Thursday, January 25

Squee even I do not understand.

I thought I knew everything there was to squee over, but apparently my radar is off when it comes to the way young demo. (I can only be "so" awesome, people.)

2007, meet the revamped squeeworthy item of 1996: Webkinz.

Remember the "Nano Kitty" and "Tamagotchi" virtual pet craze circa 1996? Oh, right. You're 12. Dag.

Well, back in the early days of your existence, there was the Webkinz equivalent. Instead of living on the web, it lived in your pocket or keychain.

Created as a solution to the pervasive problem facing those marketers, kids like you would bring them to school and not pay attention in class. They'd feed their virtual pet instead, or get into fights with other students over "accidentally" killing it. (I still maintain my innocence, no matter what PETA says!)

Previously, the general operating principle for this scenario was: Feed and play with your virtual pet or the thing DIES and you have just wasted months of your life for nothing. Start over.

The rules have changed!

1. Once you adopt the Webkinz of your choice, and register it online, you can play with your pet much as you like, but only for a year.

I guess that means you shouldn't get too emotionally attached?

2. During your year or mother/fatherhood, you get rewarded by taking care of the Webkinz, and receive "Kinzcash" to buy items at the "W shop." (i.e. Food, clothing, toys, furniture, etc.) You can also earn cash by playing games and in contests!

3. Adopt 'til you drop! You can collect as many pets as you want, and each pet scores you a new "room" and 2,000 Kinzcash bucks to spoil your pet even more than you already have.

4. Last, but not least, they incorporate a Buddy List feature into the mix, called "Kinzchat." You can invite your friends to check out your pet and your rooms when they're online. Hopefully you didn't adopt the same pet, or that would be kinda...awkward.

The chat feature, although cool, is pretty limited for safety purposes. You create responses; you have to pick responses from different columns:

Column A
I AM
YOU ARE
WE ARE

Column B
COOL!
AWESOME!
NICE!

...or something.