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Tamagotchi: The Egg That Took Over Our Lives
62 Plays9 months ago
Remember when you were ten and suddenly responsible for keeping a tiny pixelated creature alive?
This week, we’re revisiting the Tamagotchi craze — that weirdly intense moment when every kid became a round-the-clock carer for a digital pet. We unpack how this pocket-sized obsession swept the playgrounds, spawned knock-offs, got banned from classrooms, and somehow taught us about responsibility, guilt, and grief.
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Transcript
Introduction to Liminal Queens Podcast
00:00:20
Speaker
Hi, I'm Jen and welcome to Liminal Queens, the podcast where my sister Sab and I revisit weird, wonderful and oddly specific cultural moments that shaped us as millennials.
00:00:32
Speaker
Each episode, we share our own memories, unpack the cultural context and then dig into the psychology of why these fads, toys and odd little fears stuck with us so vividly.
00:00:45
Speaker
Sab brings the cultural references, i bring the psychology, and together we're here to laugh, cringe, and overanalyse the childhood moments that made us. So if you've ever found yourself thinking, wait, was I the only one who was terrified of quicksand?
00:01:02
Speaker
You're in the right place.
Millennial Nostalgia and Tamagotchi
00:01:04
Speaker
This episode, let's step back into the liminal space that is childhood memory and talk about the craze that was Tamagotchi.
00:01:17
Speaker
Imagine this, listener. The year is 1997. It's a normal day at school when a kid turns up with a mysterious little egg clipped to their backpack. By recess, the entire class is orbiting it.
00:01:30
Speaker
What is it? It's a Tamagotchi, a digital pet that fits in the palm of your hand and is utterly dependent on you, a child, to meet its needs and keep it alive. Feed, clean, play, love.
00:01:44
Speaker
In the coming weeks, it seems like every kid acquires one of these digital pets. And after grinding away at your parents and breaking their will to live, you finally get your own. From the moment you unwrap it and turn it on, it is with you always.
00:01:59
Speaker
At the dinner table, it chirps and you excuse yourself to feed it. In the middle of cartoons, it beeps and you drop everything to clean up after it. At night, you tuck it under your pillow and remain on call should it need you.
00:02:14
Speaker
At school, you keep yours hidden in your pocket, checking between classes, sneaking into the bathroom just to make sure it isn't hungry or sick. It was never in your plan to become a round-the-clock carer at 10 years old, but here you are.
00:02:27
Speaker
At lunchtime, you huddle in corners with other worn-out digital pet parents, sharing strategies, pressing those tiny buttons with frantic devotion and anxiety. And then, one day, it dies.
00:02:39
Speaker
No warning, just a pixelated angel floating away, leaving the screen empty and still. Your chest tightens in a way that you don't quite understand. It's just a toy, you tell yourself.
00:02:52
Speaker
But it felt so real. And you don't know it then, but you'll carry the sound of that tiny desperate beep with you for years.
00:03:02
Speaker
Hi Sissy.
Recording Challenges and Holiday Juggling
00:03:03
Speaker
Hello Sissy. How are you? i am well. Long time no record. i know. It's been, it's been a month.
00:03:13
Speaker
Yeah. Influenza B. Mm-hmm. B being naughty. It hit hard. um My nose is blocked. It's even more nasal than it sounds now. So sorry listener or listeners ah for keeping you hanging with the next episode. Yeah.
00:03:29
Speaker
Yeah. And now that we've we've sort of segued straight from influenza into school holidays, which really makes you regret having children. Certainly not a relaxing experience. and just list this for your information. i'm actually up in Port Macquarie staying with Sabrina.
00:03:45
Speaker
And so we were kind of, I feel like I was maybe a little bit ambitious in thinking about how much we could get done. We were like, yeah, we're going to do this. And then we're going do that. We're going record this and blah, blah. And now we're just basically trying to cram it into a maybe a two or three hour window um and we will see how we go with that.
00:04:04
Speaker
Yeah, we'll just see what we can get done. It's insane. We've had to like bend over backwards and pull all these strings to get rid of two of three children and one of them is having a nap now. So this will be the baby will decide how much we get done. And then if people have complaints, they can um send them to the baby. Yeah, it's the baby's fault.
00:04:24
Speaker
Everything is the baby's fault. very excited to talk about Tamagotchi. Yeah. Because i have felt that they have been a bit mysterious, even though I had one as a kid. i have like lots of questions about them.
00:04:38
Speaker
So did i And so researching has been super fun and super enlightening. So you're going to kick us off with the education on this because... ah We have listeners who didn't have these and have no idea what they are for one reason or another. and You're like like fiercely religious parents or parents who would just vary against technology, et cetera, so um so that you're not left in the dark. We'll catch you up with an education.
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah, right. or Or even listeners, if we're lucky enough to have like Gen Zs listening to us, you wouldn't have had demogochis either. missed out. It was special. You can get them now.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah, you can get them now, that's true. I was sharing with Sabrina the other day that there's a Jurassic World Tamagotchi at Target it currently.
The Tamagotchi Craze and Cultural Impact
00:05:23
Speaker
Okay, so in the mid-90s, Tamagotchi burst onto the scene as one of the first truly digital pets.
00:05:31
Speaker
So shaped like a little egg and you could clip it onto your backpack or a key ring. It housed a tiny pixelated creature that relied on you for everything. The creature was an alien, by the way.
00:05:43
Speaker
And essentially it relied on you for feeding, cleaning, playing, even discipline. And the whole idea was a pet that lived in your pocket that you had to care for in real time.
