Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: The Why of Two-Kay: Nicki and Isabel Hoffman of the Turn of the Millennium

Stay on your side of the room!

For once I'm gonna be on time with something! A week and change later is on time, right? It counts. Get in where you fit in. Return of the Mack Neth.

So there I was, hot off the press of finishing Kavi's collection post within a reasonable time of her release, and preparing my checklist of "Things That Came Out In 2023/Late 2022 (So I Might Maybe Eventually Catch Up To Go Back)" when historical leaks hit hard. And by hit hard, I mean AG put stuff up several days early on the website and they were available for people to order, which counts as a release. So I set aside my checklist and decided I'd try to do a post on something fresh off the press on semi-time, even if colored. The time that is. It's a Colored People Time Joke. Then my attempts to post before February ended got delayed. But not by much! It's just the second of March. I'm fine, I'm a'ight. We're major. Happy Texas Independence Day.

Anyways, back to the matter at hand. On 2/22, only a month and a half after Kavi's release,¹ AG released their newest historicals: Nicki and Isabel Hoffman² of Seattle, Washington. They hail from the far flung, distant era of last century, the most ancient and noble year--

--of 1999. Hey, I graduated from high school that year!

Did you hear crying middle millennials after reading that year? I heard crying middle millennials. Yes, now it's the mid-to-late millennials' turn to feel fucking old about being represented by a "historical" era by the same doll company that started with the 1850s, 1900s, and 1940s. The early Gen Xers got whapped by the Historical Era Stick with Julie and mini vinyl records in 2007, the cuspier X-llennials like me did it with Courtney and mini cassette tapes in 2020, and now it's the middle to late Millennials turn with the Twinsies and mini CDs--and sooner than you expected it to be. Now it's y'all's turn to see the children ask you what a CD is³ and wince when a teenager who didn't even exist as a fetus during the 2006 midterms is on the Metronome App trying to tell you nothing happened at all during Y2K when you lived through that night and remember your desktop potentially glitching and the fears of the end of the world. Gen Z doesn't know how to sort through the file system or research without Google. You're older now. Your music's now part of the Classic music station--the hits of the 80s, 90s, and beyond! Stop lamenting that your age is closer to thirty than twenty, eat more greens, take your multivitamins, be glad you made it this far--not everyone has been so lucky--and for the love of gods, wear sunscreen. History doesn't just stop existing once color TV is invented. Just ask Julie. Hell, ask Melody.

We're going to start with my feelings on the Twinsies, and then follow up with the collection--which isn't that big to start, but then again neither has Claudie's been. Technically Claudie has more outfits. Technically.

Under the cut to where I'll fuss, cuss, and discuss. No Scrubs allowed. A scrub gets no love from me.⁴

We'll Make It Up To You In The Year 2000: The Good, The Mostly Bad, The Era

Do you like skating, flannel, and grunge? Or glitter, stickers, and pop?
American Girl has options for you. Two of them.

Let's start where we always do, with the characters themselves. Nicki P.--the P stands for [redacted]--and Isabel J.--the J stands for Jane--Hoffman are living contrasting Gemini lives in the tech-happy, girl power year of 1999 in Seattle, Washington. They're twins down to having the same face mold, continuing use of the Joss Mold⁵--but they're not the same person and they're very clear about that. They're fraternal,⁶ not identical. Brunette and blue-eyed Nicki is older by six minutes and into skating, zines, purple, wearing the Red Vinyl Jumper Outfit,⁷ and panicking about what Y2K might do to the world to the beat of a Pearl Jam song, while blonde and green-eyed Isabel is one inch taller and into glitter, pink, flowers, wearing the Year 2000 outfit,⁸ and wanting to do dances with her friends to Spice Up Your Life at the upcoming millennial celebration. They both have fears they want to try and face and challenges to conquer before the millennium starts,⁹ which include heights, friendships, the ollie, and sushi. Their dad, Dave, is a kept man who used to be in a band and now owns a coffee shop called Coffeegarden--he named it after Soundgarden, I'm right and you should say it--and their mom Robin brings in the money working at a tech company that is probably Microsoft. The collection not only drops things the Millennials remember like I do Care Bears and nuclear war fears, but also old things in the AG collection like Grin Pins and AG Bear. More on those later. The collection comes after the era and character talk. 

I've learned my facts about the Twinsies from a mix of press releases, data on the website, and friends and associates in the fandom who have gotten the dolls already and shared the information around; I have an arrangement to get my hands on the journals myself, but it'll be a minute or three before I do. So I haven't had a chance to read about them myself yet. My bitching can and will be more informed later.

Wait, two dolls for one era? But Neth, those who have been here more than a minute ask, haven't we done two dolls for a time period before--five times, six with Chrissa--and they didn't go well and you said, and we quote, "AG will not do Best Friends ever again"? You're right. I did. And technically, I've been right. There's not been Best Friends ever since. We've had Tenney's Nogan who drummed up the fact he was a boy, Corinne's Gwynn who's a little sister Wellie, and that's it. The Twinsies aren't best friends like Nellie and Samantha or Molly and Emily were, as add-ons unequally balanced to the era. Ivy never got PJs, rude. Nor are they split-era focus like Cécile and Marie Grace with different families and stories. They're twins. It's right there in the nickname I'm using.

Still. AG is once again asking folk to be hip to getting two dolls for the era instead of one, with tighter intertwined books and a book that's got both of them on the cover. Maybe this time'll be different, and they'll do great in a way that the NOLA girls didn't because how dare AG have Interracial BFFs happen before Arbitrary Black People Freedom Time™. We'll see how well they do as a duo. But I don't have faith that many people will get both of them, likely one more than the other.

