The Club Penguin community is doing everything they can to stick together after their virtual world has been stripped away from them. Social media is the only thing these former penguins have as they wait for former Club Penguin developers to continue to create a new world for fans to log on to. Meanwhile, Disney is cracking down on private servers. Unfortunately, the thing that helps keeps this community together might be stripped away thanks to Elon Musk.
This year, Twitter user @BitzyMouse launched the second annual Club Penguin Twitter Tournament, where thousands of Club Penguin fans vote on who is the best character in the game. Bitzy spoke with We Got This Covered, and according to her, the poll was inspired by a Tumblr event where people vote on the “sexiest male character,” which led to the theme of this year’s event – the best male character in the franchise.
“Last year, I was inspired by the tumblr sexyman poll going around. I couldn’t believe how big Sans vs Reigen was, so I thought it would be fun for the Club Penguin fandom to have their own spin on it!”
When the results of this year’s tournament were released, it came with both good and bad news. The good news is, the winner was a side character named Skip the Bellhop. Out of the 1100+ participants during the finals, 56 percent of them voted for a character that was introduced during the 2014 Halloween Party.
Alongside the celebration, penguins were also reminded of Musk’s changes to the website, where only Twitter Blue subscribers can now vote on Twitter polls. This is upsetting since a majority of the community chose not to subscribe, especially given some of these community members are students.
Bitzy told We Got This Covered that Club Penguin tournament polls have been a thing prior to her annual event. She knew that the Club Penguin community was small and niche, but she didn’t expect that the Club Penguin Twitter tournament would become successful.
“With how niche and small the club penguin fandom is…I DID NOT expect the polls to get this much attention. I must admit though….I owe a lot of the success she growth to the Penguinronpa fandom. If you’re not familiar with the fan fiction, it’s a popular Instagram web series crossover between Danganronpa and Club Penguin, created by Tofudemaru. I’m part of Penguinronpa’s discord server as a moderator and a lot community members were the first supporters of the Twitter tournaments.”
Another factor in these tournaments’ success is that Twitter is the easiest platform to host them. For example, the original Tumblr Sexyman tournament happened on the same platform, where people from different fandoms congregated on Twitter to take part in the event. Even Spotify used Twitter to find out the “Best Hype Track” back in 2022. So it’s no wonder why Twitter tends to be a popular platform to host these types of events. It allowed users to vote and view the results with ease.
There is an option to host the events on other platforms like Tumblr and Discord, but that’s still up in the air for the time being. If Twitter remains untouched by Musk’s changes, a third event would happen in 2024. Without spoiling too much, Bitzy said that the third annual event will have a twist compared to the previous event.
But due to the upcoming changes that will be released on April 15, Bitzy is now working on other possible fan events to unite the Club Penguin community which may not include Twitter polls.
“Facebook would be an interesting location. Although… since the inspiration for the tournament came from Twitter, I thought it would be the most appropriate to host there. Yet. Tumblr and Discord isn’t forgotten. I always make sure to post updates on my tumblr account and Club Penguin related discord servers.
“What will happen now? It’s tough to say. I’ll probably try to come up with another fun community event. Fan dubs has been in my mind for a while.”
In 2017, Disney announced the end of Club Penguin as a franchise. This meant that the games are now discontinued and players will now have to find a new place to call home. Bitzy believes that even if Disney took away something that resonated from people’s childhoods, the memories are there to last. And events like the Twitter tournament allow former players to relive those memories and keep the Club Penguin spirit alive.
“I’m still shocked by how popular these tournaments are. It’s hard to describe the science behind it. But, at the end of the day, it shows that….Club Penguin characters still has a place in people’s hearts. You remember the PSA missions with the waddle squad and the clickity clicks of Klutzy. And you miss it. Disney may or may not bring it back, but events like this keeps the club penguin spirit alive.”
Bitzy hopes that more events will happen in the future despite the changes Musk made. Fingers crossed that the Twitter CEO decides to change his mind since many people are predicting Twitter will become obsolete if these changes are here to stay.
