Neotenous Robot Inspires Paternal Protective Urges

I was pondering mortality the other morning (no need to worry; I do that a lot) when my husband startled me by announcing, “I guess there really is something wrong with me.”

What?!

“What? Oh.” He finally noticed my stricken expression. “No, not like that. It’s just, remember the Pleo?

I did. We’d seen the learning, feeling, developing (but not, thank goodness, *growing*, since it’s based on a real-life creature 60 feet long and intensely carnivorous) baby dinosaur robot at the Maker Faire  and I’d kind of wanted one, although they are way beyond our "cute goofy stuff" budget. I always want the robots, so that’s nothing new, but there’s no question the Pleo is uncommonly winsome for something fated mostly to end up as an overlooked piece of cube clutter somewhere. It has emotions! It comes with a “learning leaf!” It has big eyes and big clumsy feet and it wriggles happily when you pick it up.

“Yeah well, “ continued Kenton. “I just saw one ripped apart by a war robot
and my eyes filled up with tears. There’s something wrong with me.”

“No!" I cried, hand to mouth, "Who would do such a thing?"

These guys would.

"Anyway, there's nothing wrong with you,” I assured him. ”You’re a dad. Pleo is a baby. You couldn’t save the baby. Of course you wanted to cry.”

It’s not like the sick freaks who’d toss a baby, I mean the beasts who sicced the killer robot , I mean the robot wrangler team who sent their champion, “Vicious Verdic,” to battle a prototype Pleo in the ring at the Maker Faire didn’t know what they were doing. Toymakers have always understood the allure of neoteny, the retention of babylike features into adulthood or, by (my) extension, the application of human-babylike features to things which rightfully shouldn't have any. The Pleo, of course, outdoes its static forecuddlies by its animation, by making adorable baby roaring sounds and turning its darling chubby toes in and by, well, appearing to *love you*. Its effect on parents and parental types, inspiring both a desire to protect it and (well, in some of us anyway) an urge to lay out $350.00 to bring one home (it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than our actual babies) ought to come as no surprise.

And as for those robot guys, well, I hope Pleo’s mommy knows where they live.

More on the killer robot versus helpless baby robot controversy

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