Thank you, NordPass, for making today's episode possible! Go to nordpass.com/computerclan to get EXCLUSIVE access to NordPass' best offer. It’s risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Also HUUUUGE shout-out to Janese Swanson (the founder of Girl Tech) for helping me write this episode, and for providing pictures and video clips! ❤ P.S. Subscribed and stay tuned for my new scam-buster episode coming in April. 🔔
Norhing against Nord, but i'll just keep using Bitwarden personally , shrug. Also strange how all the reviews for Nord are always paid ones and enverj ust non bias reviews
You might want to look into how a VPN actually works my dude. These internet privacy companies tend to spread lies about their services. You always told me to use my BS detector, and my BS detector was going through the roof through that entire ad read.
I remember the password journal. I bought one, ripped the electronics out, and wired it into a remote control plug socket. Set the "password" to "toggle lights", and boom, home automation. I didn't know they made that as a product haha.
@@ekatlind My dad was an electronics engineer, so it helped that he could explain things to me, but for the most part it was from various books and dismantling my toys and playing around with what was inside them to work out how things worked.
It was after a dip in the share price. The management would of been under pressure to "streamline" and "optimize their flows" and all the rest of the corporate jargon. I wouldn't take it as malicious unless their was proof.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the Krabby Patty secret formula actually _was_ AI generated by Mr. Krabs. It would explain all the permutations it's had over the years.
Curses you Ken for setting all these cut onions around my computer... this was an awesome episode! Thank you for highlighting such an inspiring person and story!
Thanks for having me onboard with the research once again! Also, for those that may not notice, I make a small cameo at 4:46-the high quality footage of Girl Tech's Home Page Builder was provided by yours truly. :)
I think it's rather beautiful and radically human how sometimes love can be the spark for invention. In this case, the love of a mother for her little daughter
you actually contacted Janese?!?! the depths you'll go to for your research are truly commendable, and the results speak for themselves. another fantastic documentary!
As cheesy as "marketing toys to girls" was back in the early 2000s, I admit I do feel nostalgic for the aesthetic of those products. There's just something about seeing those bright pinks and purples again that makes me miss my childhood even if I was that weirdo who made her barbie dolls have pokemon battles (there's a fun crossover idea for ya). It's also kinda amazing that Girltech was ahead of the curve with voice activated technology and the like. Think about it; this was a few years before Siri was even born! The only thing remotely close was the clapper light switches.
I think 2007 was the last year that I saw commercials for Girl Tech stuff. Before that, I actually had classmates with the password journals and they even brought it with them to class on some occasions. I was entering the later part of middle school in 2007, so most people I knew had stopped caring about the product. I haven’t given that company any thought since then until this video. Ken literally unlocked a core memory lol
Fun fact about women in game dev: Some of the most popular Pokémon, such as Vaporeon, Pikachu and Charizard, were designed by a woman named Atsuko Nishida.
@@OlematonnimiLook, I am quite a Pokémon player, albeit leaning more on the Eevee side, and I found that comment to be quite rude. EDIT: I understand if this is a troll, but when you say that in public, you may get backlash.
I absolutely hate this; I'm in my 30's and 99% of the toys that I used as a kid I can use now if I want to. However, like with FAMPS, adding an online component has rendered the toy useless. Remember, this is a kids toy, this is something that the child may love and want to experience later in life (just like many of us do when we see something we enjoyed. It's called nostalgia and everyone takes a bite every now and then). But we are letting kids grow up with a childhood where their memories are tied to servers; live service games that eventually get shut down and games sold via online stores that eventually get shuttered (like the Virtual Console and eShop). I feel sorry for these kids who will think in 20 years "Oh! I want to try out that [insert pleasant memory here] again!". Only to find out that it was tied to an APP, or some kind of live service server and is completely unusable.
True but I don't rlly care about that why not just tell people to go to the goddamn website ☹️ and to be honest I would have sold a little better if they just cut the installation software not to mention Mattel lost 2.6 million dollars back in 2009 and they had the audacity to come out with a adorable toys to life game and guess where it ended them in Shitland but I plan to bring them back to popularity hopefully is better the hate the Creator than hate the creation in this case I hate the Creator not the creation so I suggest you do the same
Yup, and sometimes if it's a one-off product it's not 20 years but 5, 10 or even less. Their own little brother or sister can't even use it a few years later.
Lickily, when people like something enough, they tend to bring it back. Host private servers and such, but if you don't have the knowledge or community, it's as you say. It is crazy that the youth won't be able to just put in a DVD. Companies sell licenses, not ownership.
I remember as a kid I really wanted that talking teddy bear that records a 5 second clip and plays it back. Just to rip it apart and surgically remove its electronics. Mom: wtf are you doing? How else would I find out how it works. That’s my first encounter with ram chips
I remember RADICA: very well! I still keep the blackjack and draw poker handheld games in the drawer in the bathroom for those extra long "board meetings."
There's an interesting historical component too Janese's story, which is that women were pivotal in the tech world, especially for computing and electronics, basically until the 80s, when the home computer revolution got so many teen boys into it that women suddenly became a minority because of it. Of course, that's not the fault of the men who got into it naturally from having a PC in the 80s or 90s, but it was a real thing. Knowing Janese managed to help at least some girls get into tech with her brand really is a nice thing to hear. So often videos about old product lines like this have to end in very cynical ways because the products just kinda fail, despite her having to leave after the layoffs.
