Simon Julian

Okay so I started reading this because I loved the slightly creepy flavor that it left in my mouth…people tend to do some weird shit when confronted with things like dating sims and this was an interesting look into that world.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/27/advisor-my-husband-h.html

Plus I always did like Boing Boing. But I digress.

The thing that really got me thinking was one of the comments at the end of the story;

“I have a box of dead Tamagochi from my kids I feel weird throwing them away the kids loved them so much but being kids moved on to other things and you you can bring them back to life I guess but its weird”

I loved the whole feeling of this post – in the end the kids went beyond the bounds of the virtual, got bored and moved on to something else – and yet the slightly weird feeling of harbouring the dead remains (even if you CAN bring them back to life!).

Virtualisation of both pets and relationships doesn’t change our basic frameworks for dealing with existence, and as such we still place the same mores and values around the virtual relationships (and lives) as we do around the ‘real’. So we can end up in some very strange situations (but the Tamagotchi is DEAD daddy!).

I wonder at how this is going to affect us as virtualisation becomes more entrenched in many aspects of society and we get more ‘virtual’ relationships…