WARNING: LONG BLOG AHEAD
TL;DR: TENGAGED TURNS 13 YEARS OLD, I RECAP OLD NOSTALGIA-Y STUFF. Please plus.
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As Yoshitomi alluded to back in February, the 16th of May is Tengaged's thirteenth anniversary! That's right, our favorite website is now of age of register for itself. This site ranks is ranked 300,433th in the world.
In honor of 13 years, some great, some bad, some iconic, some pandemic, this site has gone through A LOT over the years. According to Tengaged.com's Alexa results, one of the major source of NEW traffic to the site comes from people looking for Big brother nudes I guess... although I was MIA for the unmoderated chapters of this site so maybe that was an accurate search term? No idea. The keywords NOT driving people to the site but are sending them to related sites: big brother spoilers, mortys big brother, big brother 20 spoilers: I suck at coding but I think randomize could do things in the code to boost our Google profile, thus leading to more NEW traffic, leading to NEW users and growth and development. At some point, I think it would be wise for randomize to expand the administrative staff (beyond just moderators) to help with site updates and maitenence, implementing new games and features, marketing, support, etc.
But let's look back in Tengaged HISTORY.
The year: 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080518095751im_/http://static.tengaged.com/ad-2-index.png
The first castings (#6689) debuted on May 16th, 2008. The game included TEN players ENGAGED in a virtual Big Brother, with @PJtark winning the first game. It cost 6Ts to enroll. Starting with the second day, players would be nominated based on activity. Those who sent less than 3 messages per day had more chances to be nominated, so you were rewarded based on SOCIAL skills, not FLASH GAME skill or key stalking. Three people would be nominated each day and all the other house mates would vote with 3, 2, 1 to each of the nominated players.
By October of 2008, rookies would be added (introducing HOH, POV, and "key ceremonies" to the site), in addition to betting on rookies (including YOUR KARMA). Stars was also introduced, the first game won by Grayson10001. Auctions were introcuced, with only the elite and successful users being able to afford original and custom designs, each avatar with designs unique to the next.
Auctions would lead to the creation of the Shopping game in 2009, with 6 shops competing and the top 3 moving on. Originally, shops were reserved pretty exclusively for people who could, you know, actually design, like Vessa, NoelSarah, Wonderland, trishytrash, BlueStar, among many who would follow, until it devolved into our current shopping system. In October 2009, Survivor was introduced to the site, with an orange level requirement. In July 2010, The Duel (suggested by Abrogate) was introduced. By 2010, three stars giveaways took place, as did 100 stars, with Tengaged already 2 years old and lots of iconic users birthed during these first years. 2010 also saw the first All Stars, with some of Tengaged's most iconic winners competing with Maggie winning.
Also worth noting: randomize introduced Tengaged.BR as a companion site to our Portuguese speaking friends (I think in 2009?) followed by Tengaged.ES in 2010 for our Spanish community (although both have since been merged into .com), creating the wonderful multi-lingual community we have today.
In 2010, randomize added 5 more color levels beyond black - silver, gold, sky, blood, and TV Star.
Lots of drama ensued over the years, as minor changes were made to the site design, but overall, the only major changes would be whoever would be the mod of the moment- from the GInny era, to the BioDork era, to the Johneh era, to the amartin era, DinoM, NoelSarah, JustMe, to our current crew. One of the few big additions was Hunger Games in like...2010/2011.
Flash forward 2020: the world is in a pandemic and many are forced to be on their computers, which ultimately led to moderators being added again, with @Lexxxy and @Aquamarine, and later koolness234, @CheepCheap, brandonpinzu. Changes were made, like orange noses being added to the nose punishments, with simpizzlekeefe and Danielledonato become the first users to be "orange nosed" in February. This led to the formation of the Tengaged COuncil or whatever that I was not invited to for some reason. Lots of rules were re-implemented after years of chaos, porn, and bigotry running rampant. Lots of pedophiles were purged from the site, with Tengaged standing up to grooming, predatory, and abusive behavior that had become commonplace, although work is still being done on this front. Just in time for Tengaged to turn 13, so hopefully Mr. Peeps doesn't try to come back so he can flirt with the site.
Happy birthday Tengaged! I have really fond memories and wish I could have more detailed recaps of each and every year and the big moments that occured. We all have our own, relationships that were fostered, grown, or burned, good or bad, and something that keeps us coming back. I never imagined I would spend more than a late night on here in 2009 after seeing farside or Drench or someone in that crew link it on another site. I never intended on returning and my brief return was only supposed to be that. But since I am here, let's celebrate. Here's to many more! Feliz cumplea帽os, Tengaged!
Wow, I鈥檓 always blown away with your memory. I鈥檓 surprised that all those games got added in such a short period of time, it didn鈥檛 seem that way when living it lol
WARNING: LONG BLOG AHEAD