Tamagotchi
It's from 1996, before you were born.
- Maker
- Bandai
- Type
- Virtual pet
- Debuted
- 1996 (Japan)
- Note
- Banned from some schools for distraction
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About
As of 2026, it's 30 years old.
The Tamagotchi launched in Japan in 1996 (1997 elsewhere) as an egg-shaped keychain housing a needy digital pet that you had to feed, clean up after, and entertain — or it would die, often while you were in class and unable to intervene. It was a tiny lesson in mortality you could clip to your backpack.
Schools banned them for the constant beeping and the emotional devastation of mid-algebra pet death. Parents found themselves secretly keeping their kids' Tamagotchis alive. It was the first taste of being responsible for something that lived inside a screen, and it sold tens of millions.
Demanding, beeping, and heartbreakingly fragile, the Tamagotchi is the keychain that taught a generation the burden of keeping something alive.
