#and webkinz in general

[snortlaughs]

BTW HERE IS A PICTURE OF MY WEBKINZ COLLECTION EEEEEEEE

[lemonlimestar]

in another life, stephanie brown was a scene kid. send tweet

[archer-kacey]

Complete outrage that everyone remembers LPS but not Puppy in my Pocket. Such imbalance and injustice in the world

[whitefangz]

was anyone else big into webkinz weddings in elementary school

[korkietism]

I got a plush who looks like the autism creature. He has a penguin onsey. I’m not sure what he was intended to be but I sang him a little tune

[jonathanrook]

i'm genuinely mad that i have no motivation to write this fucking fic ;-;

[sysig]

Your tastes are skewed, you know that? (Patreon)

[everywebkin]

i'm thinking of opening commissions for furry ocs to be drawn in the style i do for webkinz :)

i'm sure i could do small design tweaks to turn 2 legged characters into 4 legged ones... pricing would most likely be around $10-20 usd with wiggle room for shading/complexity/etc. i might even be able to ship the ones i do with paint pens :)

this poll is just to see if it's worth making a commission sheet + putting effort into advertising, please don't feel like you need to lie to seem 'polite', i would rather get accurate data.

[sky-kinz]

It's her birthday today!!

[theblob1958]

finished an audio book in two days woah okay

[timelessphoenix]

"They managed to invent a generation that hates capitalism but fully buys into individualism"

I wanna weigh in here because I've never felt so recognized in a tumblr post. For the record, I'm the same age as OP.

When I was fifteenish, I started aligning myself with certain moral stances without properly realizing I was taking political stances. Once I was talking to my mom about one of these (homelessness, or raising minimum wage, I think), and she said, "ugh, you're a liberal." To which I was like, "????? huh?" Cuz I had been so sheltered that I was basically actively encouraged to not take a stand on anything until it was directly relevant to me.

When I was seventeen I took an American Studies class that went very in depth about the history of a lot of the social, political, and economic issues we see today. Since then, I've become very impassioned about learning more and recognizing when people ignorantly talk about these issues. It's very clear when people don't understand the true history behind, for example, suburbs, or corporations that dominate their industry (think J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, Vanderbuilt, etc from the late late 19th century and compare to Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk, etc).

It took me until I was nineteen or twenty to really focus and realize that screaming into the void online or in my parents' house about Worldly IssuesTM wasn't going to change anything. I finally recognized that if I wanted to, for example, overthrow an HoA rule about which type of flowers I'm allowed to plant in my front yard, I'd need to gather community-wide support and petition to the HoA. I'm using a stupid-simple example to highlight how terrified the thought of knocking on strangers' doors and asking about flowers is to me.

I was raised in the neighborhood my parents live in and have been there for the last 15ish years. Growing up, I was directly ordered to never open the door if someone knocks, and to never pick up the phone if it rings. And if I'm in that house even now and the doorbell rings, I stay put and silent and pretend no one is on the other side of the door. Same with the phone. It is simply n o t r i n g i n g.

Me and my sibling hardly ever played outside with the neighborhood kids, and weren't allowed to travel past the end of block if we did, and we'd get punished if we did. Usually the punishment entailed nothing more than a good yell and shaming about disrespecting our parents and how dangerous the world is wherever adults we know and my parents say they trust aren't watching us, but that's super effective on young children.

All this to say, I'm not comfortable talking to anyone on my block. All the neighbors keep to themselves, and only need to talk if their square-footage is being invaded overhead by our overgrown tree. I've figured out the first step to making a change in my community, only to discover there's no community at all. And the thought of talking to a stranger that's outside my age range is terrifying because of the way I was raised.

I can fully acknowledge that being raised like this has caused some deeply rooted social anxieties and a lack of knowledge of how to interact with people, a complacency to the seemimgly unchangeable world around me, a lack of life experience and good sense, and a fear of taking risks. Amongst other things.

I'm lucky not to have experienced being tracked, because my level of sheltered and my parents' old-fashioned nature also meant I didn't have a phone to track until high school, and by then my parents were so confident of their Obedient Children (rightly so) that they didn't even think to track us (until my mom found out about it my senior year of high school and proceeded to not force us to use Life360-- thanks mom!).

Even now, as a fully grown adult with the ability to make my own choices, I feel chained to the Law of the Land when I'm at my parents' house. I feel the need to scheme around their rules when I can and should just do the things I want to do. This is actively hurting my ability to be a regular human being that knows how to operate in society.

I'm so grateful I came across this post today because I can see that I'm not alone. I grew up so isolated that it absolutely feels like I'm the only one who has figured out shit like this because I lived it, but a little differently than others of my generation lived it: I didn't grow up chronically online; I turned to books instead, and music and film and other forms of art. I wasn't tracked, though I still felt and feel the terror of not letting my parents know where I am and what I'm doing at all times. I'm grateful I realized the problem sometime in my teens, and now I'm left wishing I felt I could do something about it.

