Tamagotchi wasn’t just a 90s toy fad—it was a cultural moment that quietly trained a whole generation on feedback loops, attention, and responsibility. In this video I dig into where it came from (Akihiro Yokoy’s “pet you can take anywhere” idea), why Bandai’s approach worked, and why the original design philosophy mattered: it had to feel like a real pet. That meant work, messes, sickness, and yes—sometimes it dies. I still remember my first Tamagotchi dying and me holding a tiny funeral, which sounds ridiculous until you realize how easily humans bond with anything that asks for care and responds back. Then I pivot to Tamagotchi’s weird hacker cousin: the Pwnagotchi. It’s a tiny e-ink Raspberry Pi device that “feeds” on Wi‑Fi signals like SSIDs and handshakes, leveling up as it learns. I walk through my build (Pi Zero + PiSugar 3, solder-free), the plugin ecosystem, and why this thing needs to be respected—capturing handshakes is one thing, cracking networks you don’t own is illegal and a bad idea. Where it gets especially fun for me is using it as a learning tool and even a network auditor for my own setup, plus my custom plugins and an alpha Home Assistant integration that lets it chirp status updates over Bluetooth via my Bluetooth proxies.