Charysma on Tomagotchis

"Wanna see my Tomagotchi? ...You know what a 'Tomagotchi' is, right?"

"I had a Nano Baby when I was in, like, high school or something. It died and I gave up on motherhood."

"Mine don't die. I'm on Generation 3."

"What do you mean, 'Generation 3'?"

"You raise one, then it grows up and moves away, then you raise its baby, then it grows up and moves away, then you raise the next one. And sometimes the mom and grandma come over."

"How do you know which is which?"

"You can tell who the grown-ups are. If you don't visit them enough, they start drinking."

Generation Gap

My mom called sounding all frenetic and urgent last night. "What's that site where Google lets you start your own homepage?" she asked.

Back story: Months ago, Mom told me she almost paid some snake oil hack $250 for offering to build her a "Google homepage." I was like, "Dude. You can do that FOR FREE."

Back to the present. I pretended to wrack my brain, and then I was all, "Oh yeah. Pages.google.com."

"It's not on Google?" she demanded, suspicious-like.

"It is," I said. "[something].google.com is the same as google.com/[something]. Just, you know, reversed."

Her breathing suggested she was unconvinced. I could hear her typing it into a browser to check if I was lying. Then she went, "Okay -- thanks." And hung up.

This morning in a CC'ed email I discovered my 10-year-old sister Charysma used Googlepages to start a website for her artwork. So far though, it just looks like free advertising for DARE. 

Nonetheless, it is one more addition to her growing self-promotional online empire.

You know, I thought I had at least six more years before I'd start feeling totally eclipsed by Generation Next. Homegirl's showcasing her creative life, playing with online video and learning PhotoShop two years younger than the age I was when I first discovered chat rooms, punters and filesharing.

Ugh. Feeling retro. It burns.