@@siriusthecat haha yeah boi 🤟 XD apparently we all in this together being yelled at to heal people (I also was the magic used in DND , people yelling at you to heal & fireball is a nightmare )
For years and years I’ve felt like I don’t know what to do on the internet anymore, like I used to spend hours on their internet and then one day the only thing left to do was scroll through Facebook. Watching this and being reminded of how GirlSense really did try to make their site the only one you’d ever need makes me realize just how much I missed having an internet “homebase”. Maybe it’s just because I’m not a kid anymore but it really feels like there used to just be so much more to DO online whereas now it feels like there’s only content to be consumed.
No I get that feeling too tbh There aren't actually sites like this anymore and it's kind of sad. The Internet low key got monopolized. It's really sad that this extremely important tool has been reduced to another money making machine. Which is why we have so few sites to exist on but it's totally legal to buy and sell citizens personal information.
I AM SO VALIDATED BY THIS VIDEO, I AM SITTING HERE AT MY GRAPHIC DESIGN JOB, OPEN-MOUTHED AND REALIZING THAT THIS WAS MY INTRO TO GRAPHIC DESIGN! I made so many emo hairstyles and invader zim inspired outfits oh my godddd!!! I was a GirlSense girlboss at the ripe age of 11!!!
I'm an art student too and I don't exactly know what job I wanna do but I might work in fashion. Girlsense was amazing it was kinda like photoshop for kids lol
@vernorexia682 hell yeah! Fashion is such fun to be involved in, although I was a graphic design student through and through, I sat in on lots of fashion lectures in college bc I was so into them
Not me reading this after going on a creative tear and designing 130 logos in less than 24hrs. Thank you for this comment!!!! I did not make the connection at all but it’s so clear!
yeah for me, stardoll was the thing my lil sis played. stardoll was like the nicer and eventually more popular site but girlsense was wayyy more fun and cooler.
I remember the INSANELY realistic animated characters that people would make out of dresses that sold for like 999,999 G-cents in auctions. If you got one by chance in an auction with low traffic it was on par with winning the lottery 😂
Can’t believe I made it in the video at 6:08. I remember being so young, and not really a creative person, but girlsense made me love art, and anything I could create. It was such a simpler time back then and I can’t believe it shut down 10 years ago. I’m 23 now but I still have very fond memories of this game. Thank you for reliving my childhood.
I also remember blatantly, not having many friends at school at the time, so instead of recess, I would go to the computer lab and spend hours designing on this game. it was such an outlet for me at the time. I’m so glad your channel came up in my recommended because so far you have covered two games of my childhood that were my forms of escapism that were beloved, but fell to the wayside. Please keep up the high-quality and your sweet personality. You are a natural.
@@luvngold1 it's incredible to me that you found your own boutique on this video!! looking through all the old girlsense youtube videos it makes me really regret not learning how to record my computer screen while i was still on all these virtual worlds that i now want to talk about. these kids with unregistered hypercam didn't even realize that they were future lost media pioneers!
I was absolutely one of those fake boys, and I feel SO seen. I do play healers, and I did turn out to be trans masculine. Girlsense was 100% a building block in my young development and while I don't think I miss her, she'll always hold a place of respect in my heart xoxo
I was also a fake boy and I'm transmasc too, lol. This was on Animal Jam though. I never did get into the dating scene even though I really wanted to because the guilt of breaking a random girl's heart was too much for ten year old me, lmao!
@@crypticcorvid The guilt was real. I'm ftm now, but when I was a kid I would play as a boy on sites like this and I would always feel so bad about "tricking" girls into dating me.
Do y'all remember girlsense having a playlist system thing?? like they had a huge music bank of songs from a wide variety of artists. I remember playing panic at the disco and lady gaga songs while editing my boutique lmao
i'm obSESSED with how you deliver content.... i'd never heard of this site but now i'm feeling nostalgic for so many other dressup worlds lost to time. plus the gaia towns music.... good LORD. where my chatterbox regs at
@@lispeaks i don't blame u in the slightest fr,,,, if u ever decide to make some sort of community account and add it to your page/vid description i'd love to follow!
Had i known about this, i would have adored this game. The Style Savvy Games on the DS and 3DS were my life! I put hours on hours in them and honestly, the last one is still so much fun! It truly feels like a final game though, with all the stuff that was put into it
The team behind Style Savvy is making a new game! It’s not called Style Savvy but it’s coming out later this year for Switch! The game is called Fashion Dreamer ❤ Im so excited, I never had a style savvy game growing up 😊
I used to spend hours on this site manipulating the tools to get a certain look I wanted. it was NEVER as good as the popular users on the site ( i was trash). im SO glad someone FINALLY made a video on this because this site introduced me to graphic design features and opened my eyes to ways to use the internet and my computer that a lot of people didnt know how to use. I am about to graduate with my degree in computer engineering so I see where my origin story came from, lol! This site literally lives rent-free in my head all the time
Girlsense was my life from 2010-2012! A few thoughts: - After the closure, there was a user who attempted to make GirlSense 2 and it did pretty well. I can’t recall the name of it rn… - There were role playing groups which were also very explicit. People got away with saying banned words by typing words that were similar enough to get the message across. -Same goes for using the fashion design tool. If you can figure out how to shade a dress with paint splotches, then you can definitely figure out how to make adult content on there… Thank you for this video! You have made me feel seen!
holy snap. after 10 whole years of remembering the game but spending many fruitless nights on google being unable look up anything due to not remembering the name, you did it. you unlocked the final key in my memory.
FINALLY SOMEONE MAKES A VIDEO RETROSPECTIVE ABOUT GIRLSENSE. it's been quite a while since its shutdown but even as an adult i miss this site every day
your videos are incredibly well produced especially for being such a new channel. i hope to see you cover pixie hollow or cartoon doll emporium some time!! 💌
thank you SO much for making that comment. i've been trying to remember the name of cartoon doll emporium for like. a decade. i thought for sure it was always going to be "that website with the prettiest dress up games i ever played"
@@sentimentalexis oh my gosh of course!! it was one of my favourites and i literally never see coverage on it! i’m still so sad it got shut down. even though i’m 24 now i still love to play my childhood games every now and then 💕
GOD the number of memories I have of spending hours on Cartoon Doll Emporium...most of which was spent on the forums once I learned of their existence. Good times.
