Nickelodeon’s The-N.com created a blueprint for fandom in the early 2000s

Finding a community online is easier than ever. Social media platforms have simplified the lines of connection as young people connect via Discord servers and niche TikTok trends. However, in the 2000s, the internet was just starting to connect people through message boards, webcomics, and gaming sites. And for over four million teenagers When they discovered who they were, a short-lived Nickelodeon TV channel and its website, where users chat, post on forums, and play games with one another, became a haven.

In 1999, Viacom and Sesame Workshop partnered to launch Noggin, an educational television network focused on children ages 2 to 14. The station started, made profits and achieved 43 million households in two short years. However, its success was hampered by a fundamental problem: Children go to bed earlyand left their nightly block underguarded.

Struggling to maintain its older audience, Viacom split Noggin’s schedule to appeal to its tween-aged audience. At 6:00 PM ET on April 1, 2002, the Noggin logo faded from screen for the first time and a hand appeared in its place, greeting viewers to a brand new programming block: The N. The new block felt like Noggins Cooler older siblings, and from that day forward the same channel would be broadcast Dora the Explorer during the day and Degrassi: The next generation after dark. Storylines on The N featured teenagers navigating real-life scenarios such as pregnancy and substance abuse. Viewers saw each other on shows like south of nowherea groundbreaking friends-to-lovers series starring two queer young women.

Image: The N/Viacom

“We wanted to find a tool that would help young people imagine their future selves,” said Tom Ascheim, president of Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics, who founded The N during his 17-year tenure at Nickelodeon. Ascheim credits The N’s rising viewership to representation on its program, as teenagers began to “recognize a life they would like to lead.”

At the same time, the Internet has become a source of self-discovery for young people. Growing up online in the 90’s meant IMing a best friend and connecting in AOL chat rooms. Online communities began to form. Some of these filled gaps in education: millions of young girls rallied on message boards like gURL.com, asking anonymously for advice on sensitive issues. And in 2002, Neopets boasted over 19 million users between the ages of 12 and 17. Users took care of virtual pets, collected secret avatars, and earned Neopoints while playing Meerca Chase. They also explored their creativity and styled their profiles and guild pages using HTML and CSS.

With so much competition, The N’s digital equivalent had to offer more than tips for growing pains. Instead, the-n.com grew into a busy social hub for its fans. Members created detailed profiles and individual avatars. The N hosted moderated message boards where users discussed the latest episodes of Radio Free Roscoe or started threads to get real fashion tips. Users could participate in one of The N’s many quizzes; There were educational ones about navigating high school cliques as well as fun ones like finding out if you were an Emma or a Manny from Degrassi. Members blogged about their daily lives and they could “friend” each other or send private “nmails”.

“For the N [the website] it was more about community,” Ascheim shared, adding that “what we were doing was very anticipatory of the social world.”

Image: the-n.com/Viacom via The Wayback Machine

But more than anything, tweens and teens went to the-n.com to play games. There was slasher!a Between us-like social deduction game. avatar up and Avatar prom were high school versions of The Sims in which players would gain or lose points based on their interactions with other characters. The connectiona dating strategy game, became “the biggest we’ve ever made for The N,” according to Peter Ginsberg, the co-founder of Thup Games, who also created it. avatar up and Avatar prom.

Games became the biggest traffic driver for the website. Ginsberg was careful not to woo tweens with “dress-up games” and specifically consulted The N’s online community when deciding what ideas to present to the team next. Thup Games’ idea for Avatar prom actually came out of an RPG thread on The N’s message board, Ginsberg said. At the same time, The N game developers wanted identity and representation to remain at the heart of their game development.

“Together we’ve worked to create games that address social and emotional challenges head-on,” said Ginsberg. This guide led to players from avatar up being able to design characters with a wide range of skin tones and hair textures, and fans of The connection Exploring same-sex love stories. This focus resonated with The N’s online audience, for which Ginsberg thanks The N’s diverse mix of writers and team. Ginsberg believes they “never could have achieved” such a high level of commitment without both of them.

For all of The N’s successes, the network met an untimely end. Things seemed to be going well: until 2006 over 40,000 youth had visited stations on the nationwide Degrassi Mall tour, and in 2007 The N graduated from Noggin and moved into his own standalone channel. Unfortunately, the transition was cumbersome and certain cable providers were unable to offer the station a spot on their programming. Nickelodeon began phasing out The N’s programming and replacing it with TEEnick, an entertainment block with no curriculum and no involvement from Noggin. The N lost ground in 2009, and both the channel and its website shut down entirely.

But fans never stopped caring about the side that helped raise her. Fans on Reddit further remember the-n.com while others recode the site completely new or archiving media from the channel. Benjamin Reyna, who calls himself Benji, falls into the latter category as the creator of The-N Archive Tumblr. Reyna, who lives in Texas, has gained over 10,000 followers since launching Tumblr in January 2019. His posts are frequently reblogged by those who miss the channel and its community as much as he does.

“There was something unique about The N,” Reyna said, sharing that he was an instant fan of Degrassi but found out about The N’s other shows through the station’s Commercials and interstitials for self-promotion. “The south of nowhere Ads felt like a dreamy slideshow. It was so relatable and felt like what I was going through at that age.”

After The N closed, Reyna joined The N-focused communities on LiveJournal and connected with other teens on MSN Messenger. A sentimental person, he started his own Degrassi and The N Tumblr to keep the channel’s memory alive. He saves media when looking for new content to share The Wayback Machine. Some of the throwback content even comes from his own hard drive: “Back then there wasn’t YouTube and TV shows weren’t available on iTunes or Amazon, so I went to the-n.com and saved everything.”

Image: the-n.com/Viacom via The Wayback Machine

Reyna doesn’t think there could ever be another community as special as The N’s. “It’s just clips and streaming now,” he explained, speaking to the sites created by today’s networks. Social media seems to have replaced the type of community found on those early sites. At the end of a new season of current TV, tweets and tiktoks about teen shows like HBO Max’s euphoria and Netflix Outer Banks Flood all feeds and create a sense of community for these channels. But former fans of The N know how good they once had it. “[Networks] stop worrying about fostering real engagement,” Reyna said. “It just doesn’t feel that special.”

Sadly, as to whether The N or its games could ever return, Ginsberg confirmed that they no longer own the rights to it The connection, Avatar prom, or one of the games they made for The N – Viacom does. However, he shared that there had been plans for a launch The connection 2before the-n.com was closed.

“We were 60% done when The N started folding into TEEnick,” he revealed, sharing that for a few years someone at Viacom would ask about his progress every few months. After The N officially closed in 2009, Thup Games reconsidered The connection 2 completely scrapped.

For now, all we have to do is relive the channel’s glory days through archived Tumblrs, pixelated gameplay recordings on YouTube, and old Degrassi screenshots Reappearing as Twitter memes. Even with The N gone, the fans will make sure it’s never forgotten.