You’re not alone. My parents regularly determined that anything trendy was clearly an invention of Satan sent to bring children directly to demon-worship. My only experience with one of these was like many of my experiences with technology growing up — the only child across the street with the “rich” parents had one, and he asked me to watch it over a weekend when he was on vacation somewhere.
It was never fun to me. It was a beeping obligation.
Did you find that socially isolating at all? On one hand, and probably more a thought from my adult brain than something I would have agreed with back then, one doesn’t want friendships that are predicated on such things. On the other hand, it sure looked like they were having a lot of fun playing Pokémon, whereas I didn’t know the first thing about it. It would have been an easy thing to use as common ground.
Watching your friend’s Tamagotchi while they’re away sounds almost humiliating though.
I didn’t get a lot of what people were talking about for awhile, but mostly it just got me to hide things from my parents from a young age and make my own money so I didn’t have to ask them for things…an attitude that of course created its own problems.
As for the tamagotchi-watching, I could see that feeling humiliating. At the time I think I just felt trusted. Sort of like when the other neighbors would ask me to watch their cat while they were gone. That kid’s parents never did end up ever letting him have a living pet ¯_(ツ)_/¯
You’re not alone. My parents regularly determined that anything trendy was clearly an invention of Satan sent to bring children directly to demon-worship. My only experience with one of these was like many of my experiences with technology growing up — the only child across the street with the “rich” parents had one, and he asked me to watch it over a weekend when he was on vacation somewhere.
It was never fun to me. It was a beeping obligation.
Did you find that socially isolating at all? On one hand, and probably more a thought from my adult brain than something I would have agreed with back then, one doesn’t want friendships that are predicated on such things. On the other hand, it sure looked like they were having a lot of fun playing Pokémon, whereas I didn’t know the first thing about it. It would have been an easy thing to use as common ground.
Watching your friend’s Tamagotchi while they’re away sounds almost humiliating though.
I didn’t get a lot of what people were talking about for awhile, but mostly it just got me to hide things from my parents from a young age and make my own money so I didn’t have to ask them for things…an attitude that of course created its own problems.
As for the tamagotchi-watching, I could see that feeling humiliating. At the time I think I just felt trusted. Sort of like when the other neighbors would ask me to watch their cat while they were gone. That kid’s parents never did end up ever letting him have a living pet ¯_(ツ)_/¯