Yesss I loved this game! My thing was to make goth-looking dolls and stuffed animals by pasting those cute teddy bear decals over tote bags, and then cutting them out (much like how people made the shapes of hair), then going ham on the coloring settings and other tools to give them stitches and Coraline-style button eyes. I once got on the front page for using the tools to make my boutique look like the Power Puff Girls, and got completely overwhelmed with mail. I still use a lot of the design skills I learned here as an artist. I wish there were still cool and creative kids social media websites like this.
The production values are outta control! I wasn't ready for the hair crafting scene. 😂😂🤣 This Girlsense site had some truly complex outfit editing! Incredible to see the level of sophistication of it. Here's hoping you and Girlsense's many other fans are designing away sometime soon in a remake. I was never much of a fan of Flash games because to me the controls always felt "soft" and a bit frustrating. Steve Jobs' "Thoughts on Flash" was one of my favorite things to ever be posted to the internet (my bookmark to it is just a dead link now unfortunately). But Flash sure did enable some of the greatest wonders of the early internet, including Girlsense and its unbelievably intricate editor. This video essay was the perfect introduction to Girlsense, both informative and entertaining (I was either smiling or laughing through the whole thing). These essay videos really show what you're capable of as a content creator Lilly, really good job on this one! Favorite moment: 10:33 🤣😂🤣 🌟⭐⭐🤩🤩⭐⭐🌟🌟😁👍
I love this genre of video, I'm really glad more people have been cropping up to talk about these kinds of games because they are very underrepresented!
I would love to see you cover Cartoon Doll Emporium! I was so obsessed with it as a kid and was so sad when they shut down the virtual world aspect of the site.
I'm so happy I'm not the only one who was obsessed with CDE!!! I loved making my profile, avatar, raising a baby. It was so fun and I've never heard anyone talk about it.
I was looking through the comments to see if anyone was going to bring up CDE! I hadn't heard of girl sense till this, but it seems very similar to CDE. The basic social apects, the mini games, fashion focus, so so similar
i was looking for a comment about CDE! i missed the GirlSense craze, but i was all about CDE for years. there was endless content on that site, i miss it so much
@@tinydeers I miss CDE too! I haven't been able to find anything quite like it today. The closest thing I've found is Everskies and, while the dress-up aspect of it is amazing, the social aspect just isn't the same.
some of my most prized possessions are full page girlsense print ads from girl's life magazine. i literally have them framed on the wall above my sewing table bc girlsense was my favorite site as a kid and had a huge impact on me and def influenced me to make and sell clothes in real life :'^) one day i hope we can get girlsense back up somehow...
I was a fake boy growing up (until figuring out I'm actually trans) and man oh man did I feel called out. You just had to hit me with the "you probably play healers now"
This unlocked soooooo many buried memories. Basically everything you listed in the site overview had me going "OH OH OH I REMEMBER THAT!!" I spent ages on the make-a-wish board. If I recall correctly, the polls weren't too censored either; you couldn't put curse words in the questions or anything, but it didn't seem like anyone was moderating them, either. I DISTINCTLY remember putting up a poll asking if anyone ever wanted to be a boy, which in hindsight was really heavy-handed foreshadowing me being queer, lmao. I could never get the hang of the design tool, but I spent hours playing all the minigames. I didn't know about any of those big sites of flash games (except for girlsgogames and everythinggirl - God, I miss everythinggirl), so GirlSense was where I went to play all my platformers. In hindsight the aesthetic was totally all over the place and lowkey ugly, but honestly for me that's part of the charm. The early-to-mid 2000s were pretty zany in terms of fashion, and it felt like all the websites were trying to figure out wtf they were even doing in terms of graphics. The patchwork look of the site is very nostalgic for me.
I hope this site returns one day just so I can experience one more time. It had an interesting culture about it that was so unique to this site only. I know nothing about fashion but I remember I would design t-shirts and people loved them at action. I spent hours selling, chatting, going to another auction. The positive atmosphere was essential for my self-esteem during my preteen and young teen years.
Logging onto girlsense on a friday after school as a kid is one of my favorite memories. I used to spend HOURS at the computer updating my boutique while talking to my friend on the phone while she worked on hers. We would get so scared when a stranger would enter the auction chat and we wouldn't speak to them or we’d leave the chat haha. I loved the camp rock store so much- I totally forgot about it until you mentioned it in the video. I honestly had no idea how vast the site was. I remember some of the mini games or extra features but I really had no concept of how much was available at the time. When you brought up the graphic design elements of the site it kinda blew my mind because I never saw it that way when I was creating stuff, but it was totally a precursor to my love of graphic design today. I create graphics all the time for work or personal projects, so it's pretty crazy to see that come around full circle. I miss my boutique and I wish I could see it. I have no memory of how I left it, but I'm sure it was something kinda silly and cute. Thanks for making this, it brought back a lot of good memories. :)
i found your barbiegirls video yesterday and was hit with a massive wave of nostalgia!! i played that game obsessively as a kid and was glad to know it wasn't just a fever dream haha. i never visited girlsense, but this video is so interesting and well-researched!! cannot wait to see what you cover next! (i-dressup maybe? i feel like i'm the only person alive who remembers that website...)