More talk on faith later.

Speaking of books. Well book. Well, books. Meet Isabel and Nicki, written by real twin authors Julia DeVillers and Jennifer Roy, is shared by both girls. But I don't have the book--and neither do you. Their shared meet book, like Kavi before them, isn't out yet. Instead the Twinsies are coming with journals, like Kavi before them.

Book cover out to see, yes.
Book contents out to read, no.

Journals again? Yep, again. Nicki gets one, and Isabel the other, and they're illustrated with doodles and images from the not yet out book, same as Kavi's. Not exactly thrilled with that fact myself. The journals as books, not the artwork in them. Artwork's cute. 

I said it on Kavi's post and I'll say it again: people constantly treated the books like packing ballast or free book real estate for delivering without cost to Europe's numerous 2% of collectors, and now the full books come sold separately so AG doesn't keep losing eight bucks a smack on folk yeeting the books immediately. (Or even, perhaps, returning them for credit.) We'll get our book for the Hoffmans in August, closer to when historicals have traditionally released. Which in part makes me wonder if AG pushed the release up to 2/22 just so they could hit that date for fancy reasons. It would explain the smaller collections. Moving on.

The twins live in Seattle--and to that I say, Seattle again?! They're the first Historicals there, but we've done three sets of characters there--four if you count the twins separately. I love Seattle, I live in Seattle, but there's so many other places these characters could have gone. Seattle's not even the biggest city on this coast. Biggest in WA State, yes, biggest on the West Coast Best Coast no. I know they probably did it for the alternative aspects for Nicki, but alternative was not just west of the Cascades. Please, AG, go somewhere else. At this rate we're going to New York up Seattle.

Speaking of repetition, holy recycled names in space, Batman. Nicki and Isabel have already had their names used--for Nicki from Colorado and Isabel(le) from WA DC, the place with lots of black folk that still had a white girl represent them. They even loosely have the same color schemes: blue eyes and brownish hair for Nicki (with two streaks) and blonde with greenish eyes for Isabel(s). This is the third use of Isabel(le) by the brand, actually: the first was Isabel from Tudor England. Isabel and Nicki weren't exceptionally popular names for 1990, either. No, Samantha wasn't for 1904, either--but if we were going with names that evoked nineties kids, we had so many to choose from. You have internet to pull up popular names via old Social Security records now, AG. Try harder to find better names instead of going to repeating names from your own past archives within less than two decades. Yes, Isabel's in the top 200 along with Nicole for 1990, but you used those names or something like it already. There were so many options. Madison and Morgan. Alex(is) and Abigail. Even if you didn't want rhyming names and you were committed to the I and N, they could have been Iris and Natalie. Just anything but names you've already used. And no, this isn't just because the wiki had to make notes on all the pages because of the name match. But I'm also pissy about it. The wiki had to disambig a collection page for the first time ever. Hates it.

I swear, it's not all bitching about the Twinsies, but it's a lot of it. What can I say, I'm irritated. Let's talk about something awesome I love about the Hoffmans, even if AG's being ass about this fact which means more bitching. The Twinsies' journals--and story, until further notice--start on the last day of Hanukkah, when they get said journals as gifts. Because notably--and this is really good--the Twinsies are interfaith. Dave is Jewish, making the girls Jewish, and they celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas and get their pets as part of their Hanukkah celebrations. Cue Daveed Diggs' "I Want a Puppy for Hanukkah."

It's big and important and matters that the Twinsies are Jewish. The only other historical that's been so is Rebecca¹⁰--who's set in the past, she's now over a hundred years ago--and before her it was Lindsey who was here for two years and got one book and not even a change of clothes. My friend in the fandom iamexcessivelydollverted is Jewish and has written multiple posts about the Twinsies--and since she does so on Patreon, I will post a link to said Patreon and recommend you pay out of your funds to support a Jewish creator in this fandom to see any and all she's said there about them and Jewish representation. Here we don't pirate people's words.

But. And this "but" is infuriating as hell. The Hoffmans being Jewish is not being emphasized, and the dismissal of it from the top down pisses me off. American Girl's post on "Why The Twinsies Matter" talks about girl power, facing fears, and being true to yourself--but not a single gods-damn mention of the fact that the twins are Jewish and why that matters too. The only mention about it outside of the journals saying they celebrate Hanukkah is the note on one item description. (We'll get to that.) The post talks about how the authors wrote their books and how they mentioned twin and girl power--but not about how they grew up interfaith and integrated that into their character, or wrote books about Jewish characters and history before now. I've heard, from another person who briefly spoke to one of the authors, that the Hoffmans being Jewish was something they personally pushed for since they're interfaith--it wasn't planned by AG, which it why it feels so much like an afterthought. Kavi got emphasis on being South Asian and representation in her collection, but the Twinsies are getting nothing about being Jewish. No items in the collection, no details in their bios, no future mentions of a bat mitzvah in three and a half years--not even a six-letter reminder in descriptions. I said they were Jewish on the Wiki and I'm fandom's greatest monster.

