  10. Oh my goodness, I was always on MSN messenger & MySpace! We also did Xanga back in the day!

    xoxo, SS

    Southern and Style

  11. I wish I could see my old myspace account. haha.

  12. Deborah says:

    HAHA Neopets was my jam!! I also had a really embarrassing Xanga account that was on the receiving end of a lot of my teenage angst! haha

  13. Ugh, I don’t even want to get on the subject of Photobucket! I was totally into making those dollz, so much fun! I was always on MySpace– before they had cool profile templates you could upload, you had to do any stylizing with html, I used to code all my friends’ profiles for them 😀

  14. carla says:

    I loved dress up games omg! I’d forgotten about them haha.

    Carla x
    https://makemeupinside.wordpress.com/

  15. Oh god, this makes me feel so old because I only used a few of them haha.

    Myspace and MSN was my jam. Freewebs, LiveJournal and DeviantArt were big ones too haha.

    Laura ¦ http://www.laurahasblog.co.uk

  16. Dominee says:

    NEOPETS! I miss them so much. I still check on mine from time to time but I tell myself not to get sucked back in. I still love my Kaus!

  17. Jessica Lam says:

    Hahaha Myspace and MSN were fun while they lasted!

  18. Jessica Lam says:

    Hahaha it took me forever to dig through the internet and my memories to come up with this list! I wasn’t a huge fan of Club Penguin but I still played for a bit :p

  19. Jessica Lam says:

    Hahaha I stopped using MSN ages ago and converted to Skype, but since then I’ve converted to FB messenger!

  20. Jessica Lam says:

    Haha I don’t remember if I ever visited the website, but I loved the video!!

  21. Jessica Lam says:

    I was never on Xanga but my younger sister was haha!

  22. Jessica Lam says:

    That would be amazing haha!

  23. Jessica Lam says:

    Haha I miss going on all of these sites!!

  24. Jessica Lam says:

    Lmao oh gosh! I never used Xanga, all my teenage angst went on Facebook and Twitter hahaha

  25. Jessica Lam says:

    Hahaha they were so addicting! I forgot about them too!

  26. Jessica Lam says:

    I didn’t use LiveJournal or DeviantArt, but my younger sister used DeviantArt haha!

  27. Jessica Lam says:

    I lost the password to my old account, but I made a new one a few years ago that I go on every now and then haha!

  28. So many good throwbacks! I used to love MSN Messenger!

    Kristin
    The Blush Blonde

  29. Kristen N says:

    Thank you for reminding me of all these wonderful sites! I wonder if I can find my Piczo sites 😀

  30. nini says:

    why does everyone in the comments sound like freaking bots like whats up with the “Hahas” and “!!”

  31. Jessica Lam says:

    Sorry it’s the millennial in me trying to sound polite 😅

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