My Habbo Hotel Experience

The year is 2001 and I am 8 years old. We have dial-up internet at home, and I am playing around on the computer. Somehow, I stumble upon habbohotel.co.uk, and nothing is ever the same. I made an avatar and entered a public room called The Theatre, and saw people talking. All I remember was talking to someone, a new friend, and then bam! My internet froze. No one was talking in The Theatre anymore, and no one was moving. I panicked. Mum had received a phone call and the internet disconnected. My friend was gone.

Habbo was my first introduction to being social on the internet. I used it regularly from age 8 to 17, and despite it being an online virtual chatroom, it taught me a lot about socialising, other people, and even about myself.

I got into the swing on things pretty quickly and figured out that for me to fit in, I couldn't be a kid, so my catfishing journey began. Everyone else said they were at least 13 (now I know everyone lied about their age) so I made a bunch of different accounts, of different names and ages. Since I played the UK hotel, there was no way for me to get "credits", the in-game currency, to buy "furni", which means furniture and you can use it to decorate your rooms within the hotel. When the Australian hotel came out, I moved there, and eventually brought credits that I wasn't supposed to, and got into a lot of trouble for.

Although I was very honest in real life, and never stole anything, I was desperate to get furni. Regretfully I scammed some people, and in the really early days, I used some sort of hacking program I found online. With that, I was able to get access to an account that had 3 days left of HC (Habbo Club, a paid thing which means you get exclusive furni and you get to change your looks in ways other people can't). I felt bad but holy cow, I was elated. I am pretty certain that the owner of the account reported me and the account got banned shortly after. Oh well. Easy come, easy go. Still, I got a taste of what it was like to be one of the cool Habbo’s. I kept playing, on my own account, and somehow, I saved up enough crappy furni to invest in my first big purchase; a bronze elephant.

I remember having usernames like .::XJayViceX::. because for some reason, that was cool. When Apple became a thing with iPods, it was cool to put a lowercase "i" before your username, so I did that. After some years, I realised that having a short username was the COOLEST thing ever, so when some old accounts got cleared, I landed on the name "dix" on Habbo UK, which I made around 2004. It was a bit awkward since "dix" made me think of "dicks", but it was still a 3 letter username. Sadly, a friend in Habbo called Kenny stole this account from me. All in all, I had anywhere between 50-100 unique accounts over my span on Habbo, and during my early teenage years, I landed on one primary account that I used about 90% of the time.

I grew up in the era of internet where our parents told us not to give out personal information, and frankly, I didn't like myself at the time. So I decided that my name here on out was Nathan. I got HC, I got some furni and made some cool rooms, and I made a bunch of friends. A couple of times my room got to be the most popular one in the hotel, full of people. My mum yelled at me for buying credits with my old Nokia phone, which was loaded with about $15 worth of credit to use in emergencies. I felt bad, and she ignored me for a week. Lesson learned. Eventually, I saved up the money I got from holidays, took myself to EB Games and brought a Habbo currency card when I got low on credits.

These days, I don't remember most of my friends, but I do remember Kenny who stole my account, and Mandy, his girlfriend. I remember Bridie, who I e-dated for years. We actually met each other in person when I was in my early 20's, and I apologised for lying to her about my name and details about me. She was so gracious and understanding, and we are internet friends to this day since she moved far away. I remember Louise too, who I e-dated briefly and then I think she logged off and never came back online. Funny times. Weird times.

Recently, Habbo Origins opened up. I have played it for a few hours since it opened, and I admit it scratches an itch. But it's not the same. Back then, I was a kid, rushing home from school at the end of the day, to connect to the internet, log into Habbo Hotel, and make friends. I'm an adult now. My interests and hobbies have shifted. I'm not very social anymore and I like it that way. I often think about Habbo, and for as long as Origins stays up, or a decent Habbo Retro, I will continue to pop in from time to time. There's a special place in my heart for Habbo and there always will be.

The old theatre; the first room I remember from Habbo. Possibly even the first room I visited.

Links

Habbo Ages - Habbo history. It's very detailed with lots of screenshots.
Habbo Hotel - The homepage as it looked in 2001.
Mobiles Disco - The site where Habbo Hotel was born from.
Ken's Habbo Hotel Photo page - Some cool pictures from a guy named Ken.
Hubbly - Fan made Hotel. Apparently you can make your own Habbo Homepage on here.
Celebrity visits - List of celebrity visits on Habbo.
All badges on Origins - Complete badge list for Habbo Origins.
Traxmachine - Make your own Habbo Trax music!
Scripting info - General information about Habbo scripting.
G-Earth - A tool many people use today for scripting on Habbo.
Hacking Habbo - An old webpage on hacking Habbo using ArtMoney.
Official Habbo AU Fansites - On the Internet Archive, from habbohabbo.om.au.
Habbo Experience - Official introduction video to the hotel that is interactive.