It stinks. It sucks. I don't like it. I was so curious and hopeful upon learning they were Jewish that I'd see more about characters being Jewish in history like we've gotten Black rep with Addy, Melody, Claudie, and Cecile--but was so disappointed when that manifested as minimal visibility. They're Jewish, but not overt enough to make WASPs and antisemites uncomfortable about buying simulated Tamagochi and mini Grin Pins associated to them. Girl Power, but not Jewish Visibility. It's coming off as Informed Judaism--just enough to sprinkle difference around like kosher salt, but not so much difference it might make bigots uncomfortable again. And given that Rebecca's lost a lot of her uniquely Jewish items in her collection that aren't Hanukkah--the only holiday many non-Jewish people know--it's frustrating. I really hope the book gives them more than just starting on the last day of the holiday and pets during it to show their being interfaith. Furthermore, its honestly insulting that people in the AG community are writing them off as merely white girls--or worse, ignoring that they're Jewish. At least that one horrid person from my early years in AG Fandom isn't around to publicly "convert" them to Christianity like she did Lindsey and Kaya. But someone is going to, and I hate them already. Isabel and Nicki represent their Jewish faith, no matter how much, a marginalized people and faith that is often written off at best and slaughtered by genocide at worst. Especially in this current hate-filled time where white supremacy has come after Jewish people like it has black folk, queer folk, disabled folk, neurodivergent folk, and others.

Again it's not my task, as a person who is in no way Jewish and only knows what I do about it through the generously shared information of friends, to say more on how valid or not the representation the Hoffmans present is. But they are Jewish, and if you're going to have them, that shouldn't be erased or dismissed. Again, scroll up, sub to Dollverted's Patreon I linked, and learn more from someone who is. If you can't afford Patreon, follow her on Instagram--but if you can afford to buy inflatable chairs, you can afford three bucks a month to learn from an educator trying to teach you.

ETA, 3/22/23: Here's a Hey Alma article as well: Are the New ’90s American Girl Dolls Jewish? Notably, it states that Seattle has one of the largest Sephardi Jewish populations in the US. Another missed opportunity, AG.

Going back to the time period and continuing my bitching. Like was said above, the books start in 1999. Specifically, December 1999. AG picked a time where Columbine had already happened so they don't have to address it¹¹ but before 9/11 so they don't have to address that either. (The annoying spammers and rumormongers are never going to get their red-headed 9/11 doll whose unstated parent went missing that day and made them stress out for a six-book series somehow.) Even more specifically, 1999 with twenty days left before the year 2000 hits. Hence Nicki's anxiety about what'll happen that night. (Spoiler: The reason "nothing happened" is because a lot of people worked their asses off to take it seriously so things didn't glitch out. Some did, but not severely.) Not even a whole month in the decade, this series. That's as last bit of the decade as one could be without the books starting two minutes before the stroke of midnight.

This, dear readers, is why I am classifying them as 2000s/Turn of the Millennium kids. The Twinsies are Nineties kids in that they were born in May 1990, and technically, they're in 1999 and that makes them in the Nineties, but the spirit and aesthetic of the collection is not the Nineties aesthetic, it's what the youth are calling the Y2K or something. They're more N64 than Super Nintendo, more Playstation 2 than Playstation. We've got historicals that could play Pokémon Red on the Game Boy Color rather than struggling to play The Lion King on a Sega Game Gear eating batteries like they were Now and Laters. The collection and era being shown is much more Spotty Aughties¹² than Naughty Nineties. AG hyping them as Nineties characters feels as disingenuous as when St. Pleasant of Rowland advertised Samantha as Victorian because that was the cool term to use in the 1980s, even though she's Edwardian. Their stories starting not even a month before the year 2000 makes  the Twinsies turn of the millennial characters. For all AG is barely saying Nicki and Isabel are Jewish, they are way overstating them as being Nineties characters. Find some goddamn balance. They weren't watching the first seasons of Friends or Fraiser and their books start well over a year after the last ep of Animaniacs. 

I've been mostly avoiding the tepid takes of the majority of the fandom. Still, I hope they're not saying they're Capital N Nineties kids. Captain N debuted before they did. Nineties characters would be a lot closer to the AG of Today line than Lindsey's release.¹³ It's almost nostalgia bait, emphasizing them as "Nineties" like this--and the real kind of bait, not the "we hate Courtney" kind. I quite remember two and a half years ago when the millennial and Zoomers were screaming and flapping their jaws to run and tell folk Courtney's collection wasn't really true to the 80s and clearly had to be pandering to false nostalgia, because they knew 1980s kids would have never enjoyed Care Bears or wore houndstooth skirts, even if they weren't even in second grade when the rollover happened and can't remember when Destiny's Child had four members. Yet these two are being marketed as "hey, remember the nineties, kids? Well, we're starting this so late in the decade you only have to remember like, twenty days of them max."

Unless that first book comes out and things start in October or sooner, I'm calling them Year 2000/Aughties kids, not Nineties kids. I wouldn't classify Kit as a 1920s character even though she was a child then, and I don't class Nicki and Isabel as 1990s kids. Sorry, I don't make the rules. Call me back on my new cordless phone when we have a historical excited about the release of Daydream, upset about the baseball strike meaning no World Series, trying to figure out what the hell Izzy is, and/or enjoying the Treehouse of Horror with Bill Clinton and Bob Dole exchanging long protein strands.¹⁴ Be warned, you'll probably get my answering machine and have to listen to four to ten seconds of an in-era R&B song clip playing in the background before I step in and mumble about leaving a message before the beep. We just got caller ID and the device may or may not be hooked up right now.

*strains of the chorus of "Space Jam" play faintly in the background before I start talking about the stuff*

Squeaky Inflatable Chairs, Book It, Miss AG Bear, and Tamagochi: The Collection You've Been Waiting For, Maybe

Finally, to the salon collection! It's full of history and links to things. I have better memories of 1999 than I do 1986. I was older and had more brain--and was more stressed after starting college and unsure of what to do with my life but knowing that being a doctor was off the docket.

