The Glorious Reign of Girlsense 

I was the fake boy on many website growing up. Your assessment of fake boys playing healers now is so correct it’s scary 😅

For years and years I’ve felt like I don’t know what to do on the internet anymore, like I used to spend hours on their internet and then one day the only thing left to do was scroll through Facebook. Watching this and being reminded of how GirlSense really did try to make their site the only one you’d ever need makes me realize just how much I missed having an internet “homebase”. Maybe it’s just because I’m not a kid anymore but it really feels like there used to just be so much more to DO online whereas now it feels like there’s only content to be consumed.

I used enter every auction by saying “what’s up bit cheese?!” Just realized my nine year old self was ruining it for other people… sorry everyone!

I AM SO VALIDATED BY THIS VIDEO, I AM SITTING HERE AT MY GRAPHIC DESIGN JOB, OPEN-MOUTHED AND REALIZING THAT THIS WAS MY INTRO TO GRAPHIC DESIGN! I made so many emo hairstyles and invader zim inspired outfits oh my godddd!!! I was a GirlSense girlboss at the ripe age of 11!!!

i was a stardoll kid and never even heard of girlsense until today and now i'm a bit jealous

I was the fake boy and I am now a lesbian and a healer! thank you 2000s internet games

I remember the INSANELY realistic animated characters that people would make out of dresses that sold for like 999,999 G-cents in auctions. If you got one by chance in an auction with low traffic it was on par with winning the lottery 😂

I was absolutely one of those fake boys, and I feel SO seen. I do play healers, and I did turn out to be trans masculine. Girlsense was 100% a building block in my young development and while I don't think I miss her, she'll always hold a place of respect in my heart xoxo

Can’t believe I made it in the video at 6:08. I remember being so young, and not really a creative person, but girlsense made me love art, and anything I could create. It was such a simpler time back then and I can’t believe it shut down 10 years ago. I’m 23 now but I still have very fond memories of this game. Thank you for reliving my childhood.

There's a subreddit now r/girlsense to talk about a revival project. It's still really new but hopefully they will get enough minds together to try to bring the game back. Since the most essential assets of the game are just not available to the public anymore it will not be as easy as rewriting Club Penguin or Toontown (those assets were already archived by players before the shutdown) but I think with enough of a community together something very similar could be recreated. The more of a community exists around it the more realistic it becomes

Do y'all remember girlsense having a playlist system thing?? like they had a huge music bank of songs from a wide variety of artists. I remember playing panic at the disco and lady gaga songs while editing my boutique lmao

i'm obSESSED with how you deliver content.... i'd never heard of this site but now i'm feeling nostalgic for so many other dressup worlds lost to time. plus the gaia towns music.... good LORD. where my chatterbox regs at

Girlsense was my life from 2010-2012! A few thoughts: - After the closure, there was a user who attempted to make GirlSense 2 and it did pretty well. I can’t recall the name of it rn… - There were role playing groups which were also very explicit. People got away with saying banned words by typing words that were similar enough to get the message across. -Same goes for using the fashion design tool. If you can figure out how to shade a dress with paint splotches, then you can definitely figure out how to make adult content on there… Thank you for this video! You have made me feel seen!

I CAN'T WAIT TO WATCH THIS, SO MANY MEMORIES

I used to spend hours on this site manipulating the tools to get a certain look I wanted. it was NEVER as good as the popular users on the site ( i was trash). im SO glad someone FINALLY made a video on this because this site introduced me to graphic design features and opened my eyes to ways to use the internet and my computer that a lot of people didnt know how to use. I am about to graduate with my degree in computer engineering so I see where my origin story came from, lol! This site literally lives rent-free in my head all the time

holy snap. after 10 whole years of remembering the game but spending many fruitless nights on google being unable look up anything due to not remembering the name, you did it. you unlocked the final key in my memory.

