Club Penguin

Mimi is totally into Club Penguin, an online multi-user dimension designed for kids ages eight to fourteen. She’s “allowed” to be on it an hour a day, two hours on weekends, but she routinely finagles extra time by subterfuge, willfulness, and parental apathy; Jen and I are both convinced she’d play there nonstop without some limits; I’ve seen her easily put in a four-hour session on a Sunday when Jen and I have been up too late the night before and our paternalistic impulses are somewhat compromised.

The site seems benign enough; it’s highly moderated, and doesn’t try to sell kids stuff with pop-ups and other come-ons.

Players assume the roles of small animated penguins who waddle around a snowy virtual world that features such spots as a frozen nightclub, an icy plaza, a town with gift shops, and other Disneyland-like environments. Penguins can chat with each other, participate in multi-player games, and build “buddy lists” to keep track of each other.

Each penguin gets an igloo that players can furnish by buying items with coins that are earned by doing different activities such as a “cart surfing” mine-shaft ride or a “thin-ice” breakout-type game.

Mimi sits at the computer typing furiously and sometimes mumbling to herself or cursing at the screen. Jen and I shake our heads and try to entice her away with outdoor walks and food.

For the most part, her obsession with the site doesn’t bother me, but sometimes, I get fed up and demand she do something else. That’s when I feel like the typical parent complaining about his child’s choice of music, haircut, or wardrobe.

This does, though, probably mark a generational gap; while for a few months back in the mid-1990s, I used to spend a couple hours here and there in a text-based MUD, I could never see myself devoting as much time to a virtual world as does the kid.

I’ve got my hands full already with the actual one.