Here in the Coffeegarden, we drink brew and hope the Starbucks down the street doesn't screw us over in the future.

Nicki's Meet Outfit: Nicki shows up to play the Backstreet Boys and read Fear Street and girl gang series that only existed for less than twenty books which'll be briefly mentioned in the future Paperback Crush. She's in darker colors: a grey and maroon t-shirt, slip dress, a flannel shirt around her waist or to wear over her ensemble, sneakers with ankle socks, and panties. Always assume panties. I've heard they're the generic pink ones everyone gets now, so they don't even get cool underpants. Frowny emoticon. I saw a comment on an article saying that Nicki is sporting--hah--the Alex Mack style, and I'm inclined to agree. I know they wanted to mirror the twin thing and put them both in skirts, but I think Nicki would have been more grunge like in jeans or shorts, preferably jeans with wide legs. As it is, she's got flannel, though it would have been better in blue or red than pink. More on that shortly. It's got lots of mix and matching in it, though.

Nicki's Accessories: You gotta coordinate~! Nicki gets a hat to the back,¹⁵ black sunglasses, a vinyl black messenger bag, her journal sans her face, and the first nod to the GoT Line in the shared collection with a set of mini Grin Pin stickers and two additional ones attached on her hat. I like the stuff, but actually am pretty meh on the necklace, and I loved yin yang symbols in high school. it's a charm sewn onto ribbon. Should I get her I'll get them, but I will swiftly make a better necklace. Maybe out of fine hemp. Bitches loved hemp cord in the Aughties.¹⁶ I'll also make her one of those plastic cord key chains I did instead of paying attention in pre-calc.

Isabel's Meet Outfit: Isabel is ready to party like it's 1999--for three whole weeks of it--and read all the Baby-Sitters Club books as they come out monthly while Backstreet Boys blasts "I Want It That Way" in a pink and preppy set: knit sweater and blouse, a plaid skirt, white knee high socks, and pink platform chunky t-straps she might just turn her ankle in. And panties. See above re: assuming. The same comment that said Nicki was Alex said that Isabel was Cher Horowitz, and I'm inclined to agree. Unlike Nicki, her shirt is one piece, cutting her mix and match possibilities down.  Also side by side you can really tell they used the same fabric for her skirt as they did Nicki's flannel. As if. I'm not into this late nineties style, so I don't really like it.

Isabel's Accessories: Isabel is also coordinating in matching accessories: a raspberry pink beret--the kind I hope she found at the secondhand store--with two attached pins for Grin; a clear backpack because backpack regulations have changed since third grade and she can't carry her Snoopy stuffed animal style one anymore but there weren't specifics on why; a stretch bead choker, her own journal/scrapbook sans her face, and stickers that are not in fact, mini Grin Pins. Someone is more into flowers and glitter. The only thing I kind of care about is the beret, because without her, I have no need for her accessories.

The tape down the center of the room keeps us from throwing hands.
It does not, however, keep the music on one's side of the room.

Isabel's Floral Dreams Pajamas: One of the two extra outfits the Twinsies get is Bed, with the second set being Sport. More on the small number of outfits later. We'll be doing Bed first. Isabel's sleeping snugly in a long sleeved PJ top, matching bottoms, and pink fuzzy bunny slippers for when she has to shuffle to the bathroom. It's very her. Which means it's very not me. She'll be warm, though, and that's important when it gets crisp in Seattle at night. Especially when the sun's out here setting at four p.m. in December. 

Nicki's Skater Dreams Sleeper Shirt: Nicki however, is not wearing such frou-frou nonsense to bed. She instead is wearing a long skater t-shirt night gown and monkey slippers for when she has to shuffle to the bathroom. I might have owned oversized shirts here and there, but I mostly slept in t-shirts and pajama bottoms, if I didn't just wear sweatpants. I don't know that I'd get this set. The top's nice, but I just can't stand monkey slippers, and can't get over them enough to desire the shirt. Plus, I have so many AG PJ sets from the AGoT collection before 2000 Nicki could wear instead that I'd save money by not getting it. Like the Snooze Shirt and AG Bear Slippers I need to get out and photograph, or the Sleeping shirt. 

...after I'm done here I need to add an anticipatory rule to the Wiki. Note to self.

Isabel's Bed and Floral Dreams Bedding Set: The twins share a room--and they split it down the middle to be able to decorate each side the way they want. Or something. I'll update when I have books. I guess the Hoffmans don't have the luxury house the Wakefields do to be able to have separate bedrooms and so their twins have to learn how to share. The "tape down the center of the room" trope never happened to me because of the span of years between me and my sisters, but it's a trope of tape I've seen. Isabel's white bedframe and mattress--pink--is decorated with a floral and pink gingham reversible comforter, matching pillow, and a doll-sized Miss AG Bear. Who didn't come with Grin Pins. Regulations and what not. She's even dressed in the AG Bear Slumber Shirt, though she doesn't have her ear tie. I do buy beds sometimes, but the only part of Isabel's set I like is the Miss AG Bear and I have one of those already as seen in the linked post. Plus mine is cooler. It matches my big ones.¹⁷ 

Isabel's Bedroom Accessories: Isabel continues the pink and/or flower motif on her side of the room with flower string lights, a pink fuzzy arm pillow to prop behind her in bed, a motivational kitty poster to put on the wall if you have one of those in your Ikea shelf room you've made for the Twinsies, her journal--is that actually it or her scrapbook? things are confusing, it looks like a diary with a simulated lock--a miniature copy of the Nov/Dec 1999 issue of American Girl Magazine, and a non-functioning Tamagochi with a lenticular screen to simulate the actual digital screen and remind everyone of that tragic time they left theirs in their backpack all weekend and found their pet dead Monday morning. 

