The Real Motives for Happiness

Honestly! The whole site is about Neopets, people! It isn't called, "Neoboards!" or "Customization!" It's called Neopets, and it's ABOUT Neopets. Gaming and restocking is nice, but if you spend the whole day with it, ignoring the picture of your sobbing Neopet just to the left, then why bother staying?

So, I've decided to do a bit of research. It took me a few weeks to do it, but I looked up 5,000 random people from the boards, active trades, auctions, and guilds. Out of exactly 5,000, I found that only 941 of them had at least half of their pets with all of their hitpoints and that weren't crying. Out of those, less than 500 had all their pets with full hitpoints and happy faces. What do you say to that? Less than 1/10 Neopians really care about their pets.

Now, here's another interesting bit of information: 462 of the Neopians that I found didn't even have Neopets! Now, why do you think that is? Simple enough. Laziness. Don't believe me? I neomailed several questions to random recorded Neopians. Several questions and answers were...

Q) Why don't you have a Neopet?

A) I had one, but once they started with the emotions, it really bothered me when my neopet was constantly on the page, staring at me and sobbing. What did he have to sob about? 's not like he can die! (49 months)

A) Too much work. What's the point? I don't have enough neopoints to customize much, and I wouldn't want to have to feed it so much. I'm a roleplayer, so I spend all my time doing that. A neopet would cut out of that roleplay time. (3 months)

Now, what does that tell us? People just don't have the decency to take 30 seconds from their 'precious roleplay time' to feed their poor Neopets? But once in a while, I would find a reply like this:

A) Oh, this is my side account! I have four well-treated neopets on my main, (username cut). I love my Neopets! (31 months)

Now, this tells me that there are still some fairly decent Neopians out there. Continuing on, I had a few more common questions.

Q) Why is or are your neopet(s) unhappy?

A) She's just being a wimp. I haven't fed her in a while so she spontaneously bursts into tears. It's pathetic. (1 month)

A) I don't know, and I don't really care. So you can go away now. (37 months)

A) Oh, he's sick. I can't get the cure, because it's too expensive, but I've set my watch for 30 minutes so I can take him to the Healing Springs as much as possible. (4 months)

During this question, I came across a person who had all four Neopets crying. I neomailed him asking why his neopet was unhappy. He went on, made all his Neopets happy, and then asked me what I was talking about. He claimed that he kept his Neopets Bloated and Delighted! at all times, and accused me of harassment when I implied this. I let it drop, but this is one example of a sad, sad encounter.

Q) How often do you send your Neopet(s) on vacation? When do you do it, which hotel, and why do you do it?

A) You can send your neopet on vacation? (18 months)

A) I send him to the cheapest hotel (forgot what it's called) when I get really annoyed with that sad face. I mean, can't he just stop whining??

A) I send them to a 4-or-5 star hotel every weekend, when I'm usually not on, and when I feel like giving them a treat. I miss the times when everyone would panic over leaving their Neopets over the weekend, even when they were in hotels. (59 months)

Q) Why do you keep your Neopet(s) happy?

A) You can't battle with a sick or hungry neopet. My Techo is a major battler, as I proudly show with his stats, and so I can't afford to get him hungry. (6 month)

A) I hate the sad faces. (Ranges from Newbie to 63 months, believe it or not.)

A) Why wouldn't I? It's the only reason I get on the site! (36 months)

Are you really that surprised at how many people don't care? Or, worse, at how many people actually DO care? Think about it: Why do you get on Neopets? Roleplaying, guilds, neofriends, games, stocks? Next time you look at your Dying, Unhappy Neopet, take a look at what you can do to help. It usually doesn't take much. Grab some omelette from the Giant Omelette in Tyrannia, grab some non-existing Jelly from the non-existing Giant Jelly in the non-existing world of Jelly, and you have five servings of goodness! Get your Freebies once a month, check out the sponsor sites once a day, and there's at least two more servings per pet! It's not that hard, so you should try it! Honestly, what's the point of having Neopets if you're only going to neglect them?

Coming soon, I have other pro-Neopets articles such as, "The Real Motives for Happiness; Revealed!" about people's reactions to this article. If you wish to be featured in this article, neomail me what you did about your Neopet's condition after you read this, or whatever other related topics you thought about. Another article I'm writing is "Happiness Galore," about ways to keep your Neopet happy, products that I use when entertaining, feeding, or grooming my Neopets, and how you can apply these tactics to any species.

Just remember that you can take care of your Neopet without gourmet food and magic toys! You don't have to spent 1000 neopoints a day to get your Neopet satisfied! They don't need to be Delighted! or Bloated all the time, but it's not good to leave them unhappy and starving. But for goodness sake, TAKE CARE OF YOUR NEOPETS!

I'd like to make another article about people's opinions or reactions when they read this, so please give me feedback!