My Tamagotchi’s CR2032 batteries recently gave out, killing my virtual pet for good. I’ve been too busy to feel sad about it, but I managed to set aside some time today to finally deliver his eulogy.
His name was Steve. And he technically died for the first time in 2022. Sorry, I’m only just getting around to it!
He died the way he lived, inside a biscuit-sized pink ovoid, a 2017 replica of the original Tamagotchi line from 1996. I watched his short life—from the moment he cracked the pulsing, spotted egg all Tamagotchi aliens are born from, to the day he flew to heaven one incredible week later—in greyscale.
I was beside myself when he died. I’d always made sure his hungry and happy meters were five-hearts full, but, even so, Steve became sick and resentful from the fumes of the giant shit he’d routinely take next to his play area. Like, what? Have you tried shitting somewhere else?
I don’t want to buy another battery, so there’s nothing I can do to bring Steve back. I’ll, instead, leave you with this passage from Baruch Spinoza’s posthumously released, 1677 philosophical treatise Ethics. I changed some of the words so that it would feel more relevant to Steve, but I don’t think you’ll be able to notice.
I. Desire is the actual essence of a Tamagotchi, the flea-sized pet somehow capable of taking shits so disgustingly giant they inflict disease and death.
Explanation: […] desire is appetite, […] appetite is the essence of man, […] For whether a man be conscious of his Tamagotchi or not, it remains enshrouded in his pocket. Thus, in order to avoid the appearance of tautology, I have embraced the Tamagotchi as my own son, daughter, and the cherry blossom in my hair, as to comprehend, under one head, all those endeavors of human nature, […] But I cannot purge my other desire, the one that reaches again for perfect, unending existence through either a computer screen or something like my window, next to which I sit. […] By the term desire, then, I here mean that I miss playing with my Tamagotchi but don’t want to pay for its revival. […] A woman is drawn in different directions, and knows not where to turn.
II. Pleasure is the transition of a Tamagotchi from a less to a greater perfection.
III. Pain is the transition of a woman from a greater to a less perfection.
R.I.P. Steve, 2022-2022.