I am digging through my memory here, but back in the early 2000’s you used to be able to access a few Girlsense games through AOL/KOL. I specifically remember playing the makeup and nail games over and over. All other parts of the site were paywalled, and then those games became inaccessible too. Watching this video was wild for me because I had no idea girlsense existed passed this payed model!
im so sad im only hearing about girlsense now ! i very much stuck to the same few websites as a kid so i missed a lot of stuff i wouldve fallen in love with, but i love hearing about all the things i never got to experience now and feeling an odd nostalgia for them. i am loving your videos so far, keep up the brilliant work ! : ]
HI I JUST WANNA SAY FROM THE FIRST TWO VIDEOS YOU'VE BECOME ONE OF MY FAVORITE CREATORS!!! It's really hard to find good video essays on fem aligned media and your stuff is hitting the spot pretty well, can't wait to see more from you! (Also the Lisa ost caught me so off guard but it's nice to hear someone add one of my favorite tracks)
for ages i was trying to remember the name of this site, nobody else i speak to played this but i was obsessed with it! mind making forum polls for random topics like 'who is the hottest emo singer'. thx for covering this and unlocking some nostalgia xx
I completely forgot the name of this site after I stopped playing it but I was obsessed with this as a kid!!!!! I thought I’d dreamed up the perfect website until I clicked on this video - thanks for covering it!!!
oh my god when i saw this on my recommended page i got so many memories hitting me all at once. i wasnt a very social kid so most of what i did was focus on creating the most awesome e boutique i could. my goal was always to get on the front page and i even managed to achieve it once..... i wish i still had screenshots of what i created and remember other creators i had met... thank you for letting me remember these wonderful memories
i have NEVER seen anyone talk about girlsense let alone kiddonet! Kiddonet was a HUGE part of my childhood- not sure anyone but me will care about this, but my mom worked at a summer camp for an all girls' school, so i usually got to fool around in the computer lab where i played tons of kiddonet & neopets. they're such a huge part of my childhood but i feel like no one ever talks about them!!! i think SO often about the bubble popping game that was on the loading screen to the cartoon dolls... thanks for talking about 'feminine' children's media that is now lost to the world. i watch a lot of lost media youtubers and so many of them disregard things like these sites.
Hey, so for those of you wondering. She is missing some context on what happened. Girlsense was bought out by Mind spark. Mind spark canned it and incorporated elements of Girlsense into another game of theirs called Zwinky via adding a design studio. Mind spark tanked itself little by little until I think they only have one website left.
fantastic job once again! your editing and narrative storytelling is sublime (and also has me cackling at times)! for all the virtual worlds and avatar customization games i’ve played i’m sad that i missed out on this one. kudos, can’t wait for your next video!
We were born in the late 00s and holy shit we are mad we missed out. We wanna play that so baddddd- we love fashion and graphic design and god we are manifesting that girlsense revival you suggested 🛐🛐
My sister and I were actually frequent users of the site pre-2007. Features like the e-boutique stayed mostly the same, however the biggest feature that got a complete overhaul was the fashion studio itself. It used to be a lot more limited, the clothing templates were either pixelated photo-realistic or much more cartoony, the stamps and accessories you could add would always look like a flat collage against the shaded background of the piece you applied them to, and there were only so many combinations you could come up with. Honestly as a kid I didn't spend much time on it until the switch, when they brought in the updated version you see in all of the tutorial videos on youtube. The whole environment was so much more immersive. The different manequins to choose from, the minimalist background, the new fabrics, the stamps, and the cutouts were all so inviting and the different blending modes that could be applied to each detail piece made it easier to sell the idea that you were creating an actual article of clothing instead of layering random pngs over a preexisting image of a shirt or dress. I still go back and rewatch the tutorials every once in a while for the memories. No other website I've seen ever came close to the amount of customization afforded to you as girlsense. I really wish someone would come along and make something similar, even if I had to pay a couple bucks a month to play it.
Man, I miss Girlsense. I think it's kind of interesting that when I was a kid, I loved designing my own fashion on this site. Now my main source of income is basically designing clothes for an avatar forum website. Some things never change I guess
This is like an unlocked memory for me! My friends and I would switch between GirlSense and Polyvore to make outfits for our Harry Potter OCs. SO much fun. Thank you for necromancing GirlSense back into my brain - I've sent this video to my friends haha!
the intro to that heart to get midi immediately had me thinking it was some kind of ultra-compressed bootleg of homewrecker by marina and then i realized that, sadly, that song didn't exist yet.
I am at least a decade (probably more) older than you, but it was popular enough that you may remember it, but i would totally love to see your summary of Neopets. Years of my childhood were spent caring for my “digital” pets 😅
I came here to talk about the awesome background music you pick- it’s like fun little Easter eggs! At the same time I can’t comment without talking about how awesome your content is in general. Not only the topics and the visuals, but your personality just pulls everything together! You have a vibe that makes it feel more like I’m hanging with an old friend than a random RUclipsr. You’re awesome🎉
this channel making me realize i have a Pavlovian response to the gaiaonline towns theme. the middle schooler hiding within me is bouncing in my skull.
After seeing all your videos up to this date, I'm starting to keep track how many BGMs you use that I recognize. There's Splatoon, Pokemon, Katamari, Miitomo, and Fur Fighters too, which I'd never thought anyone would use. Only thing more impressive than your choice of BGM is the quality of your videos. Keep it up! (Bonus points for using #8 Regret)
btw i was one of the kids who wasn't allowed on the internet outside of girlsense. I remember getting really good at navigating the youtube imbeds on GS because of that
OH MY GOD THANK YOU FOR THIS IVE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO DO A VIDEO ON THIS GAMEEEEE I WAS OBSESSED!!! Sorry for yelling. but oh my god. The ways you could create things in this game really geared me towards digital art i swear.
Oh my god 😭😭😭 I loved Girlsense so much. My signature design was a tank top coloured to look like the book cover for New Moon. Very reliable source of gcents.
Memories were unlocked by this video, holy crap. I remember briefly playing girlsense, but another game that was similar and that I was super obsessed with was called Roiworld. I was SUUUUPER obsessed with the Roi dress up games, so when I heard they had a dedicated site + the whole fashion designing aspect, I was a dedicated member.
Great video, and not to take away from it but those are really nice background music choices. The mother 3 and lisa ones fit so well and 10:03 (blue orb from katamari) is one of my favorite video game tracks :]
I’ve been searching for the name of this site for years. It was my childhood. It developed who I am. I remember crying the day the shut down announcements began.
