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Help Twitch Kill This Poor Tamagotchi

Twitch Plays Pokemon (still going!) saw millions of internet users crowdsource an entire video game, kicking off a mini-genre. Its latest iteration is Tamagotwitch, in which a noisy chat room tries to take care of a baby Tamagotchi.

It’s less action-packed even than Pokemon — there are only three buttons to choose from, determined by commenters typing A, B, or C, and votes are tallied every few seconds. But life and death is at stake! Remember how hard it was in elementary school to remember when to feed or clean up after your digital pet, leaving it surrounded by stinky piles of poop? It’s kind of like that, but with thousands of people trying to manage it at once. 

The Twitch’s robotic arm swings back and forth, tapping buttons with a sinister noise, but so far the chat room isn’t getting very far. (“Yes smack that,” one commenter commanded.) That might be because the Tamagotchi is actually really confusing. The screen is so small that it’s hard to see quite what the buttons do. Also, the Tamagotchi heyday is long gone, and we’ve lost our digital maternal instincts.  

I’m pretty sure the current Tamagotchi and many, many subsequent generations are completely doomed. The little food icons still look weirdly delicious, though.