Ditching Insidious Gifs: Overcoming Avatar Addiction

At the time of writing this there are more than 300 secret avatars that you can obtain.

Reason one: Why bother now? Unless everyone in Neopia stopped between 2am and 7am NST on the first of the month - you won't even be able to get the avatar collector avatar, let alone a trophy.

Reason two: You have to be good at EVERYTHING on the site to even begin collecting. Games, restocking, having a lot of money (4 stamp avatars??? No way!), painted pets, expensive items, good battledome pets, and the worst part of most avatars, luck.

Reason three: You may as well stop reading this explanation now because of all of the stress it causes to even THINK about trying for another Something Has Happened! Event, especially if it's one of the refreshing ones.

Reason four: One of the most dangerous aspects of collecting avatars is their sharp edges. That Bony Grarrl Club avatar is going to poke someone's eye out at some point. And I mean at some point.

Reason five: Not to mention if all of the avatars are on the same page, blinking and flashing all at once. Someone is going to have a seizure one of these days. Most avatars have some kind of word on them and they blink so fast, it's hard to even read what they say. If you've gotten a migraine from trying to read one, I don't know why you're still trying to be convinced that this is a VERY bad thing.

Reasons six and seven: Torture and propaganda. The Petpet Protection League needs to be alerted immediately. There are a number of avatars out there you can get by zapping your pets and petpets. You can even get an avatar by letting Turmaculus eat your petpet. This is outrageous. Innocent lives are being taken by this beast, and then how are they mourned? People are walking around and flashing their "MMM, PETPET" avatars at everyone. That is not a healthy message to send out to the public. Let alone all of the other avatars and what cryptic messages they hold. Eliv Thade? Evil death. Here are some other examples of these propagandistic messages.

"EVIL? Oh yeah!" - What more do I have to say about this? It says it all.

"BLEH" - Asparableh. Now there is NO WAY people are going to eat their vegetables. Thanks a lot.

"YUCK!" - The Achyfi company is certainly not happy about this, but seriously. Just the way the hand is holding the can suggests that the person isn't going to recycle it. The environment is now in danger.

"Wanna fight?" - Violence is not the way to go. Bullies need to be stopped, not encouraged.

And these are just a FEW examples of the 300+ in existence.

Reason eight: At the moment, avatar collecting is very popular, which encourages these messages to actually be real. Don't give in to peer pressure. Psh, you're better than that! Jumping on the bandwagon is pathetic. Do something else to be different. I'm sure there are a lot of slorgs out there that are begging to have a pet as their owner. There are many more productive things than avatars and this is definitely one of them.

Reason nine: There has also been a lot of controversy towards these silly, square, 50 x 50 pixel menaces. It's like a war on the boards. If you don't have a rare one as your active avatar, you're basically considered to be in a lower class of the Neopian heiarchy. It never ends. Someone's definition of "rare" might be completely different than someone else's. And once you've finally gotten one that was really hard for you, someone comes along and ruins your moment of glory by saying, "Ha, that wasn't hard at all, I was one of the first ones to get it." Why go through such a let down and a huge blow to your self-esteem? But then again, if you're feeling THAT down about it, you're in some serious trouble. Which brings me to my next point.

Reason ten: Collecting avatars takes up your life. You may as well be hooked up to a machine that sucks away 5 years of your lifetime and be done with it, or you can take the easy way out and stop now while you're ahead. Join Avatars Anonymous and get help with this serious problem.

If you collect avatars, know someone who collects them, or you're concerned you might start collecting them after all of this, consider this. Do you really want to put yourself through this kind of torture?

Reason eleven: Every waking moment you are thinking of some wild and crazy plan to get an avatar you'll probably never get. It's a complete waste of time. You are so determined to get on the hi-score list that that's all you can think about, and you are missing the bigger part of Neopets.

Take it from someone who knows. Even I need help to stop collecting avatars. I'm writing this now just so I can be one step closer to the Neopian Times avatar. Let's not try and hide it. I'm trying to save everyone else from this horrible trend, I'm way too deep into collecting to where I can't stop doing it. It is an addiction. So please, please... all I'm saying is to re-evaluate your avatar collecting. Is it really worth it? Absolutely not.

Disclaimer: This article was written for amusement purposes only. I'm an avatar collector myself. Don't send me hate mail or something. :-P