I did not have Tamagochi. I had the rival brand of virtual pet, GigaPets, and mine was based on Salem from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Those of us who carried them into work--and tried not to get caught with them--generally wore them tucked under our work uniform so we could feed them regularly; in my case doing so between surges of running the guess your weight scale at a long-dead theme park that's as torn down and defunct as the Fun Forest that was under the Space Needle is now. 

Again, not my bag of chips; I have a full sized copy of said magazine, the rest of it is more decor than interaction, I just said I was a GigaPets person, and I'm pretty sure I could find a full sized arm pillow for less. I had one for years. They're rather comfy.

Nicki's Bed and Animal Print Bedding Set: On the other side of the dividing tape line is Nicki's decor and she has gone for purple to decorate her matching white framed bed and pinkish looking mattress: a purple leopard print comforter with zebra stripes on the reverse, two matching pillows, and two face pillows: one smiley face and one alien. That's not an emoji, kids, that's the Harvey Ball Have a Nice Day smiley. The nineties did a lot of 70s retro, and we didn't have emoji. Do you know how much texts cost in the 90s?! There were no graphics in messages. It took three pushes to type a C. 7777, 88, 7, we'd type. The closest we had were emoticons over AIM, and you typed them sideways like so  :-) . Unless you were big on Japanese emoticons and then you did them like this ^_^.

Confession time: I had that exact fucking comforter print with matching sheets in college. Leopard print, like sheep, was in. It didn't reverse to black and white zebra print, but I'm sure it reversed to something just as delightfully tacky. I bought it as part of my starting dorm ensemble rather than anything too fluffy and thought it was the tits. And it was indeed--I used them and kept them through multiple roommates until I graduated, then I gave the set to my little sister to use before I moved off to WA State. If I were to get one of the bed sets, it'd be Nicki's. I'd ditch the alien pillow. I was super not into those. I would have swiped the flower pillow or made my own.

Nicki's Bedroom Accessories: Just like Isabel, Nicki's going to decorate her side of the room the way she wants to express herself.  That means an inflatable chair, the alarm clock she's probably going to sleep through, a Grin Pin banner to stick those Grin Pins on, a CD player with two CDs and cases, and a zine--which Nicki has made herself. Before I get reminiscent on main, let me say that Nicki is winning yet again, because I'd get and like most of this set. No I don't have a twin bias, what are you talking about. To the history.

Zines back then were handmade, raw and unique, not a Kickstarter crowdfunded file that you had to apply to be able to add a single piece to, maybe, if you were "professional" enough and then be paid a pittance of a fee if at all, while the organizers sold the zine to make a profit. Unless the printing is canceled because the treasurer spent thousands of dollars on themself--rumoredly, on Genshin Impact gatcha. Shame and scandal in the zine world. Why cause yourself grief like that? No, take it back to the way it was and do that shit by hand. Cut letters and make pictures yourself, do collages with glue, make it fit on a single sheet page you can either cut apart to fold into eight pages or staple together if you're fancy, and either pay for cheap copies at the library or take it in with you to the office when you go to Take Your Daughter To Work Day in April and hope an adult didn't catch you abusing the copy machine. Scanners were expensive and not often in the home.

I have one of those of my own. The Grin Pin Banner, not the zine, though I do do artables. The banner's not hung up yet. I also have several dozen Grin Pins to put on it once I take the time to. I do not and did not have inflatable chairs. I hated the texture of them. The last thing I wanted to do was squirm around on something akin to a pool floatie sticking to my butt while trying to do my Bio 102 assignment when I really wanted to be playing Pokémon Yellow. Oh, trust me, I saw more than a few of them among the various TAMU dorms I went into, but I sure as fuck didn't own one myself. Imagine, one errant fidgeting with one of my newly purchased Sakura gel pens I obtained at the campus bookstore or my nails and I'd find myself slowly sinking to the floor and furthermore, be out of a chair.

Honestly, both girls should have portable CD players but I guess only Nicki gets one so she can play her music solo while Isabel and her friends are trying to dance. Hopefully she has skip protection and the battery power to use it. The headphones, like Courtney's, are over the head-and-ears foamies. Some people might have in-ear ones but they honestly weren't nearly as good in sound quality as some Ol' Foamies. Chances were they were foamy anyways and itched after prolonged use. No, you didn't take it out in class to use. You didn't even take your CD or tape player to school unless you kept it in your locker or backpack all day where it was hidden and secure--because teachers would take them from you even if they weren't actively in use.¹⁸

Yet again, we can't afford to license "Truly Madly Deeply" by Savage Garden, so she's got two generic mixes: "Birthday Mix" and "Summer Mix." Ooo, generic. And faux. Unlike Courtney's tapes and her boombox or Julie's record player--or Rebecca's--the CDs don't actually work with the player, which is a major downer. They go in the case, but no tunes for anyone; that's on something else. Nicki might have had access to a CD burner on the family computer, with a tech mom. CD writers in the nineties were expensive. Not as expensive as they were in 1995 at the low low cost of $995, but they were still around $200-400 separate--and starting to become standard on desktops. People still stuck to tapes more often for a personal mix. Tapes were cheaper, didn't skip, and there was always the risk of the write failing and giving you a decorative coaster instead of a nice mix to give to your crush. Furthermore, you could only burn to a CD-ROM once so if you were tired of listening to Foo Fighters's Learn to Fly or have broken up with your crush, you couldn't overwrite it with Shimmer by Fuel.