My...brothers...were the ones who had a YakBak. Though many toys my mom got were also "everyone's toy", like stuffed animals under the tree at Christmas. Whomever got to it first, it was theirs. But even as a girl, I did wonder why everything had to be so separated if the device did something anyone would like, especially with tech. I had a step-sister for a few years (no, that marriage didn't work out 😅) and she had a "Girl Talk", which was just a voice recorder. I do believe it was pink. Think there was a blue one called a Boy Talk. Why not just take a little more time and effort and come up with a neutral name and advertise it to just...kids? Which would've been effective marketing for us, given how we used it. Despite my brothers and I being about 9, 11, and 12 (I was the middle sister), our step-sister was about 5. One chaotic day, we used it to record ourselves as we ran from my older brother, who was wearing the mask from Scream and using the plastic knives from a food set I had to "kill" us. I think we were inspired by the Blair Witch Project 😂. We did the cliche voice trembling and snot running as we fearfully peek around a corner, only to shriek when of course my brother spotted us and gave chase. Eventually, he "killed" my younger brother and step-sister and they were to stay put in the living room. In the final moments of the game, I was running from my brother and just as I reached my room and tried to slam the door behind me, he threw the knife and I felt it hit my back. It was very light and had almost not weight to it. Still, I dramatically crashed into the wall behind the door, then slid down as I gasped my last breaths 😂 The Girl Talk was full of probably indistinguishable screeching from that day, lol. We made the game sound more like tag so as to sanitize it a bit more for our sister and she was laughing and having fun, despite the creepy mask and being chased with (plastic) knives. I don't know if we would've played the game without the voice recorder helping to inspire us to use it like a "found footage" movie, even with the creepy mask we already had 😅
> Why not just take a little more time and effort and come up with a neutral name and advertise it to just...kids? Because kids are hyper-aware of identity politics, moreso than your average Twitter user. Toy companies figured this out and started aggressively gendering their toys as a cheap ploy to get families to buy two of the same toy with different gender labels on them.
Same reason that the NES was specifically marketed to boys. Toy stores in the 90s had a strict binary in place, there was the girls aisle(s), there was the boys aisle(s), and they would only distribute what could be explicitly placed in one or the other.
OMG I remember one of my siblings had a Password Journal! Those things were indestructible-- I remember hurling it around the hallways and the darn thing still spoke, albeit glitchy.
Tech toys and stuff back then were just indestructible in general. The plastic in that stuff I swear was stronger than titanium; I had a barbie house (not dream house sadly) from '96 that managed to survive my destructive childhood.
@@AiLoveAidoru What's more? The scuffed (more like "vandalized") Password Journal would start glitching/repeating phrases and cutting off from time to time, even during dead silence. It's as if the Password Journal was crying out for help, let alone its five-and-a-half-year-old owner who had nothing but Crazy-Art pencil sketches to hide.
My girl tech got hacked by reporters from the Weekly World News, and now all of Britain knows my crushes. Damn you, PGP! "Pretty Good" is not good enough to protect my fragile teenage heart! Like, for real. Ohmigawd!
Excellent presentation. It's telling that once the IP went to a $$$ multinational corporation did the planned obsolescence greedy move begin. But hey, it says so right on the box- so buy it and prepare to be disappointed.
Being a child of the late 1960s and early 1970s who has no children of my own, I’ve never heard of any of these things. They seem very cool for the era - something I would have loved when I was in elementary school. I had a Pong console that hooked up to the TV and also a pair of walkie-talkies that looked like Star Trek communicators (which would probably be worth a lot of money if I still had them…), but my childhood was mostly limited to low-tech toys like Lego and Matchbox cars. And comic books. Lots of comic books. I do have a stepdaughter who was in college when I met her father, and I imagine she would have liked this stuff. She went on to study computer networking and has made 10 times as much money as I’ve ever made because she was always the only woman in her field when moving up in her career, allowing her to have her pick of the very best and highest-paying jobs. It’s such a shame more girls aren’t encouraged to pursue their interest in STEM fields.
The lady bug one, the chirp.... yes, that was to "be legal"..... Back in the day it was a requirement for any recording device that could be used to record a conversation in a way where some parties involved may not know they were being recorded, to make an audible tone every 15-ish seconds, to alert all parties that recording was in progress. This was regulated specifically for phone conversation recording, but a lot of commercial "spy devices" followed suit to prevent a suit (lawsuit) or running afoul of federal regulations. This is why older phone answering machines made a tone every 15-ish seconds while recording, and was basically a carry over from older federal wire tapping laws.
I miss my password journal. I think I still have my journal somewhere in my closet but I digress. Thank you for making a video on this fantastic product I loved it
This is the sort of history we should teach, and it sounds like maybe she is. You've got an ambitious inventor who found a need and filled it with a clever gadget and created a whole brand. But you also have the big company taking over and running off the creator before being snapped up by an even bigger company. But it says a LOT that Mattel still sells the journal. This is a company which gets pitched on hundreds of new products a year and has endless concepts in progress. They have new toy ideas out the wazoo. But few of them make it to market and fewer survive. The fact that Mattel still has this product on the market means they looked at it with 60 years of toy expertise and they liked what they saw. Only the very best of the best get that far. And it all began with one idea and one inventor. Awe inspiring in every way.