Had i known about this, i would have adored this game. The Style Savvy Games on the DS and 3DS were my life! I put hours on hours in them and honestly, the last one is still so much fun! It truly feels like a final game though, with all the stuff that was put into it

I swear girlsense is what pipelined me down the graphic design career path

FINALLY SOMEONE MAKES A VIDEO RETROSPECTIVE ABOUT GIRLSENSE. it's been quite a while since its shutdown but even as an adult i miss this site every day

your videos are incredibly well produced especially for being such a new channel. i hope to see you cover pixie hollow or cartoon doll emporium some time!! 💌

I was a fake boy growing up (until figuring out I'm actually trans) and man oh man did I feel called out. You just had to hit me with the "you probably play healers now"

The production values are outta control! I wasn't ready for the hair crafting scene. 😂😂🤣 This Girlsense site had some truly complex outfit editing! Incredible to see the level of sophistication of it. Here's hoping you and Girlsense's many other fans are designing away sometime soon in a remake. I was never much of a fan of Flash games because to me the controls always felt "soft" and a bit frustrating. Steve Jobs' "Thoughts on Flash" was one of my favorite things to ever be posted to the internet (my bookmark to it is just a dead link now unfortunately). But Flash sure did enable some of the greatest wonders of the early internet, including Girlsense and its unbelievably intricate editor. This video essay was the perfect introduction to Girlsense, both informative and entertaining (I was either smiling or laughing through the whole thing). These essay videos really show what you're capable of as a content creator Lilly, really good job on this one! Favorite moment: 10:33 🤣😂🤣 🌟⭐⭐🤩🤩⭐⭐🌟🌟😁👍

I love this genre of video, I'm really glad more people have been cropping up to talk about these kinds of games because they are very underrepresented!

Yesss I loved this game! My thing was to make goth-looking dolls and stuffed animals by pasting those cute teddy bear decals over tote bags, and then cutting them out (much like how people made the shapes of hair), then going ham on the coloring settings and other tools to give them stitches and Coraline-style button eyes. I once got on the front page for using the tools to make my boutique look like the Power Puff Girls, and got completely overwhelmed with mail. I still use a lot of the design skills I learned here as an artist. I wish there were still cool and creative kids social media websites like this.

I would love to see you cover Cartoon Doll Emporium! I was so obsessed with it as a kid and was so sad when they shut down the virtual world aspect of the site.

some of my most prized possessions are full page girlsense print ads from girl's life magazine. i literally have them framed on the wall above my sewing table bc girlsense was my favorite site as a kid and had a huge impact on me and def influenced me to make and sell clothes in real life :'^) one day i hope we can get girlsense back up somehow...

This site was a big reason why I'm a graphic designer today. LOL

This unlocked soooooo many buried memories. Basically everything you listed in the site overview had me going "OH OH OH I REMEMBER THAT!!" I spent ages on the make-a-wish board. If I recall correctly, the polls weren't too censored either; you couldn't put curse words in the questions or anything, but it didn't seem like anyone was moderating them, either. I DISTINCTLY remember putting up a poll asking if anyone ever wanted to be a boy, which in hindsight was really heavy-handed foreshadowing me being queer, lmao. I could never get the hang of the design tool, but I spent hours playing all the minigames. I didn't know about any of those big sites of flash games (except for girlsgogames and everythinggirl - God, I miss everythinggirl), so GirlSense was where I went to play all my platformers. In hindsight the aesthetic was totally all over the place and lowkey ugly, but honestly for me that's part of the charm. The early-to-mid 2000s were pretty zany in terms of fashion, and it felt like all the websites were trying to figure out wtf they were even doing in terms of graphics. The patchwork look of the site is very nostalgic for me.

“Uploaded 1 minute ago”? How did I happen upon this at this exact moment? Lol

I am digging through my memory here, but back in the early 2000’s you used to be able to access a few Girlsense games through AOL/KOL. I specifically remember playing the makeup and nail games over and over. All other parts of the site were paywalled, and then those games became inaccessible too. Watching this video was wild for me because I had no idea girlsense existed passed this payed model!

i found your barbiegirls video yesterday and was hit with a massive wave of nostalgia!! i played that game obsessively as a kid and was glad to know it wasn't just a fever dream haha. i never visited girlsense, but this video is so interesting and well-researched!! cannot wait to see what you cover next! (i-dressup maybe? i feel like i'm the only person alive who remembers that website...)

I hope this site returns one day just so I can experience one more time. It had an interesting culture about it that was so unique to this site only. I know nothing about fashion but I remember I would design t-shirts and people loved them at action. I spent hours selling, chatting, going to another auction. The positive atmosphere was essential for my self-esteem during my preteen and young teen years.