Would you ever consider doing a video on the old Bella Sara website? It’s a game from the 2000s that was technically up until the death of flash, but was slowly breaking down ever since 2013 when a huge site glitch made it so that you couldn’t create a new account (and that’s when the OG company went defunct). I miss it dearly :(
I've been waiting years for someone to make a video like this! I loved girlsense as an tween/young teen and appreciated how creative you could be with the fashion design tools. It was my first time getting to use this kind of digital art tool, and I loved experimenting with making hair, posters for my fave tv shows (which at the time was glee lmao), and cartoon characters. Also, the community was my first exposure to the certain fashion subcultures like goth, scene, and lolita. I think the level of creative freedom this website offered was unlike any other kids website at the time, and was empowering for its young users. I'll always have a special place in my heart for this site
What a wonderful time for me to discover you! Last night I found your BarbieGirls video and immediately subscribed and turned on notifications, and then was blessed by you posting again right after returning from work for the day ❤
I don't know why but I've been binging Li's videos and yet this is the video that made me pause and go "wow...Li is so beautiful." I think the dark eye makeup really really suits you!!
I never played on Girlsense, but the design function (especially the hair!!) reminds me so much of Stardoll! I was so pissed as a young player that I didn't have any of the cool hairs the other players had, but then I learned how to make them myself lol
I was never on this side of the internet (I was a newgrounds and Gaia Online kind of kid) but I absolutely adore how you present media made for girls. Your presentation makes it so interesting to me, and after watching your videos I've also now rewatched them with my sister and got to see her eyes light up with nostalgia over these sites I had no clue even existed. Keep up the great work, I'm looking forward to more content from you!
Ugh I loved GirlSense as a young teen! I don't even remember how I found it, and almost forgot the name of the site altogether. I was absolutely in the emo/scene crowd, and mostly created cute little cupcakes to put in my boutique. One time I even got on the front page. :')
Gosh I remember this website but not because I ever played it… my older sister did, she’s 11 years older than me and I distinctly remember going to her apartment and watching her play. I wanted to play it myself but she said it wasn’t a kid’s game so I never got to play. I thought it was so cool that you could sell your designs to real people.
Omg the one where you could upload your own face....I totally remember doing that!!! I'm surprised by how detailed the fashion and icon creators were. Really great stuff for kids!
thank you so much for making a video about girlsense! it was one of the biggest parts of my childhood and i definitely think it helped give me an even stronger interest in art and fashion design than i already had (i'm now hoping to work in animation or doll design!). my mom was even one of the popular users! i have so many strong memories from it and i can't believe that there's not much discussion of it nowadays- there's never been anything on its level in terms of fashion customizability and design and i'm surprised nobody's tried to recreate it yet. i've been tempted to learn how to code solely for that reason so many times! and if it officially came back one day, i'd gladly pay a subscription fee.
I was the fake boy on many website growing up. Your assessment of fake boys playing healers now is so correct it’s scary 😅
oh thank god!!! i was considering cutting that bit because i was concerned people would be like “wtf are you talking about” 😂
@@lispeaks no no, I'm another who can also agree xD I love healers and same
Dang I didn't know there were so many others in this boy avatar to healer pipeline with me hahaha
@@siriusthecat haha yeah boi 🤟
XD apparently we all in this together being yelled at to heal people
(I also was the magic used in DND , people yelling at you to heal & fireball is a nightmare )
Legit… I was a fake boy for 10 years on toontown. I still feel extreme guilt for the girls hearts i broke 😟. But yes im def a healer type lol.
For years and years I’ve felt like I don’t know what to do on the internet anymore, like I used to spend hours on their internet and then one day the only thing left to do was scroll through Facebook. Watching this and being reminded of how GirlSense really did try to make their site the only one you’d ever need makes me realize just how much I missed having an internet “homebase”. Maybe it’s just because I’m not a kid anymore but it really feels like there used to just be so much more to DO online whereas now it feels like there’s only content to be consumed.
No I get that feeling too tbh There aren't actually sites like this anymore and it's kind of sad. The Internet low key got monopolized. It's really sad that this extremely important tool has been reduced to another money making machine. Which is why we have so few sites to exist on but it's totally legal to buy and sell citizens personal information.
I feel EXACTLY the same!! It went from having a good time on your own or with likeminded internet strangers, to a “who’s coolest?” Contest
I AM SO VALIDATED BY THIS VIDEO, I AM SITTING HERE AT MY GRAPHIC DESIGN JOB, OPEN-MOUTHED AND REALIZING THAT THIS WAS MY INTRO TO GRAPHIC DESIGN! I made so many emo hairstyles and invader zim inspired outfits oh my godddd!!! I was a GirlSense girlboss at the ripe age of 11!!!
I'm an art student too and I don't exactly know what job I wanna do but I might work in fashion. Girlsense was amazing it was kinda like photoshop for kids lol
@vernorexia682 hell yeah! Fashion is such fun to be involved in, although I was a graphic design student through and through, I sat in on lots of fashion lectures in college bc I was so into them
@@sydney9011 My college sadly doesn't have any fashion classes they sound so fun!
Not me reading this after going on a creative tear and designing 130 logos in less than 24hrs. Thank you for this comment!!!! I did not make the connection at all but it’s so clear!
I think you know what you need to do now.... Make another girlsense website 😂
i was a stardoll kid and never even heard of girlsense until today and now i'm a bit jealous
yeah for me, stardoll was the thing my lil sis played. stardoll was like the nicer and eventually more popular site but girlsense was wayyy more fun and cooler.
Same, both me and my brother loved. Even though VIPs made us feel poor 🥲
Also a stardoll kid. If i knew this site also existed i wouldve eaten it up
I was a stardoll kid and discovered girlsense just before it disappeared. Im still heartbroken to this day
OMG STARDOLL
I remember the INSANELY realistic animated characters that people would make out of dresses that sold for like 999,999 G-cents in auctions. If you got one by chance in an auction with low traffic it was on par with winning the lottery 😂
I remember those!! Emo SpongeBob was my favourite 😂
Can’t believe I made it in the video at 6:08. I remember being so young, and not really a creative person, but girlsense made me love art, and anything I could create. It was such a simpler time back then and I can’t believe it shut down 10 years ago. I’m 23 now but I still have very fond memories of this game. Thank you for reliving my childhood.
I also remember blatantly, not having many friends at school at the time, so instead of recess, I would go to the computer lab and spend hours designing on this game. it was such an outlet for me at the time. I’m so glad your channel came up in my recommended because so far you have covered two games of my childhood that were my forms of escapism that were beloved, but fell to the wayside. Please keep up the high-quality and your sweet personality. You are a natural.