00:05:54
Speaker
You miss a meal or forget to clean up after it and your Tamagotchi could get sick or could even die. So for kids it was part toy, part responsibility and part obsession.
00:06:06
Speaker
A blend of nurturing, guilt and pride packed into a beeping keychain. It was a lot of things and it was a lot to a lot of kids in the mid-90s.
00:06:18
Speaker
and And I didn't even realize it was an alien. I've been kind of walking around being like, it was an ugly chicken for ages. I just remember having it and then like, just not even thinking about what it was.
00:06:30
Speaker
i was just like, this looks weird. Doesn't really look like anything I know. So was invented in Japan by Akihiro Yokoi. and Akimaita.
00:06:41
Speaker
So they were from a couple of companies called Wizco and also Bandai, which is actually like a really big um gaming and toys company back in the 90s.
00:06:53
Speaker
And that was developed in 1996 and that was had a global release in 1997. It sold like 40 plus million units in the first two years. So that's massive. And there was a virtual pet with life stages. So you had like an egg and then it turned into a baby and then it turned to a child and then an adult and a senior and then death or departure, right? So went through the whole life cycle.
00:07:18
Speaker
um And it required constant care, like I mentioned. You know, it was feeding, cleaning up poop, playing games, disciplining them. It had no pause setting on the first model, so it was just round-the-clock pressure to be taken care of and tending to this thing.
00:07:32
Speaker
That was really unique for a lot of kids to have that kind of interaction with something. Yeah, and and we wonder why, like, we're such an anxious generation. was pretty full-on. Because we had to be carers for this thing. Yeah. We were we were about, on average, 10 years old at the time, I think.
00:07:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, we were. So it was like, it was, it was very intense obsession. So that's why it's so interesting to explore it. So we'll dive a little bit into the core memories now, Sam. What do you think? Yeah, definitely.
00:08:01
Speaker
And I had pretty vivid memories around this because It felt like a very emotionally intense craze or fad. Everyone was all in on this globally. One day there was no Tamagotchi and the next day Tamagotchi was all.
00:08:16
Speaker
Everybody was trying to get their hands on one. ah And it felt like to me someone had rocked up to school with her and then we were swarming all around it all day and it felt like by the end of the day the harassment of our parents began to get us a Tamagotchi.
00:08:34
Speaker
And I did ask mum, hey, what was the timing around this? And she was like, it it was off very quickly and within weeks it was over, but it was very intense. And so we begged mum to take us to Toys R Us.
00:08:48
Speaker
Yeah, I remember that. And she and she did. Like, poor mum, it's not the only time she had to take us to get some crazy fad thing after school. And it felt completely chaotic.
00:08:59
Speaker
Everybody was desperate to get their hands on these things and there was actually... a real mismatch in supply and demand. Like they could not make them fast enough. And when we turned up to Toys R Us, there was only one legitimate Bandai brand Tamagotchi hanging on this hook, like one alone.
00:09:22
Speaker
And you got that one. course I did. I was the oldest child. Yeah.
00:09:28
Speaker
Them's the rules. Oh, I get it. Them's the rules. And then I had to get one of the rip-off brands, like one of the, we have Tamagotchi at home kind of like generic home brand thing or whatever.
00:09:41
Speaker
No frills Tamagotchi. I was very like, I remember feeling a lot of disappointment, but I also felt lucky to have anything at that point because there was nothing left basically. um And so I ended up with...
00:09:57
Speaker
a cat. I ended up with a cat and i I managed to actually track it down. It was called com Compute Kitty from Tiger Electronics.
00:10:08
Speaker
I love that you found a photo of it. It's so great. And, um you know, in order to avoid copyrights, it wasn't shaped like an egg and coloured like that. It was shaped like a more, of I don't know, like something like trapezoid or something. Some weird other shape.
00:10:21
Speaker
Not quite an egg. What would you call that shape, by the way? It's like a triangle with... um but I don't know. It just is like a rounded triangle. around A rounded triangle, yeah.
00:10:32
Speaker
But I was going to say, like, in terms of, like, you just being really disappointed, I feel like that was... standard like younger sibling just be like crush this down and take accept your fate just take what you can get yeah yeah which is so sad i laugh but it's like it's so sad it's just like you have to process it process it later when you're a process it later but when you're a kid you just like sit in the back seat staring at your compute kitty seething with rage silently just press that down press that down yeah um yeah and this cat it had similar functions at drink
00:11:06
Speaker
play with it, but mostly I remember that it it just crapped a lot. Like it was forever shitting. It was really underwhelming and I'd just be like, oh, let's do shit again. I'd just be so annoyed with it.
00:11:19
Speaker
Can you believe this? Like that was cool part of the toy. It was like would poop and you'd clean up after it. But I mean, like, is that inaccurate? It's not inaccurate. Like I feel like actual pets are just shitting a lot and you're constantly picking up after them anyway. Whether it's ah but actually, whether it's a shitter or a toy, it's not only they can do anything for themselves. Like it was actually a pretty accurate experience. Yeah. yeah About taking care of something. weird because so many people in our generation have committed to dogs.
00:11:49
Speaker
especially yeah and and everybody since the bloody lockdown. I feel like and maybe every generation should be given a Tamagotchi in the same way that, you know how schools would be like, look after this bag of flour or look after this egg as if it was a baby, just so that you understand yeah yeah how difficult and thankless this job is.
00:12:06
Speaker
But I agree with you, like you get a pet in real life and I have two dogs and I'm telling you the maths doesn't stack up. The amount of food they eat versus the amount of shit that comes out of them i not understand I don't understand what is happening. There is so much poo and they don't even eat that much.
