'I raised a virtual pet'

Tamagotchi, a popular ’90s toy, is back. DH journalist Sweekruthi K imports one, and experiences the joys and agonies of parenting it

I am not sure how many people in this world can say they have witnessed a birth. Something about participating in a life event so grand and incredible changes you. At least this is what I thought to myself as I saw an animated egg hatch on a little screen in my hand. The ‘grand’ animation paused for a minute so I could take a picture of this character coming to life. And then, just as in life, I encountered an unexpected twist. The screen flashed ‘Low Battery’ and I rushed for the triple As so I could finish watching the miracle of life.

The little device I was cradling was a Tamagotchi. If you haven’t stumbled upon this world in your exploration of Internet folklore from the ’90s, let me give you some context. Created in Japan, the Tamagotchi is a palm-sized, egg-shaped ‘digital pet’. It came to life a short time before I did, in 1996. The toy’s designers were inspired by a commercial about a boy who could not take his pet turtle on a trip. Lo and behold, they created a portable pet!

Read | From Japan, with love...

It features a tiny screen that lights up with an animated character — your Tama pet. The narrative of this creature’s life is central to the game (and to the user’s happiness, I soon found out). The idea is to keep the Tama pet alive, happy and well-adjusted through regular care. There are about 50 characters and depending on the gameplay, you can end up with any of them. While some have cat-like features, others resemble bunnies, ninjas or dinosaurs. Like Pokémon, the range of characters varies from the familiar to the fantastical.

’90s pet project

Before the end of the millennium, over 40 million Tamagotchis had been sold. Bandai, the company, would go on to spin a franchise, and a TV series.

Stories of children either smuggling the Tamagotchi to school or coming home to find their pet dead still make the rounds on the Web. My friend Vimbai, who grew up in the UK, shared: “My friends and I took them to primary school but they were swiftly confiscated. We kicked up a fuss about how they would die without us taking care of them.” Unconvinced, school authorities only returned them in the evening and they were “indeed dead”.

While the Tamagotchi was ubiquitous in Japan, the US and Europe, it was rare in India. The odd kid or two, with an aunt in Australia or an uncle in Dubai, would score ‘exotic’ toys like Beanie Babies, an Etch A Sketch or the Tamagotchi.

Many of us encountered Tamagotchis only in the early 2000s through mentions of them in TV shows on Nickelodeon and Disney. My interest was kindled in my teens. Thanks to the Internet, I read that users had forgotten their Tama pets for weeks, even years, only to find them still alive. In contrast, some Tama pets had died after just a few hours of neglect. I was curious to see the appeal for myself, and eavesdropping on an office conversation presented an opportunity to do so. This was, at least virtually, one step closer to getting a pet, something I had been campaigning for at home for a good two years!

Pixel parenting

My order was to arrive from Europe, at a price that could have bought me 55 UNO card sets. Over the years, Tamagotchis had seen several updates. The original edition had a monochrome display with a simple, pixelated character and retailed for $18 (Rs 1,477 approx) — now it’s worth $130 (Rs 10,665 approx). The newer models can set you back by $50 (Rs 4,100 approx).

In the meantime, my research showed that ’90s kids and late millennials were dubbed the ‘Tamagotchi generation’, and it is predicted that people will begin to have virtual children and grandchildren by 2050.

It was one mundane afternoon when a box arrived. I opened it, and there it was! My Tamagotchi — egg-shaped, purple and blue, with clouds on it. But it would take me seven more days to remove it from the plastic casing. As a soon-to-be digital pet parent, I was overcome with doubts: Am I ready for Tama pet parenting? What if I let it die? What if I don’t like it? What would this say about me as a person and potential future parent?

I worked up the courage to unpack the toy and power it on. A quiz popped up. I had to pick my favourite food, colour and item out of three sets of images. Soon, a spotted pink egg appeared. This was it, my digi baby.

