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.
2 comments:
I too, have lost a family member to the Webkinz addiction. Watching her frantic missions of finding every Webkinz ever made...with that crazed look in her eyes...ready to combat other moms who dare get in her way...made me thankful that I have boys who have no interest in these creatures. LOL ~Lola
Oh God, those remind me of those damn Giga Pets back in the 90's. My best friend and I went nuts feeding, cleaning up their messes, giving them water and exercise for our daughter's Giga pets....my oldest daughter had 19 of them, and got made at me because one of them died and she had to restart it's life again. ggggrrrrrrrr
Do you remember the creepy Furbies? We had one that kept talking even though we took the batteries out of it because it creeped us out. That thing was tossed in the trash- I swear it was possessed.
Audrey (LR)
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