It all just sucks, and I'm feeling ao ill-equipped to continue my journey through adulthood.

here's my hot take about my generation and people younger than me (I'm 22 years old)

The reason current teenagers and people in their really early 20s are conservative on accident and have such shitty takes on the internet is because our generation was much more sheltered than previous generations and because we were raised to be ok with orwellian servailence and that is 100% the fault of our parents, Reagan Era kidnapping panics, and the rise of technology all coming together to prevent us from doing the sketchy shit that sends parents into panic mode but which is also completely fundemental to childhood development. If your parents had even a crumb of money to their name and even a shred of free time they started tracking your phone as soon as it was possible to. I did not experience this because my parents are actively trying to live like it's the 1990s and still have not gotten cell phones of their own, and did not let me have one until I was 18 years old and it was no longer their choice, but literally over half of my friends in middle and high school had their phones tracked by their parents at some point or other, and we would occasionally find this out, not because their parents told them, but when we were trying to do the aforementioned sketchy shit and their parent's car would pull up. And I would, like a reasonable person after finding this out, encourage my friends to just leave their phones at home, and their response would be "What if I get kidnapped" or "My parents are just trying to keep me safe"

This in my estimation has lead to a combination of kids being terminally online because they do have internet access and are better at deleting search history than their parents think they are, but don't have the freedom to go out and do shit without their parents' knowledge or consent, so they have the most privacy from the people who control their lives while they're on the internet, and kids not having the real world experiences they should have, not knowing how to connect with other people irl, not feeling comfortable leaving the house because of the horror story lies their parents told them to make them ok with the surveillance they were inflicting on their kids. Kids these days are growing up in the fucking panopticon when they should be out in the woods playing with knives or stealing cigarettes from their older sibling and going out to an empty parking lot to smoke them or whatever and that shit is sticking with them into adulthood. Things that were "tee hee we could get in trouble isn't this so fun and daring" in the 1990s and 2000s have become in the 2010s and 2020s things that are "If I do that without texting my parents some sort of lie to excuse where my location is my parent's car will pull up and I will get grounded for the next two weeks."

Like even when I was 19 I had a 16 year old friend who would volunteer their time at a food shelf and that's how we knew each other. We would talk about dungeons and dragons together, and the game store was 4 blocks from the food shelf. One day we left the food shelf earlier than they had told their parents they would and they got punished for that. We were literally just going to look at dungeons and dragons miniatures and dice, which was self evident if you could see where we started and how far we walked and where too. I have to assume that this isn't uncommon. It's wrong, but it's not uncommon.

[normystical]

apparently i'm capable of being in the fandom of something that is microdosed to everyone on their tiktok fyp and yet expect others who are not actively in the fandom to not know much about it at all

[jaeger-bombastard]

The first year of those counted in Gen Z is 1997 (my birth year) and its this weird limbo of everyone my age is culturally some Millenial/Gen Z acting hybrid based on if you have younger or older siblings lmao

Like friends my age with older siblings say "doggo" and consider Harry Potter part of their childhood. Their first handheld game console was an OG gameboy advance

I have younger siblings, my first handheld game console was a gamboy advance sp and I laugh at shit like "Corrn Flaek"

[awhitewomansinstagram]

Yesss I’m like on the very edge of older gen z (2003) and I remember growing up with like, the leapfrog thing for kids and the original Wii as the big “gaming” systems lollll, I think when I finally got a laptop (probably when I was 11 or 12?) one of the first games I got was zoo tycoon and I was so excited because it was the expansion pack version.

I was around for the Disney channel era of good luck Charlie, Jessie, and Austin and Ally (Jessie ftw), I remember thinking it was so cool that my mom got the iPhone 3 or 4, and when my sister got a DS it was a HUGE deal. My first phone was a tiny little bar phone that I got when I was maybe 11 and then I got a super cheap Samsung at 13 and thought it was so cool because I could play candy crush—no modern social media until I was like 17 or something (I had Facebook i guess, but I don’t think that “counts” as modern anymore)

I was around for toys-r-us before the weird rebrand thing that happened and when the top gift idea for kids was a ripstick or the electric razor scooter. I had zhu zhu pets, a bunch of Webkinz, and an animal jam account on god knows what computer maybe an old shared desktop my family had. Computers still had DVD holders. I knew how to play vhs cassettes and we went to blockbuster (fly high sweet angel) and Redbox or we mail ordered Netflix cds (and a lot of them you had to wait if someone else had the copy) because they werent even a streaming service yet

My middle school was the whole mustache and bacon duct tape craze… still never going to understand how we all somehow fell into that mass psychosis. Sephora barely existed in my consciousness. I saw the last hobbit movie in theaters. The nook tablet at Barnes and noble was “high tech” to me

I survived the cold shoulder shirt phase. My first “concert” was panic at the disco at a festival and I don’t even think pray for the wicked had come out yet

Also I’m apparently in that group of American kids that are like, the last to actually know how to write cursive which is insane to me!!!

