‘Neopets’: Inside Look at Early 2000s Internet Girl Culture - Rolling Stone
Girls on Neopets took what they needed from the site and used the skills acquired there to further develop a burgeoning digital girls’ culture, whether it be in expanding their guild pages into personal sites, teaching others to code, or exchanging those skills for economic gain in Neopets.
I have anecdotal evidence from a few people that Neopets was their introduction to web design and development.