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. Your dogs poo a lot, like I feel like compared to my dog. I know, but they don't eat a lot. And so that's why I'm just saying what's happening with them. Anyway, so look, it prepares you for for the future. um Anyway, so you had a real Tamagotchi and I had lame-o cat that when I look at the picture, doesn't even look like a
Social Pressure and School Bans
00:12:44
Speaker
cat.
00:12:44
Speaker
um But a few weeks after that, friends of ours, so your best friend Jackie and her sister Bec, they rocked up to school with this other variation. was like another knockoff model and it was a penguin and it had a lot more functionality than ours had. And even though you had a real Tamagotchi, you were like, oh I want one of these penguins. And I was very much like, yes, I would like an upgrade.
00:13:08
Speaker
Well, you know why? Because it actually looks like something. And I was just like, actually, i guess, yeah you know, I don't want to complain as the eldest child getting the actual Tamagotchi, but I was like, this thing ugly. i want something that looks like an actual animal that I know. i think it had slightly bigger screen and yes, slightly, slightly better graphics.
00:13:25
Speaker
And so they had got theirs from the very famous Paddy's Market in New Sydney. And so on a weekend, we convinced our parents to take us there, which I think tells you a lot about how annoying we were being about this. So we we managed to get these penguins. And I say that they had different functionality and more functionality. and And it's true, but they were like so high maintenance though, because not only did they want food, water, play, sleep, and clean up, but they also wanted like medicine and training, like education. And It was too much for me. I was far too young to handle that level of responsibility.
00:13:58
Speaker
i think it died a lot. And then, you know, that was very discouraging. And then I just gave up on it, basically. Yeah. If we just reflect on, you know, when we're talking about the anxiety of having these things and looking after them. I was reading the description on the back of the package for this thing because someone was selling one on eBay. Bless them. Tell me how it makes you feel.
00:14:17
Speaker
You must take care of your cyber pets because they are virtually real. Don't let any of your pets go without food or care. keep them Keep them alive every day with the touch of a button and have fun playing this amazing game.
00:14:30
Speaker
There's just so much in there. I mean, that's just very triggering. Like from a psychological perspective, like how much pressure and obligation are you putting on me? How does that balance out with the fun when you've just terrified me with the consequences of not doing the job right?
00:14:45
Speaker
It's too much. What bit is the fun? What bit is the fun? I still question this. I think it was more in like the having and the comparing at school and the social aspect of it I think that that was it. and Yeah, yeah and which we'll go into a bit more shortly, but I agree. kind of yeah Yeah, I do. I think there was much more than that.
00:15:04
Speaker
But that one, I've got the packet for it. You could get a penguin or a bear or a dog. I don't remember what had. Did we get penguins too? No, we just both had penguins. That's all they had at Patty's Market. And then my last cool memory about this is i I still remain really struck about how quickly the interest died off.
00:15:21
Speaker
And I think there was a a number of reasons for it. so the The market for these was thriving in 1997 and 1998. But I actually, for me, I was like weeks, months maximum.
00:15:33
Speaker
um Yeah. Because, one, I feel like it was way too much effort because these guys were really exhausting, especially in the early version um because there was multiple releases. But in the early versions, the character could die in less than half a day from lack of care.
00:15:48
Speaker
How are you supposed to manage that when you go into school? oh I know, yeah, yeah, yeah. um And every every day when you would wake up, just like in real life, you'd wake up and you'd check your Tamagotchi first and it would be like, there'd be like 10 poos in there and it would be like, ah like what's really sick, starving, thirsty. And you'd wake up and you'd be like, ah, ah.
00:16:10
Speaker
I have to tend to this before I tend to my own needs, which is totally what I now So much angst. It's way too much. Secondly, ah schools banned them, as you can imagine. like very like they They were beeping all the time. I don't think in the early versions you could silence them. So like teachers would be like, no thanks within five minutes of having them in their rooms.
00:16:29
Speaker
And also, dopamine hit, stop looking at it, can't stop talking at it. Can you just imagine for like the kids that had like ADHD or undiagnosed ADHD, as in like us. Yes.
00:16:41
Speaker
Oh, I got to touch it all the time. Yeah. Oh, I got a beep. Oh, it's happy at me. Oh, like just so distracting. I couldn't imagine what it would have been like for a teacher. be awesome. She had to deal with that en masse.
00:16:53
Speaker
Must have just been such a nightmare. And that's why they got banned very, very quickly. And it you' really, like, foreshadowed handheld devices in classrooms. Like, it just got worse from there. Well, that's right. Like, actually, it wasn't really, if you think about it, that The issue with mobile phones, I mean, it's it's less transient than the Tamagotchi was, but it's almost like, you know, it it wasn't the first time yeah that they've had an issue with this. It's just the Tamagotchi sort of died off a bit faster than a mobile phone. Yes, definitely. and So there was a blanket ban um and that was really the death blow because it's like, well,
00:17:27
Speaker
you can't keep it alive. And I know some kids were like, mom, can you mind my Tamagotchi? I was like, fuck, no, no. No, please. I want more responsibility. Thank you very much you um And then, like i was saying before, when you take away the social aspect like, oh, this is my Tamagotchi, what's your Tamagotchi? Mine's at this level. What's yours? Mine can do this. What can yours do?
00:17:51
Speaker
Once that goes away, then you're just like cleaning up poop and stuff alone. like where You're just like sitting at home being like poop clean up, poop clean up, feed, feed, feed, feed. It's very boring.