Man, I miss Girlsense. I think it's kind of interesting that when I was a kid, I loved designing my own fashion on this site. Now my main source of income is basically designing clothes for an avatar forum website. Some things never change I guess

i have NEVER seen anyone talk about girlsense let alone kiddonet! Kiddonet was a HUGE part of my childhood- not sure anyone but me will care about this, but my mom worked at a summer camp for an all girls' school, so i usually got to fool around in the computer lab where i played tons of kiddonet & neopets. they're such a huge part of my childhood but i feel like no one ever talks about them!!! i think SO often about the bubble popping game that was on the loading screen to the cartoon dolls... thanks for talking about 'feminine' children's media that is now lost to the world. i watch a lot of lost media youtubers and so many of them disregard things like these sites.

Memories were unlocked by this video, holy crap. I remember briefly playing girlsense, but another game that was similar and that I was super obsessed with was called Roiworld. I was SUUUUPER obsessed with the Roi dress up games, so when I heard they had a dedicated site + the whole fashion designing aspect, I was a dedicated member.

oh my god when i saw this on my recommended page i got so many memories hitting me all at once. i wasnt a very social kid so most of what i did was focus on creating the most awesome e boutique i could. my goal was always to get on the front page and i even managed to achieve it once..... i wish i still had screenshots of what i created and remember other creators i had met... thank you for letting me remember these wonderful memories

My sister and I were actually frequent users of the site pre-2007. Features like the e-boutique stayed mostly the same, however the biggest feature that got a complete overhaul was the fashion studio itself. It used to be a lot more limited, the clothing templates were either pixelated photo-realistic or much more cartoony, the stamps and accessories you could add would always look like a flat collage against the shaded background of the piece you applied them to, and there were only so many combinations you could come up with. Honestly as a kid I didn't spend much time on it until the switch, when they brought in the updated version you see in all of the tutorial videos on youtube. The whole environment was so much more immersive. The different manequins to choose from, the minimalist background, the new fabrics, the stamps, and the cutouts were all so inviting and the different blending modes that could be applied to each detail piece made it easier to sell the idea that you were creating an actual article of clothing instead of layering random pngs over a preexisting image of a shirt or dress. I still go back and rewatch the tutorials every once in a while for the memories. No other website I've seen ever came close to the amount of customization afforded to you as girlsense. I really wish someone would come along and make something similar, even if I had to pay a couple bucks a month to play it.

im so sad im only hearing about girlsense now ! i very much stuck to the same few websites as a kid so i missed a lot of stuff i wouldve fallen in love with, but i love hearing about all the things i never got to experience now and feeling an odd nostalgia for them. i am loving your videos so far, keep up the brilliant work ! : ]

HI I JUST WANNA SAY FROM THE FIRST TWO VIDEOS YOU'VE BECOME ONE OF MY FAVORITE CREATORS!!! It's really hard to find good video essays on fem aligned media and your stuff is hitting the spot pretty well, can't wait to see more from you! (Also the Lisa ost caught me so off guard but it's nice to hear someone add one of my favorite tracks)

for ages i was trying to remember the name of this site, nobody else i speak to played this but i was obsessed with it! mind making forum polls for random topics like 'who is the hottest emo singer'. thx for covering this and unlocking some nostalgia xx

I won a ipod from a girlsense contest, it was the best site for creating things next to Polyvore.

Ugh I loved GirlSense as a young teen! I don't even remember how I found it, and almost forgot the name of the site altogether. I was absolutely in the emo/scene crowd, and mostly created cute little cupcakes to put in my boutique. One time I even got on the front page. :')

Logging onto girlsense on a friday after school as a kid is one of my favorite memories. I used to spend HOURS at the computer updating my boutique while talking to my friend on the phone while she worked on hers. We would get so scared when a stranger would enter the auction chat and we wouldn't speak to them or we’d leave the chat haha. I loved the camp rock store so much- I totally forgot about it until you mentioned it in the video. I honestly had no idea how vast the site was. I remember some of the mini games or extra features but I really had no concept of how much was available at the time. When you brought up the graphic design elements of the site it kinda blew my mind because I never saw it that way when I was creating stuff, but it was totally a precursor to my love of graphic design today. I create graphics all the time for work or personal projects, so it's pretty crazy to see that come around full circle. I miss my boutique and I wish I could see it. I have no memory of how I left it, but I'm sure it was something kinda silly and cute. Thanks for making this, it brought back a lot of good memories. :)

I'm so sad that my young self never knew about Girlsense, I can tell from your video that I would have LOVED it.