I had the Password Journal 2 when I was a kid. I thought it was so cool to have a book that used your voice to unlock. We guys write in journals all the time. Hell, I still keep a journal for my mental health, although these days its my Kindle Scribe I use for journaling, not GirlTech.
They were really easy to break in to. I was at a freinds birthday party and was there when she set the password. We tried really similar words and each one opened it. Cool product though. It gave a sense of privacy to people who wanted to write thier feelings out but worried about people reading it
My little sister had a password journal. Before puberty, I used to be able to replicate her voice so perfectly, I only had to overhear her say the password once and I could get into it on the maximum security setting.
I'd love to know why apple users love to say the product title when they talk about what they are using or going to use. My Phone becomes My iPhone My Laptop becomes My Macbook (pro) My watch becomes My Apple Watch My PC becomes My iMac (pro) My VR headset becomes My Vision pro Normal people just call it what it is. I can't imagine saying "my galaxy" instead "my phone" or other people saying "my custom PC" instead of "my PC"
I had one of the early Mattel era journals, and was always impressed at how reliable it was. Unfortunately, all that plastic made it pretty annoying to actually use as a journal, and it became more of a very thin lockbox.
I wonder if the bug chirping sounds like a smoke alarm? Because if it was doing that, it'd drive everyone nuts. "Why'd it chirping? I just replaced the batteries!!!".
I remember in the 90’s wanting a few of these things, but I couldn’t explain enough to the adults in my life that it was for nerdy reasons. All I got was “that’s for girls”, and no”. Lol
That is so ironic that the girl branding was created in response to only marketing to boys, and the girl branding worked so well that that was your parents' response. I had a similar experience when I asked for the board game Mall Madness. It was a board game with a talking magcard reader! Like something out of of Star Trek or the movie "Sneakers"!
15:21 No way. No freakin' way did you make a reference to Chopped. Even after fully switching to a Smart TV, my mom STILL kept a cable subscription just so she could watch the TV shows that are on Food Network. Honestly, I was expecting you to cut to the Computer Clan logo, then a black screen, then cutting back to the Computer Clan logo, then finally cutting back to reveal the product (a reference to how those shows handle commercial breaks).
to me, the weird thing about women in tech is that when i started in IT about 1982 , half if not more of IT were women. Then came the Market Crash in the late '80s. I was out of tech for a couple of years and when i came back it was quite noticeable that women had for the most part left the field.
Mattel kills off FAMPS in 2011. In 2013 Disney launches Infinity, using a similar method of placing figurines on a base to unlock various games. Disney then kills off Infinity in 2016, despite it being a major hit. Some quick googling shows that apparently only console versions are still playable, and only in offline mode, with any DLC that was downloaded by the end of 2017.
Oh dude I had that EXACT YakBak as a kid, same color and everything. I remember recording little bits off songs and taking it to school so we could jam out to the same thing over and over for like 5 seconds at a time
My dad insinsted he did not snore, so my brother recorded the snoring on the YakBak and kept playing it back to our dad during arguments. We had to hide it
@@cabbelos DUDE SAME HERE! Wow, I forgot about that but now that you said it I totally did the same thing 😂 Of course he didn't believe me and thought I was just making the noises myself
@@Zatchillac haha this is the best thing I've read today :D Our dad used to get so mad when he saw the YakBak, even though he tried to deny it he knew it was his snoring. It was a sad day when the battery died and it erased the recording.
This is honestly a really cool story with a company that likely had employees that really cared about what they did, and seemed to be like a family more or less. I'm glad that there were at time companies like this, and believe it or not there are a few still to this day...but ya, the story was really cool to hear about the history. I had no idea I'd get to listen to such a cool story regarding a girls diary toy that was out when I was a kid (or at least started when I was a kid).
I cannot imagine a less secure way to store passwords than to put them ALL in one bucket. Sure it may take some time, but there WILL be a giga leak of that data eventually.
IM ME! The best Mattel childrens' toy for forcing your local police force to stop using scramblers on their voice radio system and switch to clear broadcasting.
“she was brought here by a computer and born from technology” Wait a sec, I’ve heard that one before! You mean to tell me that Chiaki K Konaka stole the idea for Serial Experiments Lain from.. Tech Girl?!
19:14 remember for some strange reason not all the figures are obtainable in this case love lazy hyper and sleepy are missing for some strange reason I don't know why but that doesn't stop me from loving famps lmao
My sister had one of these and I thought it was awesome. Come to think of it, this thing was probably my first pentest 😂 when she set it to High security, I couldn't mimic her voice close enough to get in. Low and medium security though was no problem. it was before my voice dropped, so I could get it within the accuracy threshold of her voice. Was super cool for the time, not surprised other dudes also liked it
I wonder where all the data from the password notebook went? was it sold after the product discontinued. I feel there should be a conversation about data and what happens when a product is discontinued like this.