00:18:02
Speaker
And then lastly, I think at the beginning when there was a scarcity issue with them, it felt very special and very exclusive. But then after the knockoff saturated the market, I think it was just like, man, this doesn't really feel special anymore. You get a bit desensitized and you're like, eh, it's a bit annoying. I don't know if there's a if there's necessarily a psychological concept that's like once it's everywhere and once it's saturated culture, people are just like, meh, I don't want to hear about it anymore. It's over. like and yeah It's basically yeah what you just talked about. yes It's scarcity. Yeah, okay.
00:18:34
Speaker
Yeah. That's the allure. think that's the allure. um And so once that was gone, everyone was just like, well, fuck it. And I'm sure a more interesting toy came out. So those were my core memories. Anything from from your brain on that?
00:18:49
Speaker
Well, I mean, in terms of my memory, we know it's not as crystallised as yours. I think mine were very similar in the sense of... just the desperation to have what other kids have, which I don't think was unique to the Tamagotchi, but it was just so quick and the need to have it like right now. yeah Otherwise just being so left behind. And I mean, God, it's just so interesting how that just...
00:19:16
Speaker
uh how that happened and it was just like a wildfire i remember that uh i remember how quickly i flipped from the tamagotchi and oh i've got one of these now too ew i want to have the other thing that's got the better functionality and i need to keep up i need to keep up with what the coolest thing is because i wasn't the only kid that was enamored with jackie's penguin pen Penguin. yeah It was like, let's go to that one now.
00:19:42
Speaker
Oh, great. Now I've got a Tamagotchi in the Penguin, but actually i prefer to play with the Penguin because it's less ugly. Yeah. I do remember having that thought. Yeah. Those are kind of the key things for me. And also, yeah, just, yeah, you're right. Like once it kind of was banned from school, you had absolutely no hope. Yeah.
00:19:59
Speaker
of managing it. And so it was just so stressful. I think that's, you know, delve into the psychology of it a bit more, but I definitely think that's why it died off so quick. It's just, it was just untenable, like for kids to take care of them. Yeah. um ah Like once they were, you know, removed from school and you couldn't actually look at them all all day. Yeah. It becomes impractical.
00:20:20
Speaker
And I think You know, I think we were we were very, you know, privileged that our parents could take us to get one. But I think it says a lot that they took us to get another one within weeks because because that's not very, that wouldn't be very common of them to do that. They would be like, ah just got you one.
00:20:39
Speaker
What are you talking about? But like, it just tells you how... intense we were being about 100%. Like you really like it was like and and kids, kids got a lot of free time to just nag bust your balls about it and be like oh don't we know it and like eventually we just broke them and then they had to take us to get another one just to like get it to end yeah yeah i agree like you just there's only so much of that you can take and we know that now oh yeah being parents ourselves yeah um yeah there's some really
00:21:13
Speaker
but some core memories I think they'll share share with you yeah very much so. So it's nice to sort of reminisce on those. ah You know what, ah I think, you know, you did most of the deep diving into this. so I'd be really keen to hear now in terms of those core memories, what was the broader context for the Tamagotchi, like
Target Audiences and Market Expansion
00:21:34
Speaker
what was happening? yeah Because that's always really interesting. And like we've talked about in previous episodes, like you're really not privy to that as a kid. Like you don't really know. It's just like, this is the thing and that's what I want and that's the obsession.
00:21:45
Speaker
But there's so much going around that to kind of make it an obsession. Yeah. yeah Social perspective. So what did you come across in your research? Yeah. So the first question that I started researching because it was really all driven by my own curiosity. It was like, why did this exist in the first place? Like, why would have someone invented this and for whom? Because it is actually, when you think about it, ah very bizarre.
00:22:11
Speaker
It's not like there was a um a long it's not like today where if someone came up with it you'd be like yeah yeah digital tech everywhere to giving some tech to a kid whatever um it was very left field when it it came out so we mentioned before that it came from ah a company called bandai and a japanese company and it was created in japan for the japanese market initially and it was invented really for the teenage girl market in Japan. Right. So you mentioned before ah Aki Maita, who was one of the creators.
00:22:45
Speaker
So she was a woman in her 20s and she explicitly designed this with young girls in mind. So something small, something cute and something ah portable and emotionally engaging.
00:22:58
Speaker
Right. And if you think about it, the Tamagotchi also meets another very human need, which is the need for a pet. And especially in Japan, where there's a like a lot of small spaces and apartment living, having a real pet wasn't very feasible isn't very feasible and so this solved that need it was just a symbolic pet without the real world constraints um but also that that resonates with western cultures as well like we have a lot of apartment living too and a lot of ah parents who just be like no no no i don't want a pet like
00:23:30
Speaker
heard that a lot as kids yeah so true but i think also like that definitely when you think about it in the context of of japan that was an issue like earlier on than say if i think about yes know australia and and what the living was like in the mid 90s we didn't have as much of an issue yeah you're right we were like more suburban more space yeah yeah Yeah, I think i think for the Western cultures, it was more like parents being like,
00:24:00
Speaker
I don't want the additional responsibility. Fair enough. Fair enough. Because I would be like, can we get another dog? And mum and dad would like, And be like, it's heartless, heartless people. And now that I have dogs, I'm like, oh, fucking hell. Why do I have them? I love them, but why?
00:24:17
Speaker
another Another really important aspect of the appeal of this ah was that it tapped into the kawaii aesthetic. I hope I've said that properly. Did I? Yeah, I think so.
00:24:28
Speaker
ah Which in Japanese means cuteness. So if you think about Hello Kitty, Sailor Moon, all the cute Japanese stationery that we had around the time as well.
00:24:41
Speaker
That small and cuteness thing is a really big part of the culture. So if you think about tidy egg shaped, like in little pastel colours, it's not really just a toy, it's also an accessory. Yeah. yeah And early ads for the Tamagotchi in Japan showed high school girls clipping Tamagotchis to their school bags and pencil cases.