I am at least a decade (probably more) older than you, but it was popular enough that you may remember it, but i would totally love to see your summary of Neopets. Years of my childhood were spent caring for my “digital” pets 😅

was not expecting to be hit with cult of the lamb at 4:54. what a gamer you are, li

You did *NOT* have to call me out with that healer statement LOL I audibly gasped

Would you ever consider doing a video on the old Bella Sara website? It’s a game from the 2000s that was technically up until the death of flash, but was slowly breaking down ever since 2013 when a huge site glitch made it so that you couldn’t create a new account (and that’s when the OG company went defunct). I miss it dearly :(

As soon as I saw that intro making the "wig" I had so many memories flood back lol

i was convinced no one else remembered this site, i LOVED it. i found this video in my search for nostalgic GS videos! made my day, thankyou

fantastic job once again! your editing and narrative storytelling is sublime (and also has me cackling at times)! for all the virtual worlds and avatar customization games i’ve played i’m sad that i missed out on this one. kudos, can’t wait for your next video!

Wowww memories came flooding back with those Make-up Girl screenshots. I would always make a red haired girl with green eyes and green eyeshadow.... I was a HUGE kiddonet user around 2002, mainly the games, sad that it's lost to time... shouts out to Super Kid and Nobby Nuss

Omg let me tell you how OBSESSED I was with Girlsense. I was determined to make the coolest, most realistic looking clothes like some of the other shops. Then they added the branded clothes and I was even more obsessed. Rip Girlsense. Horrible and amazing all at once

Why are you so spot on with the 'Fake boy to Healer" Analysis

I like how RU-vid has been suggesting some really good channels lately. This video unlocked a memory with me

I just wanted to say that I am so touched you used clips from my Girlsense videos. 🥺 Girlsense was everything to me back then and I wanted to treasure it forever by capturing as much of it as I could. I'm so happy to see someone doing a deep dive on Girlsense after all these years. Although I am a little embarrassed because the songs I put in the videos were not the best. ^^" Maybe I should repost them with better music. I was 12 when I made those videos lol. I discovered your channel from your Build a Bear video, and I enjoyed it so much I looked at what other videos you made, and that's how I came across this video. Bearville has a special place in my heart as well. I miss that website a lot as well.

I completely forgot the name of this site after I stopped playing it but I was obsessed with this as a kid!!!!! I thought I’d dreamed up the perfect website until I clicked on this video - thanks for covering it!!!

This is like an unlocked memory for me! My friends and I would switch between GirlSense and Polyvore to make outfits for our Harry Potter OCs. SO much fun. Thank you for necromancing GirlSense back into my brain - I've sent this video to my friends haha!

I came here to talk about the awesome background music you pick- it’s like fun little Easter eggs! At the same time I can’t comment without talking about how awesome your content is in general. Not only the topics and the visuals, but your personality just pulls everything together! You have a vibe that makes it feel more like I’m hanging with an old friend than a random RU-vidr. You’re awesome🎉

After seeing all your videos up to this date, I'm starting to keep track how many BGMs you use that I recognize. There's Splatoon, Pokemon, Katamari, Miitomo, and Fur Fighters too, which I'd never thought anyone would use. Only thing more impressive than your choice of BGM is the quality of your videos. Keep it up! (Bonus points for using #8 Regret)

OH MY GOD THANK YOU FOR THIS IVE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO DO A VIDEO ON THIS GAMEEEEE I WAS OBSESSED!!! Sorry for yelling. but oh my god. The ways you could create things in this game really geared me towards digital art i swear.

Oh my god 😭😭😭 I loved Girlsense so much. My signature design was a tank top coloured to look like the book cover for New Moon. Very reliable source of gcents.

the intro to that heart to get midi immediately had me thinking it was some kind of ultra-compressed bootleg of homewrecker by marina and then i realized that, sadly, that song didn't exist yet.

The absolute flashbang of Pascal's Village theme popping up in this video. Li's got TASTE. Thanks for yet another brill video

i truly felt my hidden memories unlock at the nail-painting noise and the creepy eyes on the make up game

Imagine the cosplays people could make in a modern day version!!