By birth year I’m solidly in Gen Z and possibly older Gen z but I feel like I wasn’t raised with a lot of exposure to modern tech other than like, early 2000s Nintendo and like two computer games and Microsoft word. I know it’s more than the very start of Gen z but damn, whenever I meet kids that are born past 2008 I’m like “yeah no I’m going with the millennials”

Anyway u guys wanna trade silly bandz

Millennials this, Gen Z that. But where is my fellow Zillennials at? Those of us who at the start of our lives didn't have cell phones. We had house phones. Well our parents may have had a cell phone but it was the Nokia phone that had the snake game. Those of us who actually had to go outside and play because we didn't have ipads. Those of us who may or may not have had a computer but it was a family computer, one the whole family shared. Those of us who started to learn what an atlas was because teachers thought we'd need to use them but never actually needed to use one. Those of us who learned what an encyclopedias was and actually used them up until late middle school when we finally got to google stuff. Where are you?

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Googles

Debut: Webkinz

What a cute silly plush duck! Right? WRONG! Goose? INCORRECT! This is no duck. This is no goose. This is no animal we have in our world. This is a Googles, and you have never seen anything like it!

Webkinz, as you likely know, is one of those 2000s Virtual Pet Worlds, with the gimmick of buying a real plush animal that would allow you to play with that animal in the game. And I mean animal! For the most part these are all actual animals, or at least variants of them, like a dog with a watermelon color scheme, or a lion with a flower petal mane. There are also some mythical creatures like dragons, which, yeah, it makes sense. Of course kids would want to have one of those as a virtual pet!

Then there are the Zingoz, original little monster guys who get whacked with bats by bigger monster guys. I guess they're a little weird considering the setting, but "shape with face and limbs" is not on its own Weird. I have no feelings on Zingoz.

It is Googles that fascinates me so much! All of these real animals, some fantasy creatures, a few minor goofy monsters, and yet, there is Googles. They have ducks and geese in the game. This is not one of them. It is the mundanity of Googles that fascinates me so! Of all the things to be an original trademark species, they decided on a Kind Of Different Duck, and I delight in that.

But there IS a reason for Googles! A point of origin! It would have been FUNNIER if there wasn't, but it's ok. It still is nice and makes me smile.

In the 1980s, GANZ, the company that would go on to make Webkinz, released a series of funny little flat plushes, including this ducky one! And that name on the tag... that's Googles! From what I can tell, this whole series was known as Googles, and included other species, like dogs and walruses, but these duck-billed bowling pins were the most popular.

So for Webkinz, they decided to revive one of their old, beloved plush creatures, bringing Googles to new generations while not telling them about its origins, making this silly fowl a strange, mundane mystery! And THAT is all you need to know about the taxonomy of Googles.

At least, that's what I thought until I found out about this official animated music video for babies, that repeatedly refers to an individual Googles as a PLATYPUS. Platypus?! Where's the TAIL? That's one of the most important features to represent! Their bills certainly are broad, but I assumed it was just a stylization thing. And if platypus, where are their forelegs?

I do not accept this answer. I do not think I will ever find a satisfactory conclusion. I admit defeat, Webkinz Animated Music Video From 2010. You have bested me.

[nostalgicfun]

The "Don't Travel Alone" sale is back, and this time, it's better than half-price; it's free! 🌈

Now through September 7th, purchases of toys and nostalgic collectibles from my eBay come with a bonus friend!

I stopped doing the "Plush Surprise" packages on Etsy earlier this year, but I'm still left with bins and bins of both vintage and contemporary plushes. This way, they can still be a surprise and double up on my de-collecting efforts!

Notes about the sale:

The free plush is entirely, 100% free. <3 No weight factored into shipping, no extra steps, nothing.

The free plushes scale directly with the number of listings purchased! Buy one listing? Get a plush friend! Buy two listings? Get two plush friends!

The bonus plush will be pulled at random from a huge storage tote whose contents include general vintage plushes, brand-new contemporary plushes, Beanie Babies, and Webkinz!

A very, very small number of already-active listings have their plush friend pre-selected, as there are a few matching sets. 👀

Unfortunately, with eBay taking away their Global Shipping Program, I'm only able to ship to the U.S. at this time (everyone email eBay and tell them to bring GSP back please)

If you have any questions please feel free to let me know! <3

Click here for my eBay ✨