00:24:57
Speaker
But look, that has global appeal for young girls anyway. Yeah, we just see it in very de different forms yeah nowadays, right? Me also like cute. But what about the boys, I hear you ask? um And this was very interesting to me because we went to an all-girls school, so I'd never even thought about whether boys...
00:25:18
Speaker
cared about or liked Tamagotchis or had them. 100%. Boys, what's a boy? What is boy? and so What is boy? But once the toy went global in 1997, it started to break out of the girls-only box.
00:25:30
Speaker
So, you know, ninety s gender norms were pretty strong, pretty ingrained. And so the original Tamagotchi design and aesthetic didn't go very far with the boys, but they were drawn to the knockoff clone devices. So the one that's like,
00:25:45
Speaker
penguin, bear, dog, you know, like ah with different coloured colours. casings Yeah, more gender neutral colours too. or even yeah Or just like boy-coded themes, dinosaur, robot, dragons, monsters, whatever. But eventually um it was the same company, Bandai, that caught on later which and they started releasing Tamagotchi designs with darker shells, camouflage prints.
00:26:10
Speaker
I'd love to do a deep dive into camouflage print. um But eventually they then created Digimon. Digimon. That was them. Right. I don't know if you remember Digimon, guys.
00:26:22
Speaker
I do. yeah And that was they developed that to be the boy version of the Tamagotchi. And so instead of having all of the nurturing functionality, it had battling things.
00:26:33
Speaker
functionality so you're like I'm getting my thing ready for battles and then you would play against other boys as Digimons and I actually it was a bit of a head do for me because I'd always associated Digimon as being the competitor to Pokemon because it was like animals battling and there was a cartoon yeah as well but actually at first it was created for to be the Tamagotchi, the the boys' version of the Tamagotchi. was like, okay. Fascinating. But it actually crosses both of those both of those ah cultural phenomenon at the same time. But everyone was always like very, had a lot of disdain for Digimon.
00:27:11
Speaker
they like, that's not as good as Pokemon, I remember. Yeah, that's what I remember that too. like right Yeah, and and also I just, um it's a really it's really fascinating to know that because I didn't know it was in the form of like a Tamagotchi type of thing. I genuinely thought it was a competitor to Pokemon. Yeah, and it it is both, but it started with that device and meeting that need as a boycotted version of Tamagotchi. Fascinating.
00:27:35
Speaker
And so why did we go bonkers for these things, right? You look back at it and you're like, this is like an egg with a pixelated thing in it and very limited functionality. So why the insanity, everyone?
00:27:48
Speaker
So firstly, there was this novelty factor behind it. So the world had never really never seen a handheld interactive life form before, which is true. And back then, handheld devices were just coming into being. So the handheld digital thing was already a novelty within itself before you bring in. They're like, it's a pet and it grows.
00:28:08
Speaker
In terms of handheld devices, we had had the Game Boy um and then there was Pages as well. Yes. like ah Pages are also a little bit mysterious to me because I was like, that's just a thing that doctors had, so probably need to do bit of research. And then eventually mobile phones. But at the time, the concept of having your own device ah was rare.
00:28:28
Speaker
And like, what about the concept of having your own device as a kid? Your brain would have imploded, right, with how cool that is. cool. Yeah.
00:28:39
Speaker
Yeah. it would it was It was actually intoxicating, especially when we you and I have spoken about in past episodes, when you're a kid, you have so little independence and so little empowerment that I think it was super nice to have something that's like, this is mine and this is my own and, you know.
00:28:59
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. It gives you a little sense of autonomy and something that you can do that you do have that semblance control within it. A little bit of purpose as well. It's just kind of like I tipped over eventually into just like being completely overwhelming. Exactly. As you mentioned before. Yes, totally.
00:29:14
Speaker
Yeah. The Tamagotchi was also very appealing because there was this emerging obsession with the digital frontier in
Digital Obsession of the 90s
00:29:22
Speaker
the 90s as well. So you think about things like um virtual reality was a really big buzzword. We had a lot of like films like The Matrix coming out and Pokemon was also a thing at the time already.
00:29:34
Speaker
um And so it played into that. digital slash reality reality blur living in the matrix sort of thing. ah Japanese culture was already in the process of having its globalization effect. So we had yes um Nintendo, we had anime, we had all of the cool Japanese stationery.
00:29:54
Speaker
And so that was paving the way for Japanese exports. So Tamagotchi just fit into that pipeline really. Yeah and it was just so cute. Everything was so cute that came out of got Japan. You know Sanrio, you know, that that was massive. Hello Kitty and... What's Sanrio?
00:30:13
Speaker
Well Sanrio is the company that that has um Hello Kitty and all the affiliated characters. Oh that's theirs, right. yeah Massively popular with kids. Yeah. And then if you look at it from an economic perspective, the toys were relatively affordable, mass produced, they were marketed aggressively. There was like a real consumer culture that was starting in the ninety s and was like completely out of hand these days.
00:30:39
Speaker
Yes. We already talked about the scarcity factor and how the shortages and the hype creates that ah gold rush mentality. And then we had to have one and we felt like if we didn't have one, we would die, which is ah FOMO to the max. Like that's the maximum setting for FOMO.
00:30:58
Speaker
And then lastly, the social play. So it's not just about feeding your own pet, it's about showing it off and comparing it and competing with other kids. Yep, for sure. But I got to say on the FOMO bit, I do, part of me feels for kids who missed out, but then I also feel like they they dodged a bullet as well because these things were pains in the arse.