This was awesome! Thank you for reaching out to the founder of Girltech and sharing her story! This wa a super cool episode and I appreciate you using your platform to share the stories of those who may not have rhe platform to be able to. This video really proves to me that toy and product creation is an art, IMO It was very sweet how her daughter was her biggest inspiration.
I imagine hiding the lady bug and then listening in to the person desperately searching for where that noise is coming from could have been the inspiration for it 😂
Won't lie, I too wanted a Password Journal as a kid. But I kept thinking it wouldn't work out for me because I was a dude. ...Then My Little Pony came in. Help.
Great video as always, love learning about this kind of stuff! Gotta say, when the Millionare question graphic popped up asking what company wanted to buy, my initial reaction was "Linode?"
I can understand completely what she was saying about girl things always being in pink! Even when I was a young girl I didn't care for the color pink. I also thought that certain colors of red and blue looked cheap. I tended to like Earth tones like the color of the sands, metallic colors, greens, mauves, and oranges.
I personally had only heard of the Journel, but this story is so moving really. She had a great point, tech was always focused on males in the 90's. I can understand why, but really, doesn't make any sense when you think of it.
so basically, a single mom missed her daughter while she was at work, decieed she was going to create something to feel closer to her while she was working and they both became rich because of it i wonder how long will it be until thats turned into a movie, what an awesome story 😊
Thank you, NordPass, for making today's episode possible! Go to nordpass.com/computerclan to get EXCLUSIVE access to NordPass' best offer. It’s risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Also HUUUUGE shout-out to Janese Swanson (the founder of Girl Tech) for helping me write this episode, and for providing pictures and video clips! ❤ P.S. Subscribed and stay tuned for my new scam-buster episode coming in April. 🔔
Norhing against Nord, but i'll just keep using Bitwarden personally , shrug. Also strange how all the reviews for Nord are always paid ones and enverj ust non bias reviews
No way to 'Nord' anything cannot be trusted for anything
@RyzWtf you can get one for like $1 at a thrift store.
You might want to look into how a VPN actually works my dude. These internet privacy companies tend to spread lies about their services. You always told me to use my BS detector, and my BS detector was going through the roof through that entire ad read.
no
I can't believe Krazy Ken actually met a girl who appreciates his work enough to appear in his videos. I'm so happy for them.
first girl video of 2024
Right? Incredible
I can't believe Krazy Ken met a girl.
What? Why? He's quite attractive, especially from the inside.
@@Weirdkauz Yeah, impressive cell structure.
I remember the password journal. I bought one, ripped the electronics out, and wired it into a remote control plug socket. Set the "password" to "toggle lights", and boom, home automation. I didn't know they made that as a product haha.
Indeed, strangely enough my grandparents had it in the 80’s. They had remote control lamps and stuff.
@@BigFunnyGiantprobably from the x10 automation series of devices. The lgr RUclips channel has several videos reviewing these devices.
Really? That many volts and you still need to press a button before you speak.
That’s really clever! How did you learn to become handy with electronics? I’m interested in learning more but don’t know how to begin.
@@ekatlind My dad was an electronics engineer, so it helped that he could explain things to me, but for the most part it was from various books and dismantling my toys and playing around with what was inside them to work out how things worked.
No back stabbing, betrayals, lawsuits or machiavellian politics.
Is this a wholesome story from the tech world?
Except for the firing of the whole girl tech team after acquisition by Radica...
It was after a dip in the share price. The management would of been under pressure to "streamline" and "optimize their flows" and all the rest of the corporate jargon.
I wouldn't take it as malicious unless their was proof.
I would say there was some backstabbing and politics. They made Girl Tech pink!
@cameronlevers231 exactly companies by law have an obligation to the share holders
@@cameronlevers231 I'd say that just because it isn't malicious doesn't mean that it isn't back-stabby.
There's something so surreal about a Password Journal from the early 2000's containing a copypasta from Chat-GPT.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the Krabby Patty secret formula actually _was_ AI generated by Mr. Krabs.
It would explain all the permutations it's had over the years.
Get in the Password Journal, Shinji
Put on the wig, Shinji! -Kowaru, probably
It's all fun and games until your Password Journal starts to eat the bible to power itself.
This as a picture exists lol. Its from an official game@@Anon_Spartan
@@Anon_Spartaneva2 shinji maid on google. Good luck 😂
Curses you Ken for setting all these cut onions around my computer... this was an awesome episode! Thank you for highlighting such an inspiring person and story!
My pleasure 😇
It's very dusty in here. That's my excuse. Best & most informative video so far. Thanks.
Thank you : )
Thanks for having me onboard with the research once again!
Also, for those that may not notice, I make a small cameo at 4:46-the high quality footage of Girl Tech's Home Page Builder was provided by yours truly. :)
Thanks for contributing and helping preserve this fascinating bit of digital history! :)
My understanding was girl tech never turned a profit.
I think it's rather beautiful and radically human how sometimes love can be the spark for invention. In this case, the love of a mother for her little daughter
you actually contacted Janese?!?! the depths you'll go to for your research are truly commendable, and the results speak for themselves. another fantastic documentary!
