Saturday, March 05, 2005

The March of Progress

Since I'm off from school this week, I figured I'd use it to write a few words about some of my favorite childhood toys. When I see the things kids play with now, there's just no comparison. In any measurable sense their toys are just way cooler. I mean, to use just one example, I remember having an original gameboy. It was big and clunky, and the screen was this tiny black and yellow thing capable of rendering, on a good day, two or three pixels at a time. Now the damn things are in color, and you can play their games on the bigger machines. Still, it does seem to me that the toys of today have lost a little something, and I blame this on the wussification of child-directed entertainment.

When I was a kid, boys were supposed to play with guns and knives and other impliments of destruction. My toys had missiles, multi-barrel laser cannons, and backpack mounted nukes. They fought eternal (and pointless) wars against villians equipped with all manner of devistating weaponry. Today's kid's stuff, while certainly far from violence free, have taken a decidedly wimpy turn. Now, this may objectively be a good thing. After all, there is little to recommend in the pointless application of force. But even so, I can't help but feel that little boys (and girls, if they're into that stuff) ought to spend their time pretending to blow stuff up.

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