Pink Poogle Toy Forum

What actually was it - I think TNT removed the background.

It was lots of flashing colours.

It was an extremely intense background of flashing bright colors. The colors went opposite in spectrum, red then green then purple then yellow in a rapid fire succession. And it was almost as if the flicker rate of it was perfectly timed so that a seizure/migraine would get set off in people who are photosensitive. The background was in the person's shop and on their user lookup. I came upon his shop while on the shop wiz when I found his negg priced uber cheap.

eww that's evil...

I've got a load of jumping neopets "fun images" in my shop - could that trigger epileptic seizures? I know that it annoys some people but that's fine

No, you don't have anything to worry about there. It has to do to the intensity of the colors and the flicker rate. This is the first time I have ever gotten a photosensitive migraine from the internet. And I have been bombarded by flashing ads, dancing neopets in shops, even those shops with optical illusion backgrounds.

GREAT NEWS!: I just talked with someone from Neopets (via telephone) and explained the situation--very calm, very matter-of-fact, very sincere. Mentioned that not only did I get sick from the background but that several others had eplileptic seizures after viewing it. And said that I was calling, as a loyal long-term premium player, because I wanted to make sure that Neopets realized that this was a serious situation and I didn't want it to get lost in a pile of user reports. I asked if there wasn't something Neopets could do to make sure this didn't happen again. And asked if there weren't some broadcasting guidelines that they followed. The guy put me on hold for a long time, probably saying to himself "what the heck happened last night?" He then came back and said that he wanted to reassure me that Neopets was taking my complaint very seriously. He then asked for my phone number and said that someone who could actually do something about it would get back to me within the next day or so. Yay!!!!!!!!

That's good to know Didn't think it was possible to phone TNT but there ya go

Haha, I sort of cheated. I called the premium number for technical support and told the guy that it was a very serious situation that Neopets had on their hands. And, he listened to me intently and realized I wasn't kidding around. I mean I would never, ever threaten them with a lawsuit, but in this day and age, someone else might, you know???? And they don't want or need that--either a lawsuit or the bad publicity from it. After the Pokemon incident that occurred several years ago (where thousands of kids got violently ill after watching flashes of light during a Pokemon cartoon), the TV show was taken off the air in Japan and sales of Pokemon merchandise plummeted. And, I love Neopets. I would never want that to happen to them. I might get mad at them when the glitches attempt to do me in, but I love my Neo. Best game around. So, best to let the people in the suits know about it so they can take action to make sure that another incident like this doesn't happen again.

For me (you may read my post a few pages back), it was pure curiousity. I have never been photosensitive in the past, but things that would generally give a photosensivive epileptic a seizure can get me really bad headaches, so I wanted to check it out. I had figured Neopets already had a program in place preventing the flicker rate thing, so I didn't think it would be an issue.

*headdesk* And, I had been up since 3:20am. I wasn't thinking properly at all.

Mommy lab rats. They make the world go 'round.