Speaking of computers.

Isabel and Nicki's Computer and Desk Set: Home computers have come a long way from Courtney typing in BASIC for five hours on an Apple ][e to make a minor program that lets you figure out if a word adds up to $1 if A = .1 and Z = .26. But they're not in your pocket yet giving you targeted ads. Just pop ups. Isabel and Nicki share the first item in their collection with a desk and chair, the desktop computer, a yin-yang rug to go under the desk, and small doodads and bits and bobs that I'm not finna point out one by one. Alien cup. Highlighter. Phone and base. Photos. Stickers, storage, and more! Go look at the image on the Wiki. Thanks. 

This, children, is a desktop. It has a floppy disc drive for storing things on discs that were actually stiff and stored 1.44kb of data--that was your A: drive; a whopping 4 GB hard disk on C: with 6 if you were fancy; 32 MB of RAM; a 56k modem if you were super fancy; a CD-ROM Drive to pop that AOL disk in and maybe burn one; and a big old chonky heavy monitor. Degauss it regularly, it'll make a satisfying sound.

My first computer was quite like this: a HP comp with a decent 14.4 modem and very little hard drive but enough to start typing my stories and saving them to disc, after typing up a paper I'd go print at school later. I'd stay up late connected to AOL, munching on a couple of snacks from the kitchen with my pet cat Lexi purring in my lap while I looked up various websites using Netscape Navigator or wasted hours away on AIM or ICQ--the latter less often. And because I was a teenager and the only person really using it, the comp was actually in my room, set up on a coffee table. Nighttime was the best time to internet, because people almost never called after ten unless it was an emergency. So I had anywhere from four to eight hours to chatter away and waste time online, often going til at least 2 am on school days and all night on Fridays and Saturdays even if that meant dozing off during the sermons on Sunday mornings. 

Anyways I'm nocturnal now.

The set's shown in their bedroom in promos--including above--but I'm gonna have to see if that's accurate in the books, because I seriously doubt it would have been in a kid's bedroom unmonitored. (Update 5/4/25: nope, it's in the living room.) It would have either been in the living room where everyone can see what you're searching or in a special desk space in an office that was purely to set the computer up on. Leaving it in their room leaves them the opportunity to download Britney Spears' debut album over Napster.¹⁹ They only get thirty minutes a day online anyways, and that download's gonna take a few days at that rate. Psh, thirty minutes won't check my Discord messages before breakfast. Moving on.

The computer box does turn on, a step above the CD player, but it doesn't actually work as a tiny simulation of a computer. AG doesn't do functioning electronics nan more like they did with Lindsey's laptop that's not ready for the 2100 roll over. Boo. The floppies and CDs can be inserted, and there's four translucent screens to put on the screen for display and make it light up. As for sounds, it has some sound clips--the connection noise, a generic sign on and goodbye noises similar but legally distinct from the AOL voice,²⁰ voice clips for Nicki and Isabel, and the music the CD player doesn't play: clips of era-like songs for Isabel including one called Starshine, and clips of era-like songs for Nicki including No Sunshine. Darkness. No Parents! Let Nicki play Freak on a Leash. If we could license it.

The set costs $150 but you might be able to find the old Mini Mac for less than that, and that one might actually work--albeit not in much detail--instead of having slide-on screens. Your choice. 

Isabel and Nicki's Pet Set: Remember the puppy for Hanukkah? It wasn't that long ago, keep up. Well Nicki gets one! To be accurate, she picks one out, while Isabel gets the scrungly bungly kitten. Nicki names her puppy after the Powerpuff Girl while Isabel names her after the slayer who was now in a TV show instead of a movie. And they come as a set, so you get both or you don't get either. They're plush, they're pets, everyone with a name gets pets now even if most are dogs. 

And that's all the Jewish rep the collection has--a mention in a product description. Hope you had a good time without the books! Rude.

Onward to Sport.   

She was a skater girl, she said see you later girl--
wait that's 2002.

Nicki's Skateboarding Outfit: Along with Bed, each girl gets outfit for Sport. I already said that. Try to keep up. Nicki is, of course, the skater, because grunge and skating go together like weed and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. And the outfit's no skirt--it's a tee, overalls she can hang by one strap to be cool like the Fresh Prince, matching skater shoes, and a puffy vest. Plus a decorated board. No protective wear. That's with something else.

I definitely like this outfit. The only part I'm not thrilled about is the vest, because I personally am anti-vest. Sleeves or GTFO. We can swap it for the blue hoodie from the cargo and plaid set over it, and maybe even borrow the pseudo-Vans from it too for new looks. Should I get her--and it's becoming a little more possible than it was at launch--I'll get this set for her. She's twenty years older than Joss, but time shenanigans exist in the Gang. They can both practice kickflips and Nicki can learn sign language and that in the future, the smell from Dad's study he practices guitar in is legal now down the entire West Coast.

Tennis, anyone? I've heard good things about those up and coming Williams Sisters.

Isabel's Tennis Outfit: Isabel is not skating. How very un-pop. No, she's playing tennis, inspired by a pair of black girls from Compton named Serena and Venus.²¹ Steffi who? Her outfit's bright and tennis white: a tennis dress, white bloomer panties, white shoes and socks, and a racket and ball. Unlike Nicki, her set isn't much for casual wear. And like her sweater vest and shirt, the skirt and top are attached to each other. You don't have much that isn't like that, Isabel.  Especially because this is your second outfit. Poor girl doesn't get any casual wear at all other than her meet. What a rip.

