As the internet continues to develop and age, there is one part that seems to continue to fade away in existence. Of course, that is online mascots! In the current age of the internet, it seems like they have gone extinct.  

One may ask the question, “What is an online mascot?” I would define this specific type of character to be from the 1990’s to early 2010’s, and they typically were made into mascots incidentally. Some examples of this would be the dancing banana, doge, troll face, Nyan cat, the “You are an idiot” smiley faces, and many more. Often, these characters would be created in the form of a prank or meme. While it would not be terribly difficult to find some of these being used in the modern online age, it will not be anywhere near as common as they used to be.  

While these silly characters may not have any true significance, they bring together a since of nostalgia. Remembering a time when the internet was much different, and it felt much more peaceful. Of course, there were lots of bad things from that time, but it was just different. Could it simply be because we were younger and are romanticizing that time in our lives? Or perhaps, it truly was a better time on the internet. Imagine this, you can scroll forums and chatrooms freely without being bombarded with advertisements. That is what I like to remember from when I was younger on the internet. 

While a lot of us were too young to be on the internet and likely have some long-lasting issues because of that, we are still able to look back to this time. So once again, the question arises of “How do online mascots correlate to this?” That is simple, it resembles a time on the internet that felt far less serious, where you could post odd and too personal things, and there would not be consequences. In many communities that bring back memorabilia and nostalgia from childhood, many of these characters show up. For example, in some subcultures, these pieces of the 2000’s are a key feature within their lives. It is a way to remember nice times, even if they were not as nice as we remember.