In which a Tamagotchi and a Furby saddle me with years of self-doubt
Two very real, very '90s stories that caused me to seriously question my ability to be a parent
Like the children of every generation before me—and also very likely the children of the generations that will come after—I fell prey to the toy fads of my time.
How could I not? I was a child of the ‘90s, which meant hefty Toys R Us catalogs, neon television commercials, and cafeteria word-of-mouth as the only true form of viral marketing. In my memory, there were only ever a handful of toys that everyone needed (or at least wanted) to have during a given time period.
Surprising no one, I was more of a book kid than I was a toy kid, but I wasn’t immune to the biggest trends, and there are two in particular that stand out two decades later.
For me, it was Tamgotchi and Furby.
Oh, how I longed for each of these items.
Throughout the respective phases of my childhood during which I coveted them, I just knew that if I could acquire them, they would be the stuff of my most vivid memories. I would never forget the times we shared! My Tamagotchi and Furby friends—each in their own way—would leave me forever changed!
I was right about these things. But not for the reasons I expected.
First, let me refresh your memory about these fad toys.
The Tamagotchi was released here in the U.S. in 1997, though it was created and first introduced to the marketplace in Japan the year before. These pocket-sized digital pets were peak fad culture in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, but seem to have had a resurgence in more recent years, perhaps as part of a general (and somewhat inexplicable) nostalgia for the aesthetics of those decades. As of last June, over 91 million—million—Tamagotchis had been sold worldwide.
Tamagotchis looked like little plastic eggs and dangled from keychains. Once you booted them up, they brought to life in extremely blurry black and white animation a digital pet for which you—the Tamagotchi’s owner—were solely responsible. In order to achieve the survival of one’s Tamagotchi pal, you needed to track the device’s hunger, happy, and training/discipline meters, then respond accordingly using one of the game’s extremely basic functions. If you failed, the pet would get sick and… die. Dark.
Having always been much more interested in stuffed animals than in baby dolls—and also possessing a healthy curiosity about anything that could be construed as ~cool technology~— I was totally here for Tamagotchi. I like the idea of being responsible for a pet all of my own, even if that pet was digital. Plus, I could carry it around in my pocket! It was the perfect portable toy for a kid who shuttled between her mom’s and dad’s houses, and I couldn’t wait to show mine off when I finally earned enough allowance money to purchase it at a nearby toy store. By then, most of my friends had been playing with their Tamagotchis for months, but I didn’t care. I was seven years old and in it for a long time, not just a good time.
Furby came a year later—and if you were alive and consuming any media whatsoever in the lead-up to the holiday season in 1998, you probably remember it in searing clarity. An electronic, robotic toy reminiscent of a verrrrry small version of Disney World animatronics, Furby was the toy to have in those days. Those marketing efforts worked, too—within the first three years of their release, the brand sold more than 40 million Furbies.
A language nerd through and through, I thought the coolest thing about the Furby was its ability to learn English with a little help from a human owner. For months, I looked forward to the day when I would successfully communicate with my hypothetical Furby. I knew I would teach it to speak beautifully… and it would be cute, too. When I found a Furby of my very own under the Christmas tree at the age of eight, it felt like a true holiday miracle.
Currently Reading: Good Material by Dolly Alderton
I can already tell you that this one has earned a spot on my list of all-time faves, and I’m still 100 pages from finishing it! Highly, highly recommend. It deserves all of the buzz and all of the attention it’s been getting from celebrity book clubs (despite my mixed feelings about those book clubs).
Now that we’re all on the same page about what exactly Tamagotchi and Furby brought to the table, it’s time for me to invite you into the deepest parts of my subconscious, wherein my experiences with said toys reside to this day.
It would not be an exaggeration to tell you that—contrary to my big dreams of the fun I could have with these goodies—they are largely responsible for the complicated feelings I had about parenthood until I was in my early thirties.
(Way to go, marketing teams.)
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