00:31:17
Speaker
yeah yeah it was over really quickly so for those kids ah that are listening that that didn't have one like it was fun and unique but like you didn't miss out on a whole heap if that helps to validate your emotional experience if you have a deep tamagotchi related wound yeah ah you can let that go You weren't missing much.
00:31:41
Speaker
Oh, and then the last the last sort of contextual question that I put here was when we think about the rip-off versions or the dupes, my curiosity was like, look, how does that really work? Because we see a lot of dupes now, which is it's not very good for independent entrepreneurs who come up with something and then like five minutes later a massive corporation just does rip-offs and sells it on Teemu, et cetera.
00:32:05
Speaker
But when... We were experiencing this and, you know, we felt like we were some of the first people to the shops to get one. How was there already a ripoff cat one sitting side by side with the actual legit Tamagotchi on the shelf? How does that happen?
00:32:20
Speaker
um And so i had ah did a little bit of research into it. So so how do dupes work and how do they appear so quickly and how do these ones appear so quickly? So when something becomes a craze, rival manufacturers, they will literally just buy one of them.
00:32:36
Speaker
and then they'll just open it and then they just copy the circuitry. They just reverse engineer it. Yeah. Honestly. That makes sense. It makes sense. um I was surprised when you told me that you had a cat one. You didn't know?
00:32:49
Speaker
No, thought, think i was I was a kid. Again, was just going to shit what's going on with you as long as I'm the one that's got the thing. So selfish.
00:32:59
Speaker
I give a shit that kid over there as long as I've got what I need. Yeah, totally. um But you're right. Like it was there it was there straight away. Like how did they get hold of something so quick? Yeah. Crazy. For the Tamagotchi but in particular, the tech was very simple. So it was just like a tiny LCD screen, a basic microchip and a watch battery. Yeah.
00:33:18
Speaker
simple It didn't have advanced graphics. yeah And actually, when you told me about that Tamagotchi that you saw at Target now, and I Googled it, it looks like it's the same tech. Like it's still just very basic pixelated sort of thing that looks like it runs on ah a platform.
00:33:36
Speaker
a watch battery. So that's not really evolved. um Anyway, if you're one of these people making the dupes, once you've cracked the case, you can reprogram that tech slightly or make some different graphics. Like, when look, it's a cat instead of a stupid alien or whatever.
00:33:50
Speaker
um And in the 90s, especially in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, factories were already ready to churn out low cost electronics at lightning speed. That's true. So they were just waiting and the manufacturers didn't need to do the R&D, right?
00:34:04
Speaker
In terms of time or money, they were just reverse engineering the thing. So they just cloned the idea. They just pumped out millions of units with slightly different shells or colors or labels, just make enough changes to dodge any potential lawsuits.
00:34:18
Speaker
And so that model was particularly successful in this case because the demand got out of hand very quickly and Bandai couldn't yeah keep up. And so these people were just like, there's a vacuum, gonna fill it with all my weird ripoffs.
00:34:32
Speaker
And they did well out of it. They did well. And because there would have been retailers globally being like, oh my God, i got I have to stock my shelves with these things. Who's selling them? Whether they're legit Tamagotchis or something slightly different, there would have been so much demand for that.
00:34:46
Speaker
um So yeah, that's how duping works in this case anyway. So interesting that context that you shared, Sissy. Thank you for doing that research. I hope it is interesting for listeners as well because you weren't thinking about that stuff when you were a kid. You were just like, I want one.
00:35:03
Speaker
Yeah. Me want no curiosity about where came from, how made, impact, cost. Just give me gimme, gimme, gimme. Let's take a break for a second, Jen. Okay, cool.
00:35:17
Speaker
Okay, so at this point we understand the what and the why of Tamagotchi. Now, Jen, can you tell us the impact it had on our young brains? All right, so there's a couple of concepts related to the psychology that we've touched on, and like scarcity and also the intensity of this craze. So let's dig into the psychology behind it, right? So what exactly is at play here? or What was at play for this particular trend? So...
00:35:44
Speaker
One really key concept that this trend touched on or tapped into was attachment. so ah you So attachment in a broader sense relates to sort of our engagement with others, right, our relationships and relationships.
00:36:01
Speaker
how we connect to others, particularly when you're, you know, we think about children, like how does that develop over time with our parents, particularly our mother? um is it a secure, what we call a secure attachment where you feel comforted to kind of explore the world, but you know that your mum's always going to be there? Or is it um an insecure attachment, which is, you know, i guess sort of the the opposite of that? And then you've got and another type of attachment, which is avoided attachment, which is pretty...
00:36:28
Speaker
a pretty disordered type of attachment. But these Tamagotchis actually tapped into that concept of attachment. So as kids, we weren't just pressing buttons. Yeah, we were actually forming what psychologists call parasocial relationships.
Psychological Influence of Tamagotchis
00:36:42
Speaker
So just like when we cry over a TV character, you know, the kids are genuinely grieving when our pixelated pets died. So when these Tamagotchis died, it was like it hit you really hard. There was an emotional connection you were developing with this creature.
00:36:57
Speaker
And the Tamagotchi really cleverly tapped into that, into our innate caregiving instincts. And if you think about what Sam mentioned before around the sort of, I guess, ah gendered bias of these toys, it tapped into sort of that social role that that girls or women have.
00:37:12
Speaker
Hence why, you know, the boy versions later on didn't really have anything to do with that. But here's the thing, right? These bonds weren't reciprocal, right? So we're getting nothing the other way.
