Thursday, April 24th, 2008...4:41 pm
#29: Webkinz
The Best Parent Ever is better than you because they don’t just buy their children stuffed animals — they buy them Webkinz. And lots of them. Sometimes 20 or more. What, you few non-best parents ask, is a Webkinz? Imagine a Beanie Baby that is not just obnoxious and overpriced in the real world — but in cyberspace as well!
Webkinz are basically shitty stuffed animals that are sold for five times the price of regular plush toys because each one comes with a computer code allowing its user to also “own” an online version of the same toy for one year. Subsequent years, as well as digital enhancement to the online “pet,” require purchasing more shitty, overpriced Webkinz stuffies.
There are all kinds of games, adventures, and social networking for Webkinz and their owners in Kinzville. But mostly there is marketing. A child will always log out of the Webkinz site wanting only one thing: more Webkinz. Other than planting a Manchurian Candidate-style, behavior modification chip directly into a child’s brain, there is no other more efficient child-marking vehicle on the planet.
So where does this fit into the world of the Best Parent Ever? The basic premise of Webkinz is that every time you buy a new Webkinz, you get $2,000 of Kinzcash, that can only be used online in Kinz world. Flaunting and spending wealth is one of the key ways the Best Parent demonstrates they are better than you in the real world. Why not give their pre-adolescent children the same opportunity in cyberspace?
So that that, one Webkinz-household kids! You are the penniless, sub-Saharan reguees of Webkinz World. You’d have more luck buying an oceanfront condo in Darfur, than scoring prime real estate in Kinz Country. Once again, the Best Parent is better and richer than you, and so are their Webkinz!
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8 Comments
April 29th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Hey – I must be in the best list. Kira has a Webkinz. Of course, we never did get the online critter. She’s too young.
http://www.momstop.blogspot.com
April 30th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Do webkinz die? I remember Tamigochis dying.
http://athenasmom.wordpress.com/
May 15th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
No, Webkinz do not die, but after a year you have to “renew” their special code = save the damn piece of paper with the code. My son’s Webkinz craze has died down a lot but sadly, I still check in on mine (yes I got my own because I wanted to decorate it’s room MY way, thank you) every now and then, tending it’s garden and taking it to school.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:01 am
Do the last posters have any identity apart from being so-and-so’s mom?
May 16th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
MerlynHerne, LOL! I’m childfree, but my identity is “MOM” to 2 little guinea pigs!!!! Actually, it’s only partly true – I am a guinea pig ‘Mom’, but I really made the name up to make fun of the parents who have NO identity apart from being “so and so’s parent”.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Piggymom–lol!
September 13th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
I am the worst parent ever. Neither of my kids has ever has a webkinz. I am putting the money I saved into an account for their therapy.
April 1st, 2009 at 3:46 am
BMS, that is the way to go. They will NEED those therapy treatments for the scarring, unloved, webkinz-less childhoods you are subjecting them to!
(lol XD)