'Cuz we are living, in an immaterial world...

Did you all know that Barbie got a new dog? And guess what - it poops real fake poop! This is just another sign that society is continuing its long, slow slide into a world where humans no longer interact with each other, but instead interact only with simulacrums crafted of silicon, silicone, hydraulic actuators, and faux doggie "presents". [EDIT:] Holy crap, they also have a version where one of Barbie's friends has a *cat*! Apparently, the cat drinks water and then has to "wet"in the litter box where "litter clumps" then need to be removed...

What is it with people these days where people want "real life" but only in a way that isn't real? Look at what is popular these days - The Sims, Second Life, even the social networking sites to an extent. All of them are ways to do exactly the same sorts of stuff we dread doing in real life, and yet somehow when you do them virtually, they become fun! Why is that? How does doing the dishes go from being a chore that we all avoided like the plague as children, to being entertainment simply because now when we do them, we look like a different person? If you *really* want to mix things up, try on a completely different culture over at Real Lives and see if you can cut it as an Australian Aborigine or African Bushman. At least then you can try something truly different.

Of course, maybe we're all just extras in some virtual world. Of course, that would imply that God is possibly a 13 year old boy playing in his basement, and the only character he's controlling is that jerk who cut me off on my way to work this morning.

Comments

MKD said…
Seriously - where do you find this material?

The sad thing is that I'll probably end up with this thing in my house. My daughter did ask for a Barbie (another to add to her collection of 47,000 Barbie items) for either her Birthday or Christmas.

Maybe I can discourage it since the lab is yellow and we have a black lab.

Hmmm. The toys I had available to me as a kid sucked.
Unknown said…
I read about this somewhere else too, and someone noticed that the vaguely-blob-ish dog poo doubles as the vaguely-blob-ish dog food. What kind of a lesson is that for our impressionable youths?
Anonymous said…
Maybe they will come out with a "Stomach Flu Barbie" where she contracts the flu and then pukes and has diarrhea. I think that would be more fun.

I do wonder what kind of sophisticated mechanism is embedded in the dog. how many poops can it generate? Do you have to refill it, like a pez dispenser for plastic poop?