00:37:26
Speaker
so unlike a dog that's wagging its tail or, you know, letting you give it cuddles, the Temagotchi never really loved you back. It never showed any affection back. It pretty much just wanted everything from you. So once that illusion wore thin, so does the attachment.
00:37:43
Speaker
right? Because you get nothing. You're just like, oh, God, to the point we mentioned before, like, oh, this is so much work. You're getting nothing. There's no reward. There's no, like, broader reward that you're getting outside of sort of like the button tapping, which is a bit of a dopamine hit.
00:38:00
Speaker
Yeah. But, Jen, is it, what about when you've done everything to take care of them and they're just, like, happy and just, like,
00:38:12
Speaker
happy and bobbing there is is that reciprocal it's reinforcing in a certain way but it's not like that deep of sort of attachment that you you create with another human or another sentient being like a pet like a dog or a cat something can really give it back to you so you probably say a similar thing with like yeah other pets that are perhaps like like fish for example or you know reptiles and things that just, you know oh they give me great pets, i don't get me wrong, but they're not really giving you much that's reciprocal either. So the reward there isn't as strong.
00:38:50
Speaker
So if you think about the Tamagotchi in terms of a trend and like the brief, the brevity of that trend, this is kind of part of what feeds into that why it was. So at first it's like, awesome, awesome, dopamine, dopamine, ah like, yeah, oh, oh I'm creating, I've got responsibility. Oh, hang on a minute. Like over time, you're like, oh, this is like so much work and there's just actually not a lot of.
00:39:13
Speaker
stuff I'm getting back. It's a bit of a drain. Yeah. So that's one Just a drain. Then if you think about the power of the beep, so I've just talked about that too before in terms of the dopamine hit. The obsession also came down to some old school behavioural psychology. So Tamagotchi's ran on what we call operant conditioning. So you feed it and it smiles.
00:39:34
Speaker
You ignore it and it sulks. You... Don't feed it and it dies. Yep, you don't clean up after it and it's sick. so And those unpredictable little beeps, that's what we call classic intermittent reinforcement. It's the same mechanism for slot machines, right, to keep gamblers hooked um and so and smartphones as well with the scrolling, right, so you get something that you're...
00:40:01
Speaker
You like, great, that's that's that's hitting the mark, but then you have like some boring, like no, scroll, scroll, scroll, ooh, something I like. But that really doesn't happen at ah at a um what we call like like ah a regular rate of reward. It's like quite variable and that's the strongest form of reinforcement.
00:40:19
Speaker
So in terms of building the trend or the obsession, that was sort of what it started with. Well, can you explain why the, you said that the beeps weren't at a regular interval, those rewards.
00:40:32
Speaker
What's so powerful about the intermittent reinforcement? Because you don't know when it's coming. Right. For the sake of having the reward, you will have a go and keep doing it. Yeah. And trying.
00:40:43
Speaker
And then eventually you're going to get rewarded. And so it's it's just got a so ah stronger hold than something where it's consistent. And then obviously if if you're never getting rewarded, that kind of dies out. It was called like extinction.
00:40:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that's why as kids with this trend, we were checking them constantly, you know, even under the desk at school before they got banned.
00:41:06
Speaker
But also on the flip side, unlike a game that evolves or levels up, the loop was kind of repetitive after a time. And so when that repetition sets in, we start to habituate to it, that magic kind of fades.
00:41:20
Speaker
So after a while we're sort of like, oh, okay, like this isn't kind of evolving to anything new. It's not getting harder. Yeah. That kind of feeds into this this sort of trend dying out as well. Yeah.
00:41:32
Speaker
I've mastered this. Yeah. There's no more mastery shows us why it kind of really rocketed off and then plummeted. Mm-hmm. So another sort of element that we saw was miniature responsibility training, which we talked about before. So for many children, this was their first taste of responsibility, yeah? Like we talked about this before, feeding, cleaning, nurturing.
00:41:53
Speaker
So in developmental psychology terms, it was actually a simulation of caregiving. So we know that that's what it was set up to do. That was the intention. So parents even justify the purchase as teaching responsibility.
00:42:06
Speaker
Yeah. So, oh, here's something that, you know, yes, they can have a go. They can try it out. Yeah. Maybe they have some empathy for me, which is probably a bit of a stretch. So, but like we talked about before, the problem was that the responsibility was without any depth or sometimes depending on the age of the child, who was days too much.
00:42:25
Speaker
um like i said before there was no real growth no genuine and unpredictability and yeah it was quite clear that if you didn't feed it the consequence was that it would die or yeah was just programmed cycles and so like the responsibility without any meaning kind of also becomes a chore like we've mentioned before that's also another yeah other aspect to consider and we talked about that the you know the attachment could feel um very real but then Is that negated by the fact that you just reset it and start again? Like it dies, you grieve for five minutes, you press the reset button, there's a new egg.
00:43:01
Speaker
Yeah, so much like consequence, I suppose, you know, whereas like you certainly wouldn't see that if you have an actual pet, right? You don't feed your fish, you don't clean your fish, that's going to result in them being dead and then that's Yeah.
00:43:14
Speaker
Yeah. Now we mentioned about that peer influence and the social aspect of this, which was massive. So very much kind of gave us a bit of a social identity, particularly when came to caregiving.
00:43:26
Speaker
Owning one meant that you belonged. Kids compared Tamagotchi. Who is this healthiest, the oldest, the cutest? This was what we call normative social influence in action.
00:43:36
Speaker
So doing what everyone else does to fit in. That's very much a theme of childhood, right? Yeah. So even though, you know, it spreads through the classroom like wildfire, that's really what sort of ignites these types of obsessions. But just as quickly when peer attention moves elsewhere, guess what? The whole network just falls apart.
