In 1984, I had a Cabbage Patch doll named Frederika Joanie. I also owned nine My Little Ponies and the Dream Stable. Transformers and Gobots always seemed dumb "boy toys," but Tickle-Me Elmo was sort of neat.
I've been swept up in my share of toy crazes, but never have I experienced a gadget as horrible as America's newest fad.
The saga began one day last term when I was headline skimming The New York Times. Very little entices me to read the business page, but I believe it was cosmic fate which drew me to read about "Tamagotchi, 'the original virtual reality pet.'" The Japanese are paying hundreds of dollars on the black market for ... digital alien keychains? I shrugged it off.
That same afternoon, my grandmother called on the phone. We did the formalities ("Have you found a nice Jewish boy yet?"), and then she told me about the greatest new toy she picked up at the store for me. Yes, that's right, thanks to Grandma, I would not be the last one on the block with a Tamagotchi of my very own. It arrived in the mail a few days later. I couldn't stop laughing.
I'm not laughing any more.
Let me give you an unbiased description of this heinous toy. Attached to a silver keyring, Tamagotchi is a plastic egg with a square digital display and three yellow rubber buttons. Once you hatch your Tamagotchi from its pulsating liquid crystal egg, you become the proud parent of a six-pixel-high smiling blob. Cute, right? Here's the catch: in order to keep your pet "alive," you must use the buttons to feed the creature, play an incredibly insipid game with it, turn its lights off when it sleeps, give it medicine, clean up after it messes, and the best one of all, discipline it. If you do not watch it like a hawk, your Tamagotchi will DIE.
I was enthralled for the first few days. My blob rapidly grew into a larger blob, and finally into a blob with legs. With a frozen digital smile, he danced back and forth in his twenty by twenty pixel world. Wherever I went, Tamagotchi was firmly in hand. Now 15 DAYS later, I had a plastic egg imprint on my palm and the fun quotient had dropped dramatically. Catch number two: the better care you take of your Tamagotchi, the longer it stays with you before "returning to its home planet." According to the box, if it stays with me for more than 23 days, I am "amazing." Translation: "I am a big sucker."
This toy is a digital guilt trip. I would have felt awful if it died, and with this much time invested I felt a gnawing responsibility to see the endeavor through, but give me a break! Watching Tamagotchi dance around is like staring all day long at the Macintosh bouncing clock screensaver. People pay $17.99 for this? You can hug Elmo. You can braid Cabbage Patch hair. Petting a plastic egg gets old quick.
Recently, The New York Times did a follow-up article on this "demanding cyberpet." Apparently the death of these inane dancing creatures is causing trauma for young children. Teachers in New York City are banning Tamagotchis from their classrooms, as students hypnotically stare at their pets, going as far as interrupting standardized tests to feed them. And yet the toys continue to sell out of stores. There is something wrong with America.
Fear not, assures Bandai Toys, maker of these eggs o' annoyance: next year's model will have a pause button. Personally, I'd enjoy a "beat severely" button. A "swift kick to the head" button would be equally amusing, as I've discovered that screaming "Go back to your damn planet!" to be an ineffective method of discipline. My sister, who also received this gift from Grandma, adopted the technique of guilt-tripping my mother into taking care of it. You know something is amiss when you are having frantic blitzwars with your parent, instructing her how to "flush the screen" and "feed the creature." Her Tamagotchi went back to its planet in seven days, the lucky slacker.
Now, you may see Tamagotchis for sale. Friends, you may find their bright packaging appealing. You may be enticed by the idea of extra responsibility. Heed my words of caution: resist the toy! Like Vanilla Ice, some fads are better left alone. It's too late for me. I'm too far gone, but I hope my words can spare you the torture of the insidious virtual pet.
But if after all this you still must have a Tamagotchi, save your money. You can gladly have mine.