@@luvngold1 it's incredible to me that you found your own boutique on this video!! looking through all the old girlsense youtube videos it makes me really regret not learning how to record my computer screen while i was still on all these virtual worlds that i now want to talk about. these kids with unregistered hypercam didn't even realize that they were future lost media pioneers!
I CAN'T WAIT TO WATCH THIS, SO MANY MEMORIES
i hope you love it and congratulations on your engagement!
Wait what....?
@@cindyscrawly1672 she got engaged to be married recently
I very much dislike you
@@mintydraws3962 That's okay! I hope you have a good day anyway!
I was absolutely one of those fake boys, and I feel SO seen. I do play healers, and I did turn out to be trans masculine. Girlsense was 100% a building block in my young development and while I don't think I miss her, she'll always hold a place of respect in my heart xoxo
I was also a fake boy and I'm transmasc too, lol. This was on Animal Jam though. I never did get into the dating scene even though I really wanted to because the guilt of breaking a random girl's heart was too much for ten year old me, lmao!
the fake boy to trans/gay pipeline is real
@@crypticcorvid that's so cute😭
@@crypticcorvid The guilt was real. I'm ftm now, but when I was a kid I would play as a boy on sites like this and I would always feel so bad about "tricking" girls into dating me.
@@crypticcorvid HEHEHE SAMESIES DUDE!! i always always alllways roleplayed as a guy, especially in those highschool rps LOL
I used enter every auction by saying “what’s up bit cheese?!” Just realized my nine year old self was ruining it for other people… sorry everyone!
this is the funniest thing I’ve read today
hyperventilating about bit cheese
no wait bit cheese is really funny, youre forgiven
i . stared at this like what is bit cheese. until i realized. i am in my 20s. help me
@@conarcoin its ok bit cheese
I was the fake boy and I am now a lesbian and a healer! thank you 2000s internet games
honestly same
Honestly same lol
I was the fake boy only some of the time and now I’m bisexual and play flex queue
Do y'all remember girlsense having a playlist system thing?? like they had a huge music bank of songs from a wide variety of artists. I remember playing panic at the disco and lady gaga songs while editing my boutique lmao
I think Stardoll had the same thing
i-Dressup had something like that for boutiques, so you might be thinking of that… if not the Girlsense widgets mentioned in the video?
i remember ty girls used to have one!! they'd play glamorous by fergie all the time among tons of other 2000s hits !! it was my fav
i'm obSESSED with how you deliver content.... i'd never heard of this site but now i'm feeling nostalgic for so many other dressup worlds lost to time. plus the gaia towns music.... good LORD. where my chatterbox regs at
do you have a twitter available to follow?? i'd love to keep up with your process and reminisce about online worlds!!
i’ve reserved the handle lispeaks_ but it’s empty at the moment! i quit twitter a while ago lol it’s a lot
@@lispeaks i don't blame u in the slightest fr,,,, if u ever decide to make some sort of community account and add it to your page/vid description i'd love to follow!
@@yolklorduuuude gaia towns.... that website is just ruined rn, and I loved it so much when I was a kid :(
Had i known about this, i would have adored this game. The Style Savvy Games on the DS and 3DS were my life! I put hours on hours in them and honestly, the last one is still so much fun! It truly feels like a final game though, with all the stuff that was put into it
The first style savvy probably has my highest time spent in any game. Ive maxed out rpgs and pokemon over 300hrs, but style savvy was just so easy.
The team behind Style Savvy is making a new game! It’s not called Style Savvy but it’s coming out later this year for Switch! The game is called Fashion Dreamer ❤ Im so excited, I never had a style savvy game growing up 😊
OMG STYLE SAVVY
I used to spend hours on this site manipulating the tools to get a certain look I wanted. it was NEVER as good as the popular users on the site ( i was trash). im SO glad someone FINALLY made a video on this because this site introduced me to graphic design features and opened my eyes to ways to use the internet and my computer that a lot of people didnt know how to use. I am about to graduate with my degree in computer engineering so I see where my origin story came from, lol! This site literally lives rent-free in my head all the time
Same mine was always so bad 😅
Girlsense was my life from 2010-2012! A few thoughts:
- After the closure, there was a user who attempted to make GirlSense 2 and it did pretty well. I can’t recall the name of it rn…
- There were role playing groups which were also very explicit. People got away with saying banned words by typing words that were similar enough to get the message across.
-Same goes for using the fashion design tool. If you can figure out how to shade a dress with paint splotches, then you can definitely figure out how to make adult content on there…
Thank you for this video! You have made me feel seen!
Was the "Girlsense 2" Designers Society?
i remember being a fake boy in an auction at night doing a role-play. like "i bought your ear and such your toes" 😂
@@ihatethiswebsite614 YESS!!
I swear girlsense is what pipelined me down the graphic design career path
holy snap. after 10 whole years of remembering the game but spending many fruitless nights on google being unable look up anything due to not remembering the name, you did it. you unlocked the final key in my memory.
FINALLY SOMEONE MAKES A VIDEO RETROSPECTIVE ABOUT GIRLSENSE. it's been quite a while since its shutdown but even as an adult i miss this site every day
your videos are incredibly well produced especially for being such a new channel. i hope to see you cover pixie hollow or cartoon doll emporium some time!! 💌
thank you SO much for making that comment. i've been trying to remember the name of cartoon doll emporium for like. a decade. i thought for sure it was always going to be "that website with the prettiest dress up games i ever played"
@@sentimentalexis oh my gosh of course!! it was one of my favourites and i literally never see coverage on it! i’m still so sad it got shut down. even though i’m 24 now i still love to play my childhood games every now and then 💕
GOD the number of memories I have of spending hours on Cartoon Doll Emporium...most of which was spent on the forums once I learned of their existence. Good times.
She has another channel that is asmr. So she has experience making videos. I love this new channel!
Yesss I loved this game! My thing was to make goth-looking dolls and stuffed animals by pasting those cute teddy bear decals over tote bags, and then cutting them out (much like how people made the shapes of hair), then going ham on the coloring settings and other tools to give them stitches and Coraline-style button eyes. I once got on the front page for using the tools to make my boutique look like the Power Puff Girls, and got completely overwhelmed with mail.
