Transcription
Humans, you all hearing me? Seeing me? Vibing? Are we vibing? That’s a hard question to answer cuz like if you have to ask, then you’re not. Connecting, that's all it is. Knowing glances, interactivity, 'cuz really we’re all in a solo quest and when the game’s over, you’re really only playing with yourself.
Speaking of playing with yourself: I’m a completionist, so I feel like I kinda master (bated) the game here. I’m all about personal growth, and when the time finally comes (hehe) for me to call it, I’m gonna have some solid scores, decent averages, bonus victory points—my stats are gonna be stacked. But you’re not really playing the full game unless you invest in some co-op missions, a lil multi-playage. I’m thinking maybe you all need a little company these days.
Normally I hear ya; I like to quest alone, but lately (and especially 'cuz I think the trauma’s wearing off a little since 2020—so much so even cicadas are goin' HAM on the co-emergence) I’m thinkin’ we could do with a little companionship. We all need a friend; even Godzilla had a friend in Mothra. It doesn’t matter what was goin' down or whether or not Godzilla was in the right; if big guy got bodied, Mothra would be summoned, show up ready to chill shit out.
Now, it can’t all be Mothra, but there’s someone to summon for everyone—a friend for every season. And I guess technically you could just ask Randy Newman, but we don’t need to summon Randy Newman; he’s had enough. Doesn’t even have to be people; probably better if it’s not. Have you met people? If you haven’t, might I suggest a street fest or a dollar shots evening nearish to any sporting arena?
In fact, when aliens eventually hit me up about where to find a good harvest of human, I’m just sayin’ “Wrigleyville.” They’ll get their biological cultures; we’ll have a few less burbanites fuckin' up the commute. It’s a win-win, really. But that’s dark—part of the reason I tend to flock alone. I say weird shit sometimes (and not like that friend who SAYS they say weird shit, but it’s just passive-aggressive loneliness like “OMG you guys what if I died?” which is never a fun question to pose to the group, Tiffany).
I don’t care if you’re finally “relaxing” 'cuz it’s been a “rough week” and you have “a lot on your plate.” I dunno, maybe don’t go feral on your first trip to the buffet of activities that the weekend presents, and you won’t crash so fuckin' hard and ruin brunch asking “OMG you guys what if I died?” like we’re about to start a horror movie. We’re not; it’s just Sunday.
I’m sayin’, people suck sometimes, but when ya find a person—a friend, a companion—and you two decide to vibe and share some emotional and mental sustenance together, the world’s not so bleak and you can enjoy the game a little more. But it’s hard to find a person 'cuz people suck. Having a creature depend on you is tough 'cuz you can barely keep a pair of sunglasses, and you don’t wanna play the Internet Roulette game of “Is this a person or a hungry Spam bot looking to live off my data?”
Thankfully, they still make tamagotchis. OMG you guys, they still make tamagotchis. It’s true; they are still around. BANDAI NAMCO makes 'em; you can buy 'em at Target (and like, props to Target 'cuz it’s rockin' so much nostalgia it’s basically the Millennial Library of Alexandria for new dads at the Holidays. The pyramids of the future to be plundered by whatever Laura Croft we get in a thousand years will just be Targets, and she’ll Rick O’Connell, wake up some LEGO mummy, and have to defeat it with Super Soakers or pool noodles, and THAT is my pitch for the next franchise reboot; you’re welcome).
And if you needed more proof that maybe I should invest in a little actual interaction, there you go—bonus points; all I do is win. But yeah, like I was saying: Thankfully, you can still buy tamagotchis.
Now, I personally don’t have a deep connection to the tamagotchi. I never tamagotchit, ya feel me? At the time of their emergence (1996 in Japan, 1997 in the States), I wasn’t even a thought in the eye of whatever god made me, but they were a fuckin' THING back in the day. For those of you in the room that never knew Street Sharks, the Tyco Jet Turbo Python, and the thrill of a fizzy shot from Dr. Dreadful’s Drink Lab: The Tamagotchi—a portmanteau of either the Japanese word for “egg” (TAMAGO) and the Japanese word for “watch” (UOTCHI) or TOMODACHI (which means “friend”).
The “Egg Watch” one kinda tracks 'cuz the original idea for the tamagotchi was wrist-bound like a snap bracelet. (If you are of an age that didn’t have Jibba Jabber, Skydancers, or Mini-Mutant Turtle Top Playsets, and never knew the taste of SNAPPLE RAIN, SWATCHES was basically a tape measure with a kick-ass fabric covering that took more kids outta school than the SKIP-IT massacre of 1990—so many skinned knees).
Created by Aki Maita and Akihiro Yokoi in 1996 'cuz Yokoi was watching TV one day and saw a commercial where a little boy wasn’t allowed to take his pet turtle on a trip and it chokeslammed his heart parts 'cuz of course, it would! That kid doesn’t know what’s up; he just wants his buddy, his companion, his co-player to make things comfy in the bleak game of life. So Yokoi took this idea and merged it with the burgeoning world of digital pets.