As cheesy as "marketing toys to girls" was back in the early 2000s, I admit I do feel nostalgic for the aesthetic of those products. There's just something about seeing those bright pinks and purples again that makes me miss my childhood even if I was that weirdo who made her barbie dolls have pokemon battles (there's a fun crossover idea for ya).
It's also kinda amazing that Girltech was ahead of the curve with voice activated technology and the like. Think about it; this was a few years before Siri was even born! The only thing remotely close was the clapper light switches.
I remember the password journal! My sister had one. If I pitched my voice up I could unlock it lol
Thanks! I’m addicted to this show and this channel I love listening to it while driving for work
Same but I listen to it when I draw
Thank you! And thanks for the donation, too! 😇
Well done again Ken! These deep dives into a product(s) history videos you've been doing have been getting better and better!
Thank you : )
You got me at "when you ask it to turn off the light, it actually does, unlike Siri" Isn't that the truth! Lol.
I think 2007 was the last year that I saw commercials for Girl Tech stuff. Before that, I actually had classmates with the password journals and they even brought it with them to class on some occasions. I was entering the later part of middle school in 2007, so most people I knew had stopped caring about the product. I haven’t given that company any thought since then until this video. Ken literally unlocked a core memory lol
i remember the simpsons doing a parody of it, i guess that's how much this consumed the cultural zeitgeist for girls back in the early-mid 2000's
That clip is in this episode ; )
I... Thought it was just a Simpsons gag, I never knew it was a real thing or company. Unauthorized user! Access denied!
Fun fact about women in game dev: Some of the most popular Pokémon, such as Vaporeon, Pikachu and Charizard, were designed by a woman named Atsuko Nishida.
She was also the wife of the main developer.
Fun fact: Pokemon is shit.
@@Olematonnimi Fun fact: if you say something like "this is shit" instead of "I don't like this", that's just asking for hate comments
@@melsbacksfriend I don't like Pokemon and it is shit.
@@OlematonnimiLook, I am quite a Pokémon player, albeit leaning more on the Eevee side, and I found that comment to be quite rude.
EDIT: I understand if this is a troll, but when you say that in public, you may get backlash.
I absolutely hate this; I'm in my 30's and 99% of the toys that I used as a kid I can use now if I want to. However, like with FAMPS, adding an online component has rendered the toy useless.
Remember, this is a kids toy, this is something that the child may love and want to experience later in life (just like many of us do when we see something we enjoyed. It's called nostalgia and everyone takes a bite every now and then).
But we are letting kids grow up with a childhood where their memories are tied to servers; live service games that eventually get shut down and games sold via online stores that eventually get shuttered (like the Virtual Console and eShop).
I feel sorry for these kids who will think in 20 years "Oh! I want to try out that [insert pleasant memory here] again!". Only to find out that it was tied to an APP, or some kind of live service server and is completely unusable.
True but I don't rlly care about that why not just tell people to go to the goddamn website ☹️ and to be honest I would have sold a little better if they just cut the installation software not to mention Mattel lost 2.6 million dollars back in 2009 and they had the audacity to come out with a adorable toys to life game and guess where it ended them in Shitland but I plan to bring them back to popularity hopefully is better the hate the Creator than hate the creation in this case I hate the Creator not the creation so I suggest you do the same
Yup, and sometimes if it's a one-off product it's not 20 years but 5, 10 or even less. Their own little brother or sister can't even use it a few years later.
Lickily, when people like something enough, they tend to bring it back. Host private servers and such, but if you don't have the knowledge or community, it's as you say. It is crazy that the youth won't be able to just put in a DVD. Companies sell licenses, not ownership.
Everything about it is so 90s.
Love it. Takes me way back to my childhood.
Leave the wig on Ken! You look like you should be playing drums for The Bangles when you wear it 😂
Yeah haha
15:22 - I thoroughly enjoyed the reference to Food Network's "Chopped."
I looooove that show.
I remember seeing ads for Girl Tech products all the time. Its cool to see that they actually worked well.
I remember as a kid I really wanted that talking teddy bear that records a 5 second clip and plays it back. Just to rip it apart and surgically remove its electronics. Mom: wtf are you doing? How else would I find out how it works. That’s my first encounter with ram chips
Another great episode. You tell the Girl Tech story with respect and sensitivity. Again, I’m impressed - you’re not just a pretty face.
Thanks!
I remember RADICA: very well! I still keep the blackjack and draw poker handheld games in the drawer in the bathroom for those extra long "board meetings."
30year old boy here… as a kid I always wanted that journal.
There's an interesting historical component too Janese's story, which is that women were pivotal in the tech world, especially for computing and electronics, basically until the 80s, when the home computer revolution got so many teen boys into it that women suddenly became a minority because of it. Of course, that's not the fault of the men who got into it naturally from having a PC in the 80s or 90s, but it was a real thing.
Knowing Janese managed to help at least some girls get into tech with her brand really is a nice thing to hear. So often videos about old product lines like this have to end in very cynical ways because the products just kinda fail, despite her having to leave after the layoffs.
