A 2019 scare in which rumors circulated that Cool Math Games would be shut down led many, including myself, to take stock and revisit their flash game nostalgia. Cool Math Games, GirlsGoGames, and websites of the like are seemingly from a different world: one in which typing was a skill to learn at school rather than developed in one’s infancy on an iPad; where schools had computer labs packed full of 20-pound monitors of varying ages and reliability rather than portable carts filled with sleek Chromebooks. (I’d wax poetic about the wheeled television cart and its accompanying Ratatouille or Finding Nemo VHS — now replaced by…a Netflix subscription — but for fear of alienating our incoming Class of 2027 altogether, I’ll stop here.)

This world, quickly disappearing, was one in which gaudy websites overrun by ads and five-minute graphics had obvious (and lucrative) entertainment value and cultural impact. They are the fruit of a time on the internet where, when there was nothing to do, kids needed help finding something to do. Apart from the assault of advertising, sites like Miniclip, Cool Math, GirlsGoGames, and more not only offered thousands of games (many of which were created by small teams of developers) for free, but did so in a way that felt intentional for children. According to Cool Math, their website was born from a teacher named Karen who wanted to make a way for kids to learn math through fun games. Girls Go Games — blindingly pink, sparkly, ruled by dress-up and doll games — was (and still is) drenched in the kid-core of the time (those of us who grew up wearing Justice or envying those who did, you know what I’m talking about). 

In many ways, the fall in popularity of these sites is a practical one. The 2019 Cool Math scare was actually rooted in Microsoft’s announcement that it would end support for Adobe Flash Player, the once-dominant software used to play and stream countless online games and videos. Its discontinuation left many browser-based gaming websites with a gutted catalog of games and left many of their developers with the choice to either abandon their project or reconfigure their games for different software. And why should Microsoft continue to support Flash if they decide its upkeep is more trouble than it’s worth? Why should kids play Papa’s Pizzeria or The Impossible Quiz when Fortnite is free (or free-ish, microtransactions notwithstanding)? Won’t the death of Flash and the slow demise of browser-based gaming websites make way for new entertainment that kids find fun and meaningful? 

I won’t measure my nostalgia against that of the kids growing up on Roblox and Fortnite. I will say, though, that the spark of online spaces intentionally centered around kids is one that I miss, and I’m not alone. As of April 2022, Miniclip has gutted their online website to focus on mobile games. Nickelodeon and Disney abandoned their online games, supposedly focusing their time and money on Bizaardvark and world domination. Club Penguin closed its virtual doors. There are some equivalents, but they don’t feel the same: the Animal Crossing games, for me, capture the spirit of GirlsGoGames’ offerings but lock it behind consoles and paid DLCs. Games like Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite vary in their degrees of accessibility and cost and don’t feel as decidedly childish. 

Time spent online continues to become more and more integrated with social and cultural standing, with tweets blurring into inside jokes and viral TikToks evolving into generational vernacular. That said, we’ve become comfortable with the crowding of all ages onto online platforms, and websites like GirlsGoGames are proof that we didn’t used to be. There was an importance to spending time online surrounded by other kids, on platforms where accidentally misspelling “duck” would get you banned in seconds. While Minecraft and the like have comment regulation systems, they are easily circumventable and, by virtue of the broad span of ages on the platforms, can hardly claim to be child-centric. This isn’t to say that children are perfect angels online; the potential for online depravity knows no bounds. But there’s something sacred about a platform that gives space for kids to be depraved around other kids — and something unsettling about growing up online surrounded by people much older than you, simply because it’s no longer lucrative to invest in spaces only for children.

Hopefully I haven’t overstated the virtues of websites like GirlsGoGames. Even on these sites, there was plenty of non-child-friendly content to be found. The issues of advertising to kids and microtransactions aren’t too different from slathering your website in sketchy ads. Twenty years from now (assuming we make it that far), the Class of 2037 will be reminiscing about their own flavor of the good old days. Nostalgia can only be rationalized so far, and maybe today’s kids do feel the same magic that I felt playing Poptropica during 4th grade computer lab. I would just hope that, as more and more growing up happens online, kids can find virtual sandboxes — or dressing rooms, or donuterias — to play in with other kids, like I did.