I still use a lot of the design skills I learned here as an artist. I wish there were still cool and creative kids social media websites like this.
The production values are outta control! I wasn't ready for the hair crafting scene. 😂😂🤣 This Girlsense site had some truly complex outfit editing! Incredible to see the level of sophistication of it. Here's hoping you and Girlsense's many other fans are designing away sometime soon in a remake. I was never much of a fan of Flash games because to me the controls always felt "soft" and a bit frustrating. Steve Jobs' "Thoughts on Flash" was one of my favorite things to ever be posted to the internet (my bookmark to it is just a dead link now unfortunately). But Flash sure did enable some of the greatest wonders of the early internet, including Girlsense and its unbelievably intricate editor. This video essay was the perfect introduction to Girlsense, both informative and entertaining (I was either smiling or laughing through the whole thing). These essay videos really show what you're capable of as a content creator Lilly, really good job on this one! Favorite moment: 10:33 🤣😂🤣 🌟⭐⭐🤩🤩⭐⭐🌟🌟😁👍
Thank you so much Daryl, this channel has been growing quickly the last few days and that has been very encouraging
I love this genre of video, I'm really glad more people have been cropping up to talk about these kinds of games because they are very underrepresented!
I would love to see you cover Cartoon Doll Emporium! I was so obsessed with it as a kid and was so sad when they shut down the virtual world aspect of the site.
I'm so happy I'm not the only one who was obsessed with CDE!!! I loved making my profile, avatar, raising a baby. It was so fun and I've never heard anyone talk about it.
I was looking through the comments to see if anyone was going to bring up CDE! I hadn't heard of girl sense till this, but it seems very similar to CDE. The basic social apects, the mini games, fashion focus, so so similar
i was looking for a comment about CDE! i missed the GirlSense craze, but i was all about CDE for years. there was endless content on that site, i miss it so much
@@tinydeers I miss CDE too! I haven't been able to find anything quite like it today. The closest thing I've found is Everskies and, while the dress-up aspect of it is amazing, the social aspect just isn't the same.
some of my most prized possessions are full page girlsense print ads from girl's life magazine. i literally have them framed on the wall above my sewing table bc girlsense was my favorite site as a kid and had a huge impact on me and def influenced me to make and sell clothes in real life :'^) one day i hope we can get girlsense back up somehow...
I was a fake boy growing up (until figuring out I'm actually trans) and man oh man did I feel called out. You just had to hit me with the "you probably play healers now"
This unlocked soooooo many buried memories. Basically everything you listed in the site overview had me going "OH OH OH I REMEMBER THAT!!" I spent ages on the make-a-wish board. If I recall correctly, the polls weren't too censored either; you couldn't put curse words in the questions or anything, but it didn't seem like anyone was moderating them, either. I DISTINCTLY remember putting up a poll asking if anyone ever wanted to be a boy, which in hindsight was really heavy-handed foreshadowing me being queer, lmao. I could never get the hang of the design tool, but I spent hours playing all the minigames. I didn't know about any of those big sites of flash games (except for girlsgogames and everythinggirl - God, I miss everythinggirl), so GirlSense was where I went to play all my platformers.
In hindsight the aesthetic was totally all over the place and lowkey ugly, but honestly for me that's part of the charm. The early-to-mid 2000s were pretty zany in terms of fashion, and it felt like all the websites were trying to figure out wtf they were even doing in terms of graphics. The patchwork look of the site is very nostalgic for me.
the danganronpa music in the background during the fashion designer segment brought back so many memories
I hope this site returns one day just so I can experience one more time. It had an interesting culture about it that was so unique to this site only. I know nothing about fashion but I remember I would design t-shirts and people loved them at action. I spent hours selling, chatting, going to another auction. The positive atmosphere was essential for my self-esteem during my preteen and young teen years.
Logging onto girlsense on a friday after school as a kid is one of my favorite memories. I used to spend HOURS at the computer updating my boutique while talking to my friend on the phone while she worked on hers. We would get so scared when a stranger would enter the auction chat and we wouldn't speak to them or we’d leave the chat haha. I loved the camp rock store so much- I totally forgot about it until you mentioned it in the video. I honestly had no idea how vast the site was. I remember some of the mini games or extra features but I really had no concept of how much was available at the time. When you brought up the graphic design elements of the site it kinda blew my mind because I never saw it that way when I was creating stuff, but it was totally a precursor to my love of graphic design today. I create graphics all the time for work or personal projects, so it's pretty crazy to see that come around full circle.
I miss my boutique and I wish I could see it. I have no memory of how I left it, but I'm sure it was something kinda silly and cute. Thanks for making this, it brought back a lot of good memories. :)
i found your barbiegirls video yesterday and was hit with a massive wave of nostalgia!! i played that game obsessively as a kid and was glad to know it wasn't just a fever dream haha. i never visited girlsense, but this video is so interesting and well-researched!! cannot wait to see what you cover next! (i-dressup maybe? i feel like i'm the only person alive who remembers that website...)
I am digging through my memory here, but back in the early 2000’s you used to be able to access a few Girlsense games through AOL/KOL. I specifically remember playing the makeup and nail games over and over. All other parts of the site were paywalled, and then those games became inaccessible too. Watching this video was wild for me because I had no idea girlsense existed passed this payed model!
was not expecting to be hit with cult of the lamb at 4:54. what a gamer you are, li
im so sad im only hearing about girlsense now ! i very much stuck to the same few websites as a kid so i missed a lot of stuff i wouldve fallen in love with, but i love hearing about all the things i never got to experience now and feeling an odd nostalgia for them. i am loving your videos so far, keep up the brilliant work ! : ]
HI I JUST WANNA SAY FROM THE FIRST TWO VIDEOS YOU'VE BECOME ONE OF MY FAVORITE CREATORS!!! It's really hard to find good video essays on fem aligned media and your stuff is hitting the spot pretty well, can't wait to see more from you! (Also the Lisa ost caught me so off guard but it's nice to hear someone add one of my favorite tracks)
for ages i was trying to remember the name of this site, nobody else i speak to played this but i was obsessed with it! mind making forum polls for random topics like 'who is the hottest emo singer'. thx for covering this and unlocking some nostalgia xx
I completely forgot the name of this site after I stopped playing it but I was obsessed with this as a kid!!!!! I thought I’d dreamed up the perfect website until I clicked on this video - thanks for covering it!!!