At the time, the personal computer had a cat that would follow your cursor around called NEKO since 1989, making it the first digital pet—although you didn’t like feed it or even care for it; it just hung out, stared at you, scratched itself, and fell asleep, making it still the most accurate cat simulator to date, undefeated. In 1995, game design company PF.MAGIC gave the NEKO cat a glow-up, creating DOGZ (with a Z) where you could adopt and raise a digital dog to play around and mess up your desktop, filling that “God You’re Lucky You’re Fucking Cute Otherwise I’d Eat You” void you humans have developed over time.
All of this is pre-Microsoft Clippy, btw, when your existential loneliness reached max crit and you needed an anxious digital office creep to question your work at home. Anyway, Yokoi and Maita create this concept of these lil aliens that came to earth 'cuz their planet got drunk and irritated, so they had to bail and came to Earth (yes, that’s the lore) to be born from eggs that you have to help hatch and help raise, literally thrusting parenthood on the youth of a pre-smartphone planet.
Your 32 by 16 pixelated tamagotchi would grow from hatch, and you had to feed it and hang out with it by tapping buttons while it rolled around an LCD screen like a drawing you did on a cocktail napkin while on shrooms. The thing is, if you didn’t interact with it, it would starve and die, thrusting the concept of imminent mortality on the youth of a pre-streaming service planet. Existential dread be damned: These lil fuckers were a hit! 40,000 units in its initial drop in 1996 to 10 million by July of 1997 to 13 million in October that same year; 40 million worldwide by spring 1998.
Originally marketed for girls 'cuz the 90s, BanDai created a spinoff for boys in which they added violence to the world of the digital pet, making digital monsters you could square up against your friends called DIGIMON, perpetuating a cycle of alpha male behavior that humans just can’t figure out where it started. DIGIMON went on to become DIGI MORE than just a hypermisogynist digital fight club, but that’s a different podcast. Meanwhile, tamagotchis were thriving!
So much were the kids into having to take maternity leave every ten minutes to care for an alien lest it die and crush your week that schools would ban them. So crushed were those kids upon returning home to find out ET died starving and alone 'cuz you chose your education over their well-being that TamaGotchi Cemeteries were created for humans to literally bury a plastic fuckin' LCD screen in the earth 'cuz the emotional weight was too much to bear; they needed closure—fuck the planet! But the legacy endured, and you can still buy tamagotchis today and bury them when you get over it.
Lest you didn’t think I had a point here: During the initial run of tamagotchis in 1997, BanDai released a tie-in with another Japanese franchise, the ultimate god of That’s What Friends Are For: MOTHRA! Rebirth of Mothra 2 followed the Elias sisters Moll and Lora as they summon Mothra’s kid, Mothra Leo, to save the earth from monsters (don’t you tune out; I had to listen to all your fuckin' BRIDGERTON talk, you can fuckin' hear me out on some Toho studios lore, humans, we’re in this together).
And tamagotchi made a Mothra-themed tamagotchi when the movie was released in which you had several characters you could evolve if you just raised 'em right. Rumored since 1997 was that you could actually raise out of the egg Moll and Lora themselves as your final form tamagotchi. And to those of you glazing over, ask a kid about Enchanted Golden Apples in Minecraft and you’ll get it; it’s rare and hard to get, that’s all you need to know, Tiffany; just pay attention.
It’s the ability to play as the ultimate expression of two friends working together on a digital egg designed to be a friend to help you work through life—the apex of co-op! The companion team-up to complete the codependency cycle your evolution and Mothra’s has been working towards, but could it be done?! Turns out yes, but like all successful relationships: It took a long time to get right.
On June 5th, 2024, a Discord user named rhubarb_pie revealed a guide on how to feed, nurture, and push the right buttons to breed and evolve the two characters thought impossible for 27 years! SO GET HYPED! Rhubarb_Pie has returned from spelunking the depths of a plastic tomb like Indiana Fucking Jones to bring you the spells and prophecies of yore, learning the methods long forgotten—button magic to bring forth the ultimate friendship.
Calling upon the Eldritch Lords of Interdependence to breathe life into the digital forms of Moll and Lora to be summoned to a tamagotchi so they too may grow and thrive! Unitement and TOGETHERNESS brought forth by the electric gods of an ancient time! REJOICE HUMANS! For the future is yours! A celestial companionship paramount to all has been brought, and we shall all link up in eternal multiplayer, hatching a cooperative lore in the bleak ass game that we call life.
Arise, Mothra, and show us your power because we are lonely and need to feel. Or just get hyped, you know. I don't know. Catch my vibe because tamagotchis are still around, so maybe you're not alone after all.