Until now, I had approached Tamagotchi with the cool distance of a 20-something playing a children’s game. But as I watched a baby chick break through its shell and show up with a pink bow and yellow beak, I was rapt. After much deliberation, I settled on a name both timeless and elegant — Noom-noom.

The next few hours were nerve-wracking. I checked on Noom-noom every few minutes, making sure she was not crying. There was a hunger meter and a happiness meter that I carefully kept an eye on.

Sixty minutes after the hatching, Noom entered the toddler phase, turning into a blue child with shoulder-length hair. She got hungry less often, but still cried a lot, and needed changing pretty often. She had graduated from just having milk and cookies to enjoying a bagel, candy and the occasional squid-ink risotto.

Wonder years

The interactive options included ‘feed’, ‘play’, ‘bathroom’, ‘camera’, and ‘clean’, wherein Noom would show up with a vacuum cleaner! She slept at 8 pm, making Zs in the air as she snored.

I checked on my toddler 24 hours later and now she had become a teen! She was taller, had a round head and long, pretty eyelashes, and wore a yellow jumpsuit.

This Noom liked a diverse menu. To my delight, the 2021 Tamagotchi version came with a camera which allowed me to take pictures of real food, which can be processed later to ‘cook’ new dishes for the hungry Tama. The camera also features a ‘go outside’ option to click photos of your Tama pet in real-world settings. A fun and confusing photo album emerged — of Noom sitting on my keyboard or on the hood of a random Toyota.

As the week progressed, my digi pet and I fell into a routine. I was an active parent, buying new games and clothes from a virtual store, taking her to the park, and doing up her home with a lamp, a large vase and a couch better than my own. Keeping her happy was getting more complex — beyond food, she also needed social interaction, exercise and activities.

I took my Tamagotchi everywhere that month. The beeps and boops of the toy got the attention of my coworkers, who expressed amusement and interest. My friends didn’t question my love for the inanimate object. A stranger dubbed me ‘woke’. My virtual world failed to impress a middle-schooler, who preferred iPads.

No, no, no

“I don’t think I get the attachment. The caretaking is getting boring,” I told a friend one afternoon, guiltily. That night, as I attempted to replace the dead batteries in my Tamagotchi on the way home, everything changed. Just above the battery slot lay a ‘total reset’ button, I learnt with a rude shock. I had hit the kill switch! My friend watched in horror as we realised Noom-noom was gone. I laughed it off, knowing my thoughts and I would face each other when I got home.

Digital grief is a strange, intangible concept. It also feels incredibly stupid. However, it didn’t take away the feeling of having failed. It took me three days to recoup.

I decided to start again. I reset the date, keyed in my name, took a new profile picture and watched a new egg, green this time, hatch. I named this one, Ramen, in honour of its predecessor’s culinary interests.

Caretaker concerns

Perhaps due to the loss, I was a lot more neglectful this time and its consequences took me by surprise. When my toddler grew into a teen, he looked round and clunky, and had a receding hairline — he was not graceful and adorable like Noom-noom. After several speeches to myself about beauty being on the inside, I set off to do some research.

It turns out, besides keeping the pets alive, your caregiving needs to be consistent. ‘Care misses’, as they title neglect, cause your pet to not just turn out looking a bit strange, but also cause behavioural problems. Maladjusted Tama pets have irregular sleep, unhealthy eating patterns, attitude problems and lower levels of happiness. The well-adjusted pets sleep well, and are healthier and happier.

I glanced at myself in the mirror as I sat hunched over, reading this at 2 am with a cookie in hand, and tried not to think too much about what this meant for me. I hit the ‘total reset’ button on purpose this time, determined to raise my third pet, Twoom, with intense attention.

A week later, my well-adjusted pet became an adult. A day after that, I was watching her water plants in her garden when a spaceship appeared and took her away. As I researched Tamagotchi lore, I learnt that Tama pets are aliens that you get to keep and raise for a week before they return to their home planet. Before leaving, Twoom left behind a gift — a blue egg to continue the lineage.