This site was a big reason why I'm a graphic designer today. LOL
oh my god when i saw this on my recommended page i got so many memories hitting me all at once. i wasnt a very social kid so most of what i did was focus on creating the most awesome e boutique i could. my goal was always to get on the front page and i even managed to achieve it once..... i wish i still had screenshots of what i created and remember other creators i had met... thank you for letting me remember these wonderful memories
Why are you so spot on with the 'Fake boy to Healer" Analysis
i have NEVER seen anyone talk about girlsense let alone kiddonet! Kiddonet was a HUGE part of my childhood- not sure anyone but me will care about this, but my mom worked at a summer camp for an all girls' school, so i usually got to fool around in the computer lab where i played tons of kiddonet & neopets. they're such a huge part of my childhood but i feel like no one ever talks about them!!! i think SO often about the bubble popping game that was on the loading screen to the cartoon dolls...
thanks for talking about 'feminine' children's media that is now lost to the world. i watch a lot of lost media youtubers and so many of them disregard things like these sites.
Hey, so for those of you wondering. She is missing some context on what happened.
Girlsense was bought out by Mind spark. Mind spark canned it and incorporated elements of Girlsense into another game of theirs called Zwinky via adding a design studio. Mind spark tanked itself little by little until I think they only have one website left.
I’m a bit late, but you for bringing this up.
You did *NOT* have to call me out with that healer statement LOL I audibly gasped
fantastic job once again! your editing and narrative storytelling is sublime (and also has me cackling at times)! for all the virtual worlds and avatar customization games i’ve played i’m sad that i missed out on this one. kudos, can’t wait for your next video!
I won a ipod from a girlsense contest, it was the best site for creating things next to Polyvore.
Polyvore that’s another core memory. I remember getting girlsense inspo from there back in the day
Found your channel today and had to watch every video, i love them
I'm so sad that my young self never knew about Girlsense, I can tell from your video that I would have LOVED it.
We were born in the late 00s and holy shit we are mad we missed out. We wanna play that so baddddd- we love fashion and graphic design and god we are manifesting that girlsense revival you suggested 🛐🛐
My sister and I were actually frequent users of the site pre-2007. Features like the e-boutique stayed mostly the same, however the biggest feature that got a complete overhaul was the fashion studio itself. It used to be a lot more limited, the clothing templates were either pixelated photo-realistic or much more cartoony, the stamps and accessories you could add would always look like a flat collage against the shaded background of the piece you applied them to, and there were only so many combinations you could come up with. Honestly as a kid I didn't spend much time on it until the switch, when they brought in the updated version you see in all of the tutorial videos on youtube. The whole environment was so much more immersive. The different manequins to choose from, the minimalist background, the new fabrics, the stamps, and the cutouts were all so inviting and the different blending modes that could be applied to each detail piece made it easier to sell the idea that you were creating an actual article of clothing instead of layering random pngs over a preexisting image of a shirt or dress. I still go back and rewatch the tutorials every once in a while for the memories. No other website I've seen ever came close to the amount of customization afforded to you as girlsense. I really wish someone would come along and make something similar, even if I had to pay a couple bucks a month to play it.
i was convinced no one else remembered this site, i LOVED it. i found this video in my search for nostalgic GS videos! made my day, thankyou
ok holy shit i thought i've never heard of girlsense before but that manicure game just unlocked a memory, oh my god. thank you
I like how RUclips has been suggesting some really good channels lately. This video unlocked a memory with me
Man, I miss Girlsense. I think it's kind of interesting that when I was a kid, I loved designing my own fashion on this site. Now my main source of income is basically designing clothes for an avatar forum website. Some things never change I guess
And with this video, I have officially binged all of your videos. Damnit
As soon as I saw that intro making the "wig" I had so many memories flood back lol
This is like an unlocked memory for me! My friends and I would switch between GirlSense and Polyvore to make outfits for our Harry Potter OCs. SO much fun. Thank you for necromancing GirlSense back into my brain - I've sent this video to my friends haha!
“Uploaded 1 minute ago”? How did I happen upon this at this exact moment? Lol
i have been waiting for yeeeeeears for a girlsense retrospective. THANK YOU SO MUCH
the intro to that heart to get midi immediately had me thinking it was some kind of ultra-compressed bootleg of homewrecker by marina and then i realized that, sadly, that song didn't exist yet.
I love the spinning chibi Li at the end. It would make a good plushie.
I am at least a decade (probably more) older than you, but it was popular enough that you may remember it, but i would totally love to see your summary of Neopets. Years of my childhood were spent caring for my “digital” pets 😅
I came here to talk about the awesome background music you pick- it’s like fun little Easter eggs! At the same time I can’t comment without talking about how awesome your content is in general. Not only the topics and the visuals, but your personality just pulls everything together! You have a vibe that makes it feel more like I’m hanging with an old friend than a random RUclipsr. You’re awesome🎉
this channel making me realize i have a Pavlovian response to the gaiaonline towns theme. the middle schooler hiding within me is bouncing in my skull.
Wow, this unlocked a hidden memory. I almost forgot that I spent much of my childhood playing this game. Such good times.
i've been casually watching your videos from time to time but what convinced me to truly commit and subscribe to you was this exact moment 10:30
i truly felt my hidden memories unlock at the nail-painting noise and the creepy eyes on the make up game
After seeing all your videos up to this date, I'm starting to keep track how many BGMs you use that I recognize. There's Splatoon, Pokemon, Katamari, Miitomo, and Fur Fighters too, which I'd never thought anyone would use.
Only thing more impressive than your choice of BGM is the quality of your videos. Keep it up!
