- Joined
- Oct 15, 2018
Yeah, I have the old handheld consoles and a few games because they're portable and you can buy a pack of 48 Double A batteries at Costco for cheap to power them. And when you live in an dodgy cell-service wasteland where it takes 9 hours just to get to your jobsite sometimes, they're worth it. But there's a big difference in owning these things and using them rather than displaying them with their original box and whatever to never be touched. Especially because you can get them for under $30.When you're on a seven hour plane ride that old DS you have stashed away with a copy of Pokemon Platinum still in it from over a decade ago quickly becomes your best friend in a way that emulation simply can't unless you buy one of those nice handheld emulator consoles.
Even the photo I dropped, if they use them then fine. Maybe she got a second PSP as a gift years ago. Yet the photo was still taken to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible - a pink humblebrag. Just like that Nintendo girl that was posted by @NoReturn where she dumped Zero Two for the new Anime Waifu of 2021 and her videos are just constantly her acquiring shit. It's definite FOMO triggers for impressionable young girls who probably think they need all that to be accepted into a community built on consumerism. To be a Gamer Girl uwu you need all the Games. In PINK.
Do you notice how these girls can't just have the normal switch? They have to buy skins for them and they replace them so often you wonder if they just tossed out that $40 Cherry Blossom skin just so they now can have a Pastel Galaxy one. No one would care if you saved up, bought a single skin for your consoles, and applied it and went on your way. But there's an insidious consoomerism with these tiktoks and the speed of replacement. Constantly change your Switch Sticker Skins. Replace your keyboard keys with Miku and Cherry Blossoms. Get the Cat Headphones. Get the Cardcaptor Headphones. Get every fucking Cherry Blossom Starbucks cup, then make sure to get the 2022 ones that will come.
It's an unsettling plastic pink cycle. I've never seen a kawaii tiktok post themselves actually using a handheld console outside their home. It's always on a charger and displayed - just differently than the Nintendo Guys who place them on shelves. But they still are used as props in these people's lives to show off how much of a fan they are and you aren't because you don't have that amount of stuff.
Someone using their items as intended isn't bad. Someone collecting them in every colour of the rainbow, all limited editions, with the original boxes and displaying them under a glass so you can't even play with them (or setting them up aesthetically on a desk to never be used unless in a tiktok) is a problem.