My...brothers...were the ones who had a YakBak. Though many toys my mom got were also "everyone's toy", like stuffed animals under the tree at Christmas. Whomever got to it first, it was theirs. But even as a girl, I did wonder why everything had to be so separated if the device did something anyone would like, especially with tech. I had a step-sister for a few years (no, that marriage didn't work out 😅) and she had a "Girl Talk", which was just a voice recorder. I do believe it was pink. Think there was a blue one called a Boy Talk. Why not just take a little more time and effort and come up with a neutral name and advertise it to just...kids?
Which would've been effective marketing for us, given how we used it. Despite my brothers and I being about 9, 11, and 12 (I was the middle sister), our step-sister was about 5. One chaotic day, we used it to record ourselves as we ran from my older brother, who was wearing the mask from Scream and using the plastic knives from a food set I had to "kill" us. I think we were inspired by the Blair Witch Project 😂. We did the cliche voice trembling and snot running as we fearfully peek around a corner, only to shriek when of course my brother spotted us and gave chase.
Eventually, he "killed" my younger brother and step-sister and they were to stay put in the living room. In the final moments of the game, I was running from my brother and just as I reached my room and tried to slam the door behind me, he threw the knife and I felt it hit my back. It was very light and had almost not weight to it. Still, I dramatically crashed into the wall behind the door, then slid down as I gasped my last breaths 😂
The Girl Talk was full of probably indistinguishable screeching from that day, lol. We made the game sound more like tag so as to sanitize it a bit more for our sister and she was laughing and having fun, despite the creepy mask and being chased with (plastic) knives. I don't know if we would've played the game without the voice recorder helping to inspire us to use it like a "found footage" movie, even with the creepy mask we already had 😅
> Why not just take a little more time and effort and come up with a neutral name and advertise it to just...kids?
Because kids are hyper-aware of identity politics, moreso than your average Twitter user. Toy companies figured this out and started aggressively gendering their toys as a cheap ploy to get families to buy two of the same toy with different gender labels on them.
@@SuperSmashDolls Ah, but of course, it all comes back to money 😂.
Same reason that the NES was specifically marketed to boys. Toy stores in the 90s had a strict binary in place, there was the girls aisle(s), there was the boys aisle(s), and they would only distribute what could be explicitly placed in one or the other.
OMG I remember one of my siblings had a Password Journal!
Those things were indestructible-- I remember hurling it around the hallways and the darn thing still spoke, albeit glitchy.
Tech toys and stuff back then were just indestructible in general. The plastic in that stuff I swear was stronger than titanium; I had a barbie house (not dream house sadly) from '96 that managed to survive my destructive childhood.
@@AiLoveAidoru What's more? The scuffed (more like "vandalized") Password Journal would start glitching/repeating phrases and cutting off from time to time, even during dead silence. It's as if the Password Journal was crying out for help, let alone its five-and-a-half-year-old owner who had nothing but Crazy-Art pencil sketches to hide.
My girl tech got hacked by reporters from the Weekly World News, and now all of Britain knows my crushes.
Damn you, PGP! "Pretty Good" is not good enough to protect my fragile teenage heart!
Like, for real. Ohmigawd!
Excellent presentation. It's telling that once the IP went to a $$$ multinational corporation did the planned obsolescence greedy move begin. But hey, it says so right on the box- so buy it and prepare to be disappointed.
Being a child of the late 1960s and early 1970s who has no children of my own, I’ve never heard of any of these things. They seem very cool for the era - something I would have loved when I was in elementary school. I had a Pong console that hooked up to the TV and also a pair of walkie-talkies that looked like Star Trek communicators (which would probably be worth a lot of money if I still had them…), but my childhood was mostly limited to low-tech toys like Lego and Matchbox cars. And comic books. Lots of comic books.
I do have a stepdaughter who was in college when I met her father, and I imagine she would have liked this stuff. She went on to study computer networking and has made 10 times as much money as I’ve ever made because she was always the only woman in her field when moving up in her career, allowing her to have her pick of the very best and highest-paying jobs. It’s such a shame more girls aren’t encouraged to pursue their interest in STEM fields.
I absolutely love these deep dives into tech.
Thanks! I’m glad folks appreciate the stories /around/ the tech and not just the physical tech products themselves! : D
The lady bug one, the chirp.... yes, that was to "be legal"..... Back in the day it was a requirement for any recording device that could be used to record a conversation in a way where some parties involved may not know they were being recorded, to make an audible tone every 15-ish seconds, to alert all parties that recording was in progress. This was regulated specifically for phone conversation recording, but a lot of commercial "spy devices" followed suit to prevent a suit (lawsuit) or running afoul of federal regulations.
This is why older phone answering machines made a tone every 15-ish seconds while recording, and was basically a carry over from older federal wire tapping laws.
the picture at 8:50 killed me oml. the fact that it's in a girl's password journal "secret compartment" makes it all the more better
I miss my password journal. I think I still have my journal somewhere in my closet but I digress. Thank you for making a video on this fantastic product I loved it
My niece got one of those journals for Christmas like 7 years ago, it was pretty cool, I couldn't even imagine that product was out since the late 90s
This is the sort of history we should teach, and it sounds like maybe she is. You've got an ambitious inventor who found a need and filled it with a clever gadget and created a whole brand. But you also have the big company taking over and running off the creator before being snapped up by an even bigger company. But it says a LOT that Mattel still sells the journal. This is a company which gets pitched on hundreds of new products a year and has endless concepts in progress. They have new toy ideas out the wazoo. But few of them make it to market and fewer survive. The fact that Mattel still has this product on the market means they looked at it with 60 years of toy expertise and they liked what they saw. Only the very best of the best get that far. And it all began with one idea and one inventor. Awe inspiring in every way.
