In 1996, America's children decided that they'd had enough of their true-life, flesh and blood pets. Though they had formed strong bonds and legitimate friendships with their cats, dogs, parrots and parakeets, there was always that elephant in the room: wouldn't my pet be easier to take care of if it was a computer?
As so often happens, Japanese men were there to answer this growing question. Their response? A small, three-buttoned egg shaped computer console, small enough to fit on a keychain. Surely this product, with which children and socially challenged adults the world over could engineer and care for a digitized, androgynous "pet", would replace the real thing. Though my prose is dripping with sarcasm right now, there was a brief period of time in the late 90s where this nearly happened.
The Tamagotchi could do all of the exciting things a real pet can do. It could eat food, it could play a game, and it could shit right on the computerized floor. It also came in a variety of snazzy colors, prompting dim-witted youngsters to purchase multiple Tamagotchis even though they didn't do anything different. The Tamagotchi was a 90s sensation different from the Pog or Furby or Tim Allen; it gave children something they could do on a two-inch screen that is infinitely more rewarding and fun to do in real life; basically, to play with a dog.
The Tamagotchi's replication of something that should not and doesn't need to be replicated kicked off a disturbing trend. A few years later, video game The Sims came along, in which users could control a person and make their decisions for them. Later still, a whole online universe called Second Life came about, in which (you guessed it) users could control a person and make their decisions for them. Except in Second Life, there are other real people and things you can actually spend real money on. All of this sounds really fucking stupid, and it should; we have our own lives with which we can make decisions and do things. The Tamagotchi may have been more benign than Second Life, but its message was the same. Why get a real dog or cat when the fake one is well-behaved and more convenient?
I have a genuine affection for stupid old shit, but the Tamagotchi is so insanely ridiculous that even I can't defend it. If only parents standing in lines at toy stores the world over in the late 90s had looked at the thing and said to Junior, "Are you sure you don't just want a fucking dog?"
John Lacey
Tamagotchi was the last "childish trend" of people our age. They hit big when we were about 14, which was just over the age of being "a kid," so to speak. I remember we had witnessed the resurrection of the Yo-Yo craze in 1998 (mostly due to the North Andover Middle School 8th grade trip to New York City), but once Tamagotchi came out, it was the first thing I distinctly remember thinking was "Fucking stupid" and "for kids." Even now, I can't see why Tamagotchi, or any other "simulation"-type games have been so successful, other than the fact that the people who play them have no fucking lives at all. Sim City at least let you build cool shit and then have it burn to the ground if you built too much shit on top of other shit, but The Sims and Tamagotchi and Animal Crossing are all stupid games for stupid people.
ReplyDeleteHaha, well said.
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