It started out innocently enough. A stuffed animal, all cute and cuddly, perched on a display shelf in a Hallmark store. To the casual passerby, it's just like any other stuffie you see on store shelves.
But this thing has the mark of the beast.
It's the Webkinz mark.
A keen eye will find it's colorful logo stitched somewhere on the character's fabric body, typically on a hoof, paw, foot, or even on it's back.
What differentiates this toy from myriad others is the secret code it's young owner can take onto the Webkinz website. With this code, they can adopt an e-version of their lovable stuffie and enter a virtual world where they can feed, house, clothe and play with their Webkinz.
It's basically crack for kids. An insatiable craving for more Webkinz soon follows the first purchase. Take our daughter, for instance...here we are, 7 months into this and Madison has over 30 of these little monsters. She can average about 1 hour a day managing their virtual lives online. And heaven help us if she spends the night at a friend's house who doesn't have internet access...we get handed an itinerary of caregiver responsibilities rivaling anything our real jobs could challenge us with.
Over the past year, the craze has spread so wildly that you can more easily list the types of stores that don't carry Webkinz than the ones that do. Specialty gift shops, department stores, specialty toy stores, home furnishing boutiques, even supermarkets stock their shelves with Webkinz.
They're everywhere. Much like fungus and mold is everywhere. Find a trace of it in your home, choose to ignore it, and it will grow to immense proportions so volatile that you will never be able to harness it's dominance over you.
Beware.