I had the Password Journal 2 when I was a kid. I thought it was so cool to have a book that used your voice to unlock. We guys write in journals all the time. Hell, I still keep a journal for my mental health, although these days its my Kindle Scribe I use for journaling, not GirlTech.
They were really easy to break in to. I was at a freinds birthday party and was there when she set the password. We tried really similar words and each one opened it. Cool product though. It gave a sense of privacy to people who wanted to write thier feelings out but worried about people reading it
My little sister had a password journal. Before puberty, I used to be able to replicate her voice so perfectly, I only had to overhear her say the password once and I could get into it on the maximum security setting.
The lady from the FAMPS ad is the one that voiced Barbie: Ocean Discovery from 1992. At least, she sounds like her
OMG I MEAN DREW THE CREATIVE FAMP HOLY SHIT!!!!
As a guy growing up in the 90s the ads were so cool, i wanted on so bad but i wasn't allowed as it "wasnt for boys"
Also had a YakBak. Mine was green, and it was the best thing ever!
I remember my daughter asking for and getting the password journal for Christmas. She loved that thing.
This is heart warming and breaking. Exceptional story by an great storyteller. Thank you
Yea that wig makes you look more like you have every motley Crue album on 8track and a freaking sweet z28
Did... Did you just AI-Roll me?😮 "As a language model I cannot..." 😂😂😂
Oh my god!!! No wonder I love the color yellow green. It was because of the book. I thought the color was so cool. I’m crying 🥹
I'd love to know why apple users love to say the product title when they talk about what they are using or going to use.
My Phone becomes My iPhone
My Laptop becomes My Macbook (pro)
My watch becomes My Apple Watch
My PC becomes My iMac (pro)
My VR headset becomes My Vision pro
Normal people just call it what it is. I can't imagine saying "my galaxy" instead "my phone" or other people saying "my custom PC" instead of "my PC"
I had one of the early Mattel era journals, and was always impressed at how reliable it was. Unfortunately, all that plastic made it pretty annoying to actually use as a journal, and it became more of a very thin lockbox.
I wonder if the bug chirping sounds like a smoke alarm? Because if it was doing that, it'd drive everyone nuts. "Why'd it chirping? I just replaced the batteries!!!".
15:29 I'm in love with the cooking show reference lol 😂
I love Chopped, haha
@@ComputerClansame
I remember in the 90’s wanting a few of these things, but I couldn’t explain enough to the adults in my life that it was for nerdy reasons. All I got was “that’s for girls”, and no”. Lol
That is so ironic that the girl branding was created in response to only marketing to boys, and the girl branding worked so well that that was your parents' response. I had a similar experience when I asked for the board game Mall Madness. It was a board game with a talking magcard reader! Like something out of of Star Trek or the movie "Sneakers"!
@@ObiWanBillKenobi The marketing people found the obvious solution: Make a boys version. Same product in blue and a different box.
You were cutting so many onions and blowing dust in my eyes this was awesome
Why am I not surprised that one of the first things Mattel did to Girl Tech products was make them pink?
15:21
No way. No freakin' way did you make a reference to Chopped.
Even after fully switching to a Smart TV, my mom STILL kept a cable subscription just so she could watch the TV shows that are on Food Network.
Honestly, I was expecting you to cut to the Computer Clan logo, then a black screen, then cutting back to the Computer Clan logo, then finally cutting back to reveal the product (a reference to how those shows handle commercial breaks).
That room control would be good today for smart home features without sending all your info over the internet.
Fun video, and I really like how solidly you did all your homework for it, even reaching out to one of the people responsible for these products.
Thank you : )
I had family members with those password gadgets. Looking forward to learning about them here. Thanks for your work Ken!
to me, the weird thing about women in tech is that when i started in IT about 1982 , half if not more of IT were women.
Then came the Market Crash in the late '80s. I was out of tech for a couple of years and when i came back it was quite noticeable that women had for the most part left the field.
Mattel kills off FAMPS in 2011. In 2013 Disney launches Infinity, using a similar method of placing figurines on a base to unlock various games. Disney then kills off Infinity in 2016, despite it being a major hit. Some quick googling shows that apparently only console versions are still playable, and only in offline mode, with any DLC that was downloaded by the end of 2017.
I think Mattel was too lazy to Moderate over the website
15:18 that joke delivery was perfect LMAO
Oh dude I had that EXACT YakBak as a kid, same color and everything. I remember recording little bits off songs and taking it to school so we could jam out to the same thing over and over for like 5 seconds at a time
Oh that's cool! I did something similar with my first cellphone because it had a 10-second memo recorder, haha
@@ComputerClan Hey sometimes you just gotta work with what you got 👍
My dad insinsted he did not snore, so my brother recorded the snoring on the YakBak and kept playing it back to our dad during arguments. We had to hide it
@@cabbelos DUDE SAME HERE! Wow, I forgot about that but now that you said it I totally did the same thing 😂
Of course he didn't believe me and thought I was just making the noises myself
@@Zatchillac haha this is the best thing I've read today :D Our dad used to get so mad when he saw the YakBak, even though he tried to deny it he knew it was his snoring. It was a sad day when the battery died and it erased the recording.
