Competition for status and prestige starts young, and children are hypersensitive to what’s in and what’s out.
As they crest 30 and grow more sentimental, former ‘90s kids have made #HisoPrathom a trending hashtag in the Thai Twitterverse as they reflect on the cool toys which helped them feel privileged.
While some of these things may have been found in book bags around the world, they were prized among Bangkok’s middle-class kids for the great social capital they conferred.
The fancy pencil box
“Three tiers of steel pencil box packed with stationary. I opened it up and fancily picked out the pencils. So chic!”
Tamagotchi
“I took these to school!”
Marble mania
“The marble-shooting game! In my neighborhood, beautiful, rare glass beads made you hi-so.”
Brand-name color pencils
“Don’t forget to put every color back the way it was.”
Enormous data storage
Knucklebones
These soft chain links were a plastic-age update to classic “knucklebones” or “jacks.”
“How to make friends in third grade? Just have these silly chains, and friends will crawl in.”
Paper dolls
Expensive ‘Rotring’ pencils
“The pencils everyone must have to maximize your hiso-ness. This continued to high school.”
The sky-high jump factor
Like a stationary jump rope made of rubber bands, the challenge comes as its height is raised.
“Half of the class came to play with me when I had this.”
Cartoon tattoos
“Not trying these was very uncool.”
Delicious-looking erasers
“I told my mom to buy me food-shaped erasers but I didn’t use them. They were too beautiful!”
Thai-style ‘Monopoly’
“When I was a kid, I was so rich. I had money to buy houses, hotels, islands. But when the wind blew, all of my (neatly-stacked) money was gone.”
“Let’s say if anyone had the entire set, their parents must have been a millionaire. This was all the rage. Didn’t even need those candies.”
“I remember liking this so much when I was young. Now you can’t find them anywhere. They stopped making Pelotty since the factory was flooded.”
Toothpaste ice-cream
“The toothpaste snack! First, you ate the all cones. Then squeeze the toothpaste tube and eat all the filling later. So delicious and hi-so.”
The who-am-I-gonna-marry game
“And my soulmate was some guy in the class who had no clue.”
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