00:43:55
Speaker
And yeah Jen, is this why, you know, when I was saying earlier how it feels so intense, like if you don't get one, you might die, is that almost linked to a bit of primitive survival instinct? Like there is a drive to fit in so that you are included in the tribe so that you are not outcast and and left to die in the wild absolutely yeah so from an an evolutionary psychology perspective absolutely belonging is is essential so belonging is a drive that if like introverts when we think about introverts and extroverts so people who are like really outgoing versus people that tend to like to be by themselves even people that want to be by themselves still have a ah drive for belonging
00:44:36
Speaker
It's just it just presents itself differently. So 100 percent, every time there's like an obsession or something a kid like other kids are into, your peers are into, there is an intrinsic drive to make sure that you are aligned with that in some way, shape or form. Because, yes, if you think about our ancestors, if you did not conform with that, then you are not part of the tribe and then you don't have the safety of the tribe.
00:44:58
Speaker
Yeah. To survive. So yes, absolutely linked to that too. Cool. so So that's it for the psychology and just sort of wrapping that together because we did talk about a few of those three themes throughout. Yeah, thank you, Jen.
00:45:10
Speaker
It validates that it felt like a fever dream. And I was like, well, yeah. It was. was a fever dream, actually. ah Definitely. Definitely.
00:45:21
Speaker
So look, we've talked about the core memories that we had, that social context, which is always fascinating, and the psychology that's linked to that as well in terms of driving the demand and the obsession.
00:45:32
Speaker
I guess it's sort of time to wrap up, isn't it, Sissy, and have a think about, you know, what kind of legacy has Tamagotchi left us?
00:45:48
Speaker
I wanted to put that question specifically to help us wrap up today, because especially when it comes to things like big influential leaps in technology.
Legacy of Tamagotchis in Gaming Culture
00:45:58
Speaker
The next question is what legacy did it leave?
00:46:01
Speaker
What came after that? What did it influence? yeah And so my thoughts are ah virtual life simulation games. So I think of The Sims from the year 2000, which is like, I'm all about that. And especially when you talked about the sense of control and like how appealing that is. I'm like, yeah, this is probably why I was playing The Sims like all the time as a kid, because I wanted that sense of control.
00:46:25
Speaker
um But yes, the creator of that actually acknowledged digital pets as part of the lineage of live simulation um because, you know, they need food, hygiene, fun, and it's all it's gamified and it was like a lot more complex and aesthetically appealing. You could do a lot more with it. Yeah.
00:46:44
Speaker
Yeah, which I think was like what, you know, if we and we'll probably deep dive into The Sims because that's almost like a whole other episode within itself. But I think there was complexity in that that was lacking in Tamagotchi's that kind of sustained that a lot longer. Nintendogs came out in 2005. So again, it's a bit like that's a bit like having a Tamagotchi, but with more complexity and more, I guess.
00:47:06
Speaker
Oh, yeah. maybe Maybe like more real feedback loop in terms of that. What do you call it? Like the um the attachment? And then there's numerous pet apps yeah and games that exist today that have very similar care loops to Tamagotchis.
00:47:21
Speaker
The Tamagotchi also fed into the always-on-device culture. Constant digital notification beeping and demands that just stress the shit out of you. Sociologists sometimes argue that Tamagotchi helped normalize the idea that our devices demand care and attention.
00:47:38
Speaker
So really a straight line can be drawn from Tamagotchi to your phone screaming at you when you've got an unread message. Yeah. or Duolingo owl giving you guilt trips about not doing your Duolingo homework. Get a life owl.
00:47:53
Speaker
Jesus. That owl is so intense so if you have those notifications on. Why does it matter to you if I'm practicing? Again, it's it's it's tapping into it's and tapping into that reinforcement. yeah Wearables and companion tech. So, yeah, you've gone from an egg-shaped keychain to smartwatches and Fitbit step counters and everything like that, especially the Apple Watch feels like a little bit more like you've got to keep looking at it all the time.
00:48:24
Speaker
And lastly, just the cultural lexicon, the word Tamagotchi became shorthand in the late 90s for any digital craze.
Concluding Thoughts on Tamagotchi's Impact
00:48:37
Speaker
That is it from us. I hope that everybody now either understands Tamagotchis if you didn't know them before, but for all of us who were, should we say victims? Victims of the Tamagotchi craze.
00:48:48
Speaker
I now have such a better understanding of what the hell was going on and why it was going on and why it felt the way that it felt. For sure. Thank you, Sissy, for taking the time to explore all of that.
00:48:59
Speaker
I feel more sane, actually, as a result of having explored it. And so on our next episode... we are going to talk about millennial pop culture fears and when we started listing out what these could be there were so many that we actually had to group them into themes yeah these volumes are what the hell's going on with us and why we're all so weird we're going to do this in a multiple part series yeah part one is going to be more about the nature-based fears and earth trying to kill us so let's dive into
00:49:31
Speaker
Please not literally quicksand. Let's talk about acid rain. Let's talk about tornadoes. Let's talk about volcanoes. Yeah. Because we need to. um And it is actually super interesting when you start to get into the research.
00:49:45
Speaker
And I really look forward to speaking to you about that. So excited. As always, if you like this show, follow it so you get the notifications for the next episode. We are on Instagram at liminalqueens and we do have a Gmail if you want to email us about anything, which is liminalqueenshod at gmail.com.
00:50:04
Speaker
If you want to share any of your memories or you have maybe a thought around an episode topic you'd like us to cover, you can also let us know that too. Yep. Take care, everybody. Talk to you soon.
00:50:16
Speaker
Bye, Sissy. Bye.