And yes, that's it, they only get two additional outfits each. Claudie technically got more outfits, and three of hers were inspired by. Hells, Marie-Grace and Cecile each had three and the set they shared. I hope more clothes come down the docket. We need clothes!

Moving on. 

Isabel and Nicki's Two-in-One Tennis Court and Skate Spot: The big--ish--set for the girls is their respective places to do a sport--a tennis court with net and ball shooter and basket and extra balls and such, and a skatepark that isn't loitering with swoops and dips and another skateboard and stickers all the protective gear that doesn't come with Nicki's outfit. Folk'd started wearing protective gear by then, unlike Julie and Molly. Protect your noggin. Like the pets, the sets come together, but obviously for a lot more than the pets. Which means I'm not bothering with the set. Y'all asking a lot out of my wallet. I'll use the pads and helmet from my in-line skating set. Only if someone bought the tennis side off of me. ETA: But not the court part, because I've been informed that's reversible to the base of Nicki's set. You can do one or the other at a time but not both, it seems.

Read books. Eat Pizza. Repeat What's not to love?

Pizza Hut BOOK IT! Set: It couldn't go on forever. Alas, I am reduced to a stock image. Moving on. 

Should Nicki and Isabel hit their reading goals and fill out their slip--in this case, with a mini version of an AG published book, Super Slumber Parties--they can go to the local Pizza Hut and turn in their reading coupons and pin--well a clip on, we're scared of safety pins now--for their own personal pan pizza with four for you slices. It could be taken home--hence the box--but why would you do that? This was back before Pizza Hut was a pizza-and-counter set up picked up by beleaguered underpaid DoorDash drivers and dropped off at your front door. No, we're gonna sit down. Sip cool refreshing Sprite in a plastic red cup that somehow enhanced the crispness and flavor. Add red flakes or Parmesan cheese or both, live wild. The salad bar was there but you didn't care. Video games were and you did care. You savored every bite, for lo, there was nothing more delicious than book-earned pizza. 

Oh and there's an offset spatula too.

Some of y'all never read books to earn a personal pizza in a dimly lit restaurant and it shows in your very demeanor. I did. I was in Book it for years in elementary and I earned multiple rewards hitting reading goals. The limit in theory was one pizza per visit, but if you went to the right place and the staff was amiable and you weren't rowdy and rude and they knew you, they might look the other way and slide as many pizzas to you as coupons presented, if you paid for drinks or were clearly devouring books enough to earn that many rewards. That's right, I min maxed the Book It program, and earned enough rewards for me and my and my older sister to each have one during one visit on a warm Texas evening in 1988. I know it was 1988 because the promotion for The Land Before Time hand puppets was going on, and I shared some pizza with my baby sister.

I'm gonna get this set. Maybe even soon. And given that the program started in 1984, Courtney can also use this set. Multiuse!

 *~*~*

2000-zero-zero, party over oops out of time.

To conclude this post: Nicki and Isabel Hoffman, as they are presented, should have been a lot better representation than they are and a lot less pandering than they are. They feel--not rushed per se, but like the nostalgia for the turn of the millennium runs the collection harder than it should. I adore the Jewish rep and wish it went harder visibly and in the stories, and I'm sure I'll like the books and be okay with the journals, but can't honestly say I like much else about how they've been marketed. The big part is the lackluster Barely Informed Jewish part of them, but the other big part is that they're not the true center of the Nineties and AG ought--or "aught"--to be more honest about their era instead of skipping most of the decade only to slide in three weeks before the change over with Please Don't Say Starbucks.

The collection also leaves much to be desired. There's more accessories overpowering the collection than outfits, and while that's always been true on a small scale even back during the six-book series, before now there were at least one casual outfit to change into and not just a huge playset and not as many clothes. I don't like it. (Claudie also got messed over this way; more soon, if I can get things together to do it. There's so much research I'll be doing for that post.) Isabel especially. She has nothing casual to walk around in. Look on the Wiki and find her a change of clothes. Nicki too. She's got one that isn't PJs, but that's still more than her own sister. 

1999 wasn't a bad year for me, but the collection doesn't make me think about my teetering on the cusp of adulthood like it will make millennials think about being very kind to their knees now. No more Bussin' challenge. As I said all that time back, my childhood nostalgia is more Courtney. The era's not my bag of childhood feels or even my early teenage years, just the last two of them; they'd be closer to my younger sister, who was living a different life in Houston than is portrayed. I was working on my English degree and slowly seeding a lot of brain issues on top of the ones I already had. 

Will I get even one Hoffman? Should I do so, I'll only get Nicki--I really don't feel Isabel--and she would have a new story, name, and no twin and be much more visibly Jewish like Rebecca is. I'd do my own thing for her stories while still reading the ones that they get. Isabel, I don't really want. And I get the feeling that a non-zero number of people are going to pick one twin over the other and do their own thing rather than do both of them.

Not sorry for being honest. You come here for it.

Whew, I worked my ass off to get this post out. Y'all have no idea the challenges I went through. But I did it!  Peace out, bread boxes. Watch it spin 'round to a beautiful oblivion. Rendezvous, then I'm through with you.

--Neth

¹ Much like Tenney-Sue did to Gabby-Baby but not as egregiously, at least. It's been seven years and I'm still pressed like a panini about that. Gabby's earrings weren't even really hers. Boo this singer! Boo!

² I refer to them as Nicki and Isabel because Nicki was born first. It's easier that way. AG does it in alphabetical name order, with Isabel first. But to save myself typing out both names every single frick frack snick snack time, I'm going to call them the Twinsies when possible. Thank you for coming to the footnotes again. You'll be back.

