Tamagotchi: Japanese For Stupid Fad

Lately, as in today, I've been thinking about fads. Basically, this whole thing came on because I saw some girl wearing a Pokémon shirt. It grossed me out. Ok, so I'll be honest. It took me back to a time when I still believed in Santa Claus (on the record), when I didn't understand what was going on in politics (Clinton and... you get the picture), when I wasn't expected to write these stupid blogs every week, when there were still 150 of those little guys, and only three games. As opposed to the roughly 186,282 Pokémon. Wait, that was the speed of light. I get so confused with all the random bits of data they cram into my head in school. Back when there were only the Red, Blue, and Yellow Versions, as opposed to every pretty much every color you could think of. What made Pokémon so much more incredibly popular than other wannabes like Yu-Gi-Oh (More like Yu-Gi-NO!!!)? Quite frankly, I'm not sure. But to make this sound analytical, so I can get credit, I'll say it was due to the fact that the game was just the right balance of cute and "cool" monsters, difficulty without being incomprehensible (seriously, who understands Magic?), and dumb luck. And so, at this point, with no prior planning, I have decided to talk about virtual (and not so virtual) pet fads.

Another thing that was huge was the Tamagotchi. I won't try to lie to you, Tamagotchi is the top item on my Christmas List I'm mailing in a week (If you think I'm jumping the gun, go look at Toys "Nothing For Less Than One Grand" R Us's Christmas catalog from two weeks ago). I loved my Tamagotchi! It was so adorable how that little pixelly guy would kind of slide across the screen, making virtual happy faces and feces (one letter difference, and it makes a huge difference!). I remember how, being a good student, I would leave my Tamagotchi with my mom when I went to school, with express directions to feed it at least once every hour, and to make sure that the thing wasn't drowning in pixel poop. According to Wikipedia (which is slowly taking over the world), "Tamagotchi" is a combination "the Japanese word for egg ("tamago") and the syllable "chi" which denotes affection, so it could be taken to mean "loveable egg". It is also a pun on both "wotchi" (borrowed from English "watch", as in the time piece) and "tomodachi" (Japanese for friend)." Obviously, because the product was sold in America, it was important to make this little pun in Japanese. So, what precisely made these little guys so popular? Mostly because they're "pets" in every sense of the word, except they don't throw up in the middle of the living room, spit hairballs, bark at everyone (though that would be a cool feature), etc. So maybe they're just pets without all the gross parts. Plus the little guys were really cute, and it just made you all warm and fuzzy inside when it made a smiley face at you, much akin to the feeling you get whenever you watch a car blow up in a movie or video game.

In order to get a better idea of the "big picture" of pet fads, we have to take a journey back to the '70's, the time of bell bottoms and hair parted down the middle. Back then, as my dad tells me when he happens to get nostalgic, people used to have "pet rocks." I can't imagine a time when this could have happened. Millions of the rocks were sold in their little "pet rock carrying cases" nestled in a bed of straw, with the manual of how to train and raise these pet rocks. Though the originals had no features, they eventually got animal features painted on them, which clearly made them worth the four bucks they cost. You're probably sitting here and thinking that the people of the era must have been idiots, and you're probably right. But this was right after the US had just lost the Vietnam War. People needed something to cheer them up, and that wasn't a pet that was capable and very willing to make the wee wee of joy on the carpet. So, everyone rushed out and bought these rocks, making their creator an instant millionare, on account of the fact that he was making a several hundred percent profit.

And so, looking back on these examples, I will now attempt to make some sort of connection between them, for a really "analytical" finish. The similarity between these fads is, but not limited to, except during Day Lights Saving Time, and when before a word starting with a vowel, that in conjunction with each other, these fads, which commonly gain widespread popularity, are all characterized by the way they quickly died out. Ok. So that wasn't a real reason, but was just really restating the definition of a fad with added commentary (also known as "verbiage"). So I'll make up a real reason. And here it is, what I've got over good old Webster. Looking back on them, all these fads seem really stupid. They make you slap your hand to your forehead and exclaim, "What a bunch of morons!" But trust me, within a year or so, the store shelves will be lined with toilet paper roll weiner dogs. And you will be buying them.