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!
The best parent ever is better than you because they just paid $1,000 for a ticket to the Hannah Montana concert for their child on Ebay. Actually, they probably bought two or more more tickets, bringing the price of the 90-minute show to $2,000 plus. For lesser parents, this would cover either a mortgage payment or two, the price of a pre-owned motor vehicle, or perhaps even some minor Lasik surgery.
Why so much for a concert? Is it merely just to stifle the ear-piercing tantrum of a Miley Cyrus-deprived tween? Well, yes. But more importantly it is an opportunity for the Best Parent Ever (and those aspiring to be like them) to gather with thousands of other Best Parents Ever in a tribal communion of sorts. This is an exclusive club, whose membership demands a cultural obliqueness and a healthy five-figure max on the Paypal Visa card. Oh, yeah — and a tolerance for terrible bubblegum rock. Yes, even the Best Parent Ever has a capacity for self-sacrifice. But few other venues allow this kind of collective expression of white parent self-congratulation; an espirt de corps with like-minded sires that probably won’t be felt again until that Ivy League Convocation or parent mixer at the liberal arts college in Vermont.
So take that, music fans everywhere! Today’s wildly-exclusive and overpriced kiddy concerts are not about the music. It’s about the privilege of being one amongst one peers. For the best parent ever, it is both a tribal celebration and a way to spend a ridiculous amount of money in pursuit of proving, once again, that they are better than you. As Hannah Montana herself might say, that is truly “the best of both worlds.”
This not-so-poor unborn child needs a dumb baby name. Won’t you help?
The Best Parent Ever is better than you because they are obsessed with dumb baby names.How do we know this? Because our post from last month, “Dumb Baby Names,” continues to be our most visited page.
What is the appeal of these non-traditional, “how do you spell that, please repeat, what’s-that-about” kind of names? Who knows!
So send us your Zahara’s and Suri’s, and Haley’s and Bailey’s (pretty much any name ending in “ley” qualifies). Please submit REAL dumb names of actual children (or adults) in the comments below. Our favorite five will be submitted to readers for a vote.
First place winner receives: a real live child named after their submission.
PS: The child’s gender is still unknown. But that doesn’t matter. The Best Parent Ever loves names that are unisex. So take that, Dylan, Jordan, Riley and Cameron!