³ It's a plastic record you don't have to flip over to play the B sides on. Do you know what B Sides are? Do you know why they're called B sides? Do you Know about B movies and B-Side comics? Be warned, it's a TV Tropes link. We at the AG Outsider are not responsible for your lost hours to TV Tropes.

⁴ One of my fave TLC Songs. Most of them are. TLC is my fave group. RIP Left Eye. Nowadays, though, I change the lyrics frequently to adapt to modern standards:

If you don't have a car and you're walking--
Maybe you're into the no car movement, no judgement
If you live at home with your momma
look rent prices are high, we gotta do what we gotta do
If you have a shorty that you don't show love
--wait, you have a whole kid you're ignoring? okay, that's where I'm ending this

⁵ Like Kavi and the MG mold, more on that later.

⁶ Fraternal like the Olsen twins, I hear a lot about from others who are upwards of a decade or more younger than me, but I do not think of them that way. The Olsen twins came onto my radar as toddlers and then preschoolers on Full House, not direct to video movies. I'm closer to Stephanie's age. The Olsen twins are more my little sister's bag, and they were not her bag. We did share a love of the Spice Girls, though. Me and my sister, not me and the Olsen twins. I have no idea what was in their CD player.

⁷ At some point I need to trace mine, make a pattern, and make a new version that isn't peeling. And also blog about it. I'm so fucking backlogged.

⁸ Say hi to Michi! Also while you're down here, if you could inform me if the Year 2000 outfit had a kid-sized outfit, that would be choice. I don't think it did, but I wasn't getting catalogs in 1999, I was getting student loans and grants and biology tests and depression without knowing it yet.

⁹ Were you writing a comment about how the millennium ack-shull-lee started in 2001 because there's no year zero so 2000 was part of the prior one? Delete it ahead of time and save yourself the keystrokes, cause I don't fucking care. I didn't give a shit about Year Zero then while watching the year flip over between semesters freshman year, and I don't give a shit now. The millennium culturally started for me on January 1, 2000 when the aughties did. Please bitch elsewhere.

¹⁰ I have her now. She and many others are owed a debut. She's going to be dual times here and go moddie goth sometimes.

¹¹  Not that they did at the time. Never mind my personal story on how my philosophy teacher wouldn't let us watch the breaking news because "it's not important right now, we're studying Victorian morals." In the aftermath of the then largest school shooting--but not the only one before then or since, insert lamentations here--almost nothing was done to prevent such horrific school shootings happening again. What came out after Columbine to "address" the horrors of that day was a fear of long leather coats and weirdly dressed goth kids, the rock music, DOOM, and a loose definition of 'bullying', because that was the story pushed by the media at first about why it happened. Oh and how if someone asks you if you believe in Jesus to say yes, because even if they kill you you'll go to heaven and you'll have died for the Lord. Oh, and in some places the forced implementation of school uniforms and clear or mesh backpacks. Because that was the problem. Backpacks. Basically, everything but what were the later facts--that the murderers were the bullies, not the bullied, and that they were into white supremacy. If AG were to address it--which I feel like they aren't going to--they would probably be more of a "what a sad aberration, well it won't happen again if children wear uniforms and have see through backpacks and no long coats and regulate the music and blame the parents. Anyways!"

¹²  Were you writing a comment to say it should be called the Y2K era? Go ahead and delete again. We called them the Aughts for a long time. Y2K Era eventually took over the same way "Millennials" did instead of "Gen Y", but at the time we also called them the Aughts or Aughties. Hence the Great Bannination of Aught-Six. Really, no one settled on a name for that time period for a long time. It only started coming around as the more popular term for that era of the very late 1990s into the early 2000s around the Twenty-Teens. But folk who were old enough to have solid memories of 9/11 beyond "aw, no cartoons?" and "I don't really remember why but all the grownups were upset" didn't call it the Y2K era at the time. We called it the turn of the millennium. I'm old and still don't like calling it the Y2K era. Yep, I'm just not letting no one write nothing today. 

¹³ Lindsey was 10 in 2001. She's their contemporary. 

¹⁴ If you can think of a better way, I'd like to hear it!

¹⁵ Darlin cause you can't stop your love--that's the kinda girl I am, that's the kinda girl I am! 

...Yes, those are not in fact the accurate lyrics to "Hat 2 Da Back". In the nineties we had to guess at the lyrics, they didn't always come in the case, even if it was a CD. Relax yourself girl, peace at the pond. 

¹⁶ I made myself a yin yang choker with hemp cord, which was the style of the time, and wore it to school. An associate of a friend saw me wearing it and said I ought to take it off, because yin yang symbols were Satanic and evil. So were peace signs because they were upside down broken crosses that rejected Christ. Ah, growing up in Texas.

¹⁷ Yes, multiple. Through well priced sales, friends, and auctions, I have all the Miss AG Bear outfits and four bears to put the sets on. Future--hopefully--reviews. I've already done one.  

¹⁸ Nor did you bring pagers. When I was in high school teachers took those too, and said we only needed to be contacted that urgently if we were prostitutes, drug dealers, or doctors, and none of us were doctors.

¹⁹ I recently listened to You're Wrong About Napster; the podcast You're Wrong About is quickly becoming one of my most listened to. The linked ep tells you about the rise and fall of Napster, and how it in its own way led to me streaming a 90s playlist while I write this. A real one. Not one with any songs released last summer by Meghan Taylor or something equally shite and unresearched. 

²⁰ It was a person who recorded those AOL sounds, not a computer voice. Specifically, Elwood Edwards.

²¹ They went pro in in the mid-90s. So accurate!