I cannot believe that poor man had the name 'Pat Feely'
This is honestly a really cool story with a company that likely had employees that really cared about what they did, and seemed to be like a family more or less. I'm glad that there were at time companies like this, and believe it or not there are a few still to this day...but ya, the story was really cool to hear about the history. I had no idea I'd get to listen to such a cool story regarding a girls diary toy that was out when I was a kid (or at least started when I was a kid).
19:50 girl tech was more transparent about their service shutdowns than most triple a video games
Went from Krazy Ken to Krazy Kimberly
@After_Burnett Krazy Khloe
Krazy Karen... oh wait, the 'Krazy' part is redundant
This was my favorite episode. RIP Girl Tech
It’s so awesome seeing tech that came from my hometown, especially one like GirlTech!
I cannot imagine a less secure way to store passwords than to put them ALL in one bucket. Sure it may take some time, but there WILL be a giga leak of that data eventually.
IM ME! The best Mattel childrens' toy for forcing your local police force to stop using scramblers on their voice radio system and switch to clear broadcasting.
“she was brought here by a computer and born from technology”
Wait a sec, I’ve heard that one before!
You mean to tell me that Chiaki K Konaka stole the idea for Serial Experiments Lain from.. Tech Girl?!
Sounds a lot like Weird Science.
I was thinking of Miku, funny enough.
Janese is a pretty amazing person. Truly an inspiration for a generation of techies. Wow!
19:14 remember for some strange reason not all the figures are obtainable in this case love lazy hyper and sleepy are missing for some strange reason I don't know why but that doesn't stop me from loving famps lmao
Youre one of my favorite tech content creators these days man. Pretty cool
One of the best channels ever. Love it. Thank you.
8:49 I legit wasn't expecting and ended up spitting my tea 😂
Bro the nostalgia you just hit me with bringing up those games
My sister had one of these and I thought it was awesome. Come to think of it, this thing was probably my first pentest 😂 when she set it to High security, I couldn't mimic her voice close enough to get in. Low and medium security though was no problem. it was before my voice dropped, so I could get it within the accuracy threshold of her voice. Was super cool for the time, not surprised other dudes also liked it
I wonder where all the data from the password notebook went? was it sold after the product discontinued. I feel there should be a conversation about data and what happens when a product is discontinued like this.
This was awesome! Thank you for reaching out to the founder of Girltech and sharing her story! This wa a super cool episode and I appreciate you using your platform to share the stories of those who may not have rhe platform to be able to. This video really proves to me that toy and product creation is an art, IMO
It was very sweet how her daughter was her biggest inspiration.
I imagine hiding the lady bug and then listening in to the person desperately searching for where that noise is coming from could have been the inspiration for it 😂
Won't lie, I too wanted a Password Journal as a kid. But I kept thinking it wouldn't work out for me because I was a dude.
...Then My Little Pony came in.
Help.
Nah, you're fine. You're only in trouble when you combine MLP with Fallout. That then is a pony of a completely different colour.
@@tsukishiro70 My Little Deathclaw?
@@TimbobjrNah, Fallout Equestria, look it up, it's a wild fanfic
Thank you Ken Always a good, and informative show. You are just a straight up and fun to watch.
Imagine if someone modified the zap and lock to actually zap someone if they screwed up
Another brilliant video Ken! I appreciate the time and effort that go into all your videos
Thank you : ) I have a great team who helps me, too! I'm super-grateful for them.
🤣 Did not expect the wig straight into the video. I let out the biggest laugh after hitting play hahaha
im so hooked to this channel! well done KrazyKen
Thank you : )
Great video as always, love learning about this kind of stuff! Gotta say, when the Millionare question graphic popped up asking what company wanted to buy, my initial reaction was "Linode?"
Such a wholesome episode, and fun products! I cannot recall seeing them here in sweden though. I'd have loved the journal for sure.
the girltech website unironically looked good.
I can understand completely what she was saying about girl things always being in pink! Even when I was a young girl I didn't care for the color pink. I also thought that certain colors of red and blue looked cheap. I tended to like Earth tones like the color of the sands, metallic colors, greens, mauves, and oranges.
Your videos are always interesting and informative, this one is all of that and inspirational to boot, well done, Ken.
I'm glad it resonated with you! Thanks for watching.
I personally had only heard of the Journel, but this story is so moving really. She had a great point, tech was always focused on males in the 90's. I can understand why, but really, doesn't make any sense when you think of it.
so basically, a single mom missed her daughter while she was at work, decieed she was going to create something to feel closer to her while she was working and they both became rich because of it
i wonder how long will it be until thats turned into a movie, what an awesome story 😊
Wow talk about being ahead of their time with home automation in the early 2k's! Love the chopped reference
That ending was almost emotional
Great script and clips such good editing and storytelling so engaging