(Bonus points for using #8 Regret)
I used to play so much girlsense that TO THIS DAY i still see stamp and cutout shapes everywhere I look.
btw i was one of the kids who wasn't allowed on the internet outside of girlsense. I remember getting really good at navigating the youtube imbeds on GS because of that
OH MY GOD THANK YOU FOR THIS IVE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO DO A VIDEO ON THIS GAMEEEEE I WAS OBSESSED!!! Sorry for yelling. but oh my god. The ways you could create things in this game really geared me towards digital art i swear.
Also fake boy clubbbb
The danganronpa/splatoon music always caches me off guard, it’s like “hey wait a minute I know this”
ive been watching all of your videos and your music taste is so sick! the LISA and hotline miami music is top tier
Your videos are so nostalgic and kind of cosy and comforting? Takes me back to a simpler time, I love it. You’re already one of my fave RUclipsrs 🌺
Oh my god 😭😭😭 I loved Girlsense so much. My signature design was a tank top coloured to look like the book cover for New Moon. Very reliable source of gcents.
Memories were unlocked by this video, holy crap.
I remember briefly playing girlsense, but another game that was similar and that I was super obsessed with was called Roiworld. I was SUUUUPER obsessed with the Roi dress up games, so when I heard they had a dedicated site + the whole fashion designing aspect, I was a dedicated member.
woah, i actually didn’t know they had a fashion designer? i’ll have to look into that, i loved roiworld games
OH MY GOD OR WAS IT STARDOLL?? I DONT REMEMBER ANYTHING CLEARLY AHAHAEHGERAHAE
haha that’s reasonable, there’s a lot of overlap in these games and i still don’t even know for sure if roiworld had a fashion designer game or not
OH MY GOD ROIWORLD THAT TAKES ME BACK
@@Ninitendo oh my god, YOU UNDERSTAND ME
The absolute flashbang of Pascal's Village theme popping up in this video. Li's got TASTE.
Thanks for yet another brill video
i have no memory of ever being on this site but i remember the games for some reason
I love these videos because as kid who didn’t have any friends and spent all of their time playing these games online they are so nostalgic 😭
wish upon a star unlocked a core childhood memory of mine. wow, still processing
Great video, and not to take away from it but those are really nice background music choices. The mother 3 and lisa ones fit so well and 10:03 (blue orb from katamari) is one of my favorite video game tracks :]
blue orb is literally my favorite song from the katamari series when i heard it i got so excited
I don't understand why you don't have more subs- you literally sound like you have been doing this for three years.
Keep up the amazing work! :)
I’ve been searching for the name of this site for years. It was my childhood. It developed who I am. I remember crying the day the shut down announcements began.
I miss girlsense :/ seeing some of the old design patterns and fabrics in this video made me so nostalgic
Would you ever consider doing a video on the old Bella Sara website? It’s a game from the 2000s that was technically up until the death of flash, but was slowly breaking down ever since 2013 when a huge site glitch made it so that you couldn’t create a new account (and that’s when the OG company went defunct). I miss it dearly :(
I've been waiting years for someone to make a video like this! I loved girlsense as an tween/young teen and appreciated how creative you could be with the fashion design tools. It was my first time getting to use this kind of digital art tool, and I loved experimenting with making hair, posters for my fave tv shows (which at the time was glee lmao), and cartoon characters. Also, the community was my first exposure to the certain fashion subcultures like goth, scene, and lolita. I think the level of creative freedom this website offered was unlike any other kids website at the time, and was empowering for its young users. I'll always have a special place in my heart for this site
Imagine the cosplays people could make in a modern day version!!
What a wonderful time for me to discover you! Last night I found your BarbieGirls video and immediately subscribed and turned on notifications, and then was blessed by you posting again right after returning from work for the day ❤
I am so glad to see someone else talk about kidonet. Your videos are awesome.
Just got recommended your other video then saw this one got posted? ty for the good content while I wash dishes
The midi part was hilarious 😆 I’m so glad I stumbled upon your page! I’m subscribing. Hope to enjoy more of your content and fun commentary!
I don't know why but I've been binging Li's videos and yet this is the video that made me pause and go "wow...Li is so beautiful." I think the dark eye makeup really really suits you!!
The midi scene caught me by surprise lmao!!! Excellent video!!!
this website has haunted me for years because i couldn’t think of the name of it :,-) i would be on this website everyday for a whole summer
I never played on Girlsense, but the design function (especially the hair!!) reminds me so much of Stardoll! I was so pissed as a young player that I didn't have any of the cool hairs the other players had, but then I learned how to make them myself lol
I was never on this side of the internet (I was a newgrounds and Gaia Online kind of kid) but I absolutely adore how you present media made for girls. Your presentation makes it so interesting to me, and after watching your videos I've also now rewatched them with my sister and got to see her eyes light up with nostalgia over these sites I had no clue even existed. Keep up the great work, I'm looking forward to more content from you!
Ugh I loved GirlSense as a young teen! I don't even remember how I found it, and almost forgot the name of the site altogether. I was absolutely in the emo/scene crowd, and mostly created cute little cupcakes to put in my boutique. One time I even got on the front page. :')
Gosh I remember this website but not because I ever played it… my older sister did, she’s 11 years older than me and I distinctly remember going to her apartment and watching her play. I wanted to play it myself but she said it wasn’t a kid’s game so I never got to play. I thought it was so cool that you could sell your designs to real people.
FINALLY SOMETHING ABOUT THIS WEBSITE!! i loved it so dearly and got my first hate mail ever on it
Omg the one where you could upload your own face....I totally remember doing that!!! I'm surprised by how detailed the fashion and icon creators were. Really great stuff for kids!
When you put on the fake fabric wig I literally screamed out loud. Omg the resemblance is uncanny. 😭😂
thank you so much for making a video about girlsense! it was one of the biggest parts of my childhood and i definitely think it helped give me an even stronger interest in art and fashion design than i already had (i'm now hoping to work in animation or doll design!). my mom was even one of the popular users! i have so many strong memories from it and i can't believe that there's not much discussion of it nowadays- there's never been anything on its level in terms of fashion customizability and design and i'm surprised nobody's tried to recreate it yet. i've been tempted to learn how to code solely for that reason so many times! and if it officially came back one day, i'd gladly pay a subscription fee.
I love your videos, i'm addicted to them!!!!!!!! ur voice is so soothing and clear