I took a deep breath. I was reflecting on the circle of life and my legacy when my screen flashed ‘Low Battery’.

Tama takeaways

A colleague was curious about the implications of virtual pet culture. Does it stand a chance in a city like Bengaluru, which loves stray and pet animals just as it loves technology?

She wanted to know if virtual pets are a children’s thing or if grown-ups too can get drawn in. The market is now flooded with digital pets like Bitzee and CircuitPet, and virtual pet mobile applications like Bubbu, My Talking Tom, Dogotchi, and even a Tama version — My Tamagotchi Forever.

She wondered whether virtual worlds can plug the ‘urban epidemic’ of loneliness or drive us to become responsible and compassionate adults.

I, for one, found myself getting bored after raising the fifth-generation Tama. I was in Kashmir, looking at the majestic mountains, while my friend, Aditya, was trying to catch a whale-shaped Pokémon on his phone. I realised that social features and instant accessibility are key to virtual worlds. Pokémon Go is a 21st-century game. The app is stored on your phone, it offers a range of ways to progress, and you can interact and work with other players to raid and battle.

On the other hand, my Tamagotchi sat lonely at home, with me hoping it would survive. While it gives the option to discover and connect with fellow Tama parents, I did not find any. A community makes a world of difference when you set out on unlikely journeys like this, I thought.

The greatest appeal of the Tamagotchi lies in the nostalgia it evokes, I gathered from my former classmate, Miriam, who grew up in Europe. “I used to take it with me everywhere, and sometimes I would wake up at night to check on my pet,” she said.

I also spoke to my friends about other popular virtual worlds like Zoo Tycoon, The Sims, and Club Penguin. The responses were full of fond reminiscence. The Sims’ users enjoyed creating chaos and confusing storylines. I was relieved to find out that my sister and I were not the only ‘Zoo Tycoon murderers’ — children who trapped visitors in their zoo before deleting the fences and releasing the animals.

Club Penguin fans spoke of spy missions, training in jiu-jitsu, and caring for pets called puffles. I recalled penguin friendships and marriages developing as we made pizzas, built igloos and boarded a pirate ship.

Such games offered a sense of control and privacy that many children did not have, growing up, explained Ann, a fellow Club Penguin fan. It was a world you got to shape and inhabit, and being able to work and collect coins to buy things also gave a “weird taste of independence”, she mused.

But despite their fondness for virtual pets, many said they would prefer a real dog or cat any day. However, one friend, a computer science graduate, warned me that robot dogs and babies would be the future.

All of this being too strange and apocalyptic to me, I did not change the batteries in my Tamagotchi. Instead, I decided to read a good old paperback. This is when Ann sent me a link for “research purposes”. It turned out the website of a new Club Penguin was up. I wish I had thought at least once before I hit the ‘Sign up’ button. “Tell me when you’re online,” said Ann.

Experts weigh in on virtual parenting

The complexities and unpredictability of real-life pet parenting do not fully translate into virtual worlds, says rehabilitation psychologist and co-founder of Heart It Out, Nithya J Rao. “My cat yells at me when I sleep late,” she cites an example. A Tama pet, on the other hand, is easier to raise. It takes a swipe to clean up, 7 seconds or less to prep its food, and a tap to access its medicines.

Instant gratification is another downside, says Nithya. And the need for frequent engagement brings with it the risk of overuse and addiction. This, in turn, can lead to impulsiveness or attention problems or affect children’s studies and other responsibilities, warns Rohini Kesavan Rajeev, psychotherapist and founder of The Able Mind.

However, there are positives to take away from virtual parenting when done with a balanced approach. Your virtual life should add value to your real life and not take away from it, experts emphasise.

Nithya says keeping virtual pets can teach consistency and discipline to children, help the users build connections, and give them a sense of achievement.

Virtual worlds can foster creativity. “Players can create virtual structures, design their characters, and engage in artistic activities to develop their imagination and self-expression,” Rohini adds.