I’ve been searching for the name of this site for years. It was my childhood. It developed who I am. I remember crying the day the shut down announcements began.

wish upon a star unlocked a core childhood memory of mine. wow, still processing

I don't know why but I've been binging Li's videos and yet this is the video that made me pause and go "wow...Li is so beautiful." I think the dark eye makeup really really suits you!!

ok holy shit i thought i've never heard of girlsense before but that manicure game just unlocked a memory, oh my god. thank you

i've been casually watching your videos from time to time but what convinced me to truly commit and subscribe to you was this exact moment 10:30

I never played on Girlsense, but the design function (especially the hair!!) reminds me so much of Stardoll! I was so pissed as a young player that I didn't have any of the cool hairs the other players had, but then I learned how to make them myself lol

Wow, this unlocked a hidden memory. I almost forgot that I spent much of my childhood playing this game. Such good times.

Found your channel today and had to watch every video, i love them

this website has haunted me for years because i couldn’t think of the name of it :,-) i would be on this website everyday for a whole summer

Gosh I remember this website but not because I ever played it… my older sister did, she’s 11 years older than me and I distinctly remember going to her apartment and watching her play. I wanted to play it myself but she said it wasn’t a kid’s game so I never got to play. I thought it was so cool that you could sell your designs to real people.

I don't understand why you don't have more subs- you literally sound like you have been doing this for three years. Keep up the amazing work! :)

We were born in the late 00s and holy shit we are mad we missed out. We wanna play that so baddddd- we love fashion and graphic design and god we are manifesting that girlsense revival you suggested 🛐🛐

I miss girlsense :/ seeing some of the old design patterns and fabrics in this video made me so nostalgic

What a wonderful time for me to discover you! Last night I found your BarbieGirls video and immediately subscribed and turned on notifications, and then was blessed by you posting again right after returning from work for the day ❤

I've been waiting years for someone to make a video like this! I loved girlsense as an tween/young teen and appreciated how creative you could be with the fashion design tools. It was my first time getting to use this kind of digital art tool, and I loved experimenting with making hair, posters for my fave tv shows (which at the time was glee lmao), and cartoon characters. Also, the community was my first exposure to the certain fashion subcultures like goth, scene, and lolita. I think the level of creative freedom this website offered was unlike any other kids website at the time, and was empowering for its young users. I'll always have a special place in my heart for this site

Great video, and not to take away from it but those are really nice background music choices. The mother 3 and lisa ones fit so well and 10:03 (blue orb from katamari) is one of my favorite video game tracks :]

Your videos are so nostalgic and kind of cosy and comforting? Takes me back to a simpler time, I love it. You’re already one of my fave RU-vidrs 🌺

I adore your background music choices. You, ma'am are indeed a woman of culture.

cant believe this is one of rare cases where something actually dies as a hero, refusing to become the villain instead

When you put on the fake fabric wig I literally screamed out loud. Omg the resemblance is uncanny. 😭😂

OMG. the auctions !!! i completely forgot about that element and when you showed it i out loud went "oh my god"

I love these videos because as kid who didn’t have any friends and spent all of their time playing these games online they are so nostalgic 😭

In screaming- i played this constantly as a kid but couldnt remember the name of it for the life of me!! Ive been looking for so long, THANK YOU for making this!!

love your content so far!! I always got to appreciate someone who goes into the documentation of these kinds of websites alongside your barbiegirl video, god knows I spent a bunch of my time trying to look for every social kid centric website I could find under the sun as a kid. also gotta appreciate the splatoon music used in the bg of this video

And with this video, I have officially binged all of your videos. Damnit

i have been waiting for yeeeeeears for a girlsense retrospective. THANK YOU SO MUCH

Omg! Just discovered your channel and your videos are amazing! So nostalgic and well presented! NEW FAV CHANNEL!!! Keep it up

you’ve yet again unlocked a deep memory, great video! 🥺💗

I’m so glad your first video popped up in my feed this morning and that you have another one 🎉🎉🎉

omg your editing keeps getting better and better, I can't wait to see what you'll make next!!!

I love your channel, looking forward to your future videos 😭

just saw your first video and had to check this out! already a fan of the channel!

I’m so glad I’ve wandered onto this little corner of the internet. Your videos are so amazing and I can’t wait for what’s to come :))

YEAAA i just found your channel last night, very happy to see a new video >:3