It's not too long ago that www.zimmertwins.ca as well as www.jumeauxzimmer.ca were still around. Back when ZT had an English and a French version, for both English speaking and French speaking Canadians. Telepicks were shown on a regular basis on TeleToon, and sharing your movies was completely free.
It's always been striking to me that the English Canadian ZT had as many as around 350,000 user accounts just before its closing. The French Canadian website had roughly the same number. Add the two up and you get 700,000 Canadian users who, at one point, signed up on ZT. Add the users on the U.S and Australian websites, and you get over a million users who have at one point joined ZT.
Even in Canada alone, 700,000 users is an astonishingly large number. It would make up 2% of Canada's population. Considering that back then ZT was used mainly among young kids, that percentage would be significantly higher among the website's target age group.
Back in the late 2000's, as a kid, I always wondered if I could find someone else who knows about ZT. It seemed like such a cool, mind-blowing concept. What if there are other ZT fans out there just like me?
Not ALL the 700,000 users were active - BUT, they made an account on ZT at some point, so they'd know it exists.
So I asked a few people. Of everybody who I remember asking, none of them had the slightest clue of what ZT is. Not a single person. I even asked among kids who watched TeleToon - TeleToon was a mainstream Canadian kids network at the time. It was something that many kids watched. I often heard kids discussing 6teen and Total Drama Island, two famous TeleToon shows back then.
I figured that since ZT is constantly advertised and shown on TeleToon, people who watch TeleToon should obviously at least have heard of ZT. So, I asked them. Again, nobody had the slightest idea what it was.
Back then, I didn't really think much of it. If people didn't know about ZT, oh well. But today, I look back at it. Not only did the Canadian ZT have a total 700,000 accounts made, but it was constantly advertised on TeleToon. How come nobody knew about it? Maybe they just didn't pay attention to the ZT advertisements on TeleToon? Maybe they made an account and then forgot it ever existed? Or maybe they know ZT exists, or even use it, but are too ashamed to admit it, in fear of looking 'uncool' or 'immature'? If you were asked by someone in real life if you use ZT, would you easily admit that you do?
These are all questions that are stuck in my head. I've always wondered where ZT's fanbase really was, since nobody who I've talked to has even heard of the website.
Another thing I wonder is where all these users went. I remember having friends on ZT.ca, people who eventually quit or who I stopped talking to when ZT.ca closed. How are all these people doing? Do they remember all the good times we had on ZT? As well as the bad times, I guess. How are they doing in life now?
The most memorable friend I had was Canastar. His original username was Eurostar, but changed it to Canastar back when username changes were allowed. He joined around 2006/07, and quit in February 2009, when my series 'Zimmer' ended (he stuck around for the final episode). He was a lot older than me, and older than most people who were on the site at the time; when we starting talking in 2008, he was 13 and I was 9. That means he'd be in college/university now, aged 21. I wonder what he's doing, since I haven't talked to him in almost 8 years.
All these memories are still there, despite the fact that time makes them more distant. I hope that one day we'll have answers. Until then, we can wonder and dream.
-Blah :)