Wii will be watching you

Our family plunked down for Wii Fit last Christmas and, surprisingly, unlike many people who buy Nintendo’s home fitness game device and then stick it under their coffee table to be buried under pirated DVDs, we’re still using it.

In fact, Wii Fit doesn’t like it if we don’t work out regularly. It actually tells us so.

Not in any harsh words, mind you. Wii doesn’t bark out orders. It just gently chides users whenever they skip a few days of exercising. “Too busy to work out yesterday, eh, Scott?” it will tell me one morning in a screen message. That might seem cute the first couple times you see it, but the chiding tone gets old, fast. In fact, we’re starting to think the Wii Fit is getting a wee bit too interested in our health, if you know what I mean.

How so? Well, it starts with gentle little reminders like the above. Then, one day, while doing my usual weight and body test before exercising, I was surprised to see the following message casually pop up: “I haven’t seen Jenny (my sister-in-law) in a while…” Well, that’s conversational, I thought. Then: “How does she look to you? Thinner? Heavier?” The Wii presented a list of options. To be safe, I chose “The same.” The Wii responded: “Oh. Change is always so much more exciting, don’t you think?” Then another message appeared on the screen: “People tend to be encouraged when you notice changes in their appearance and tell them. Perhaps you should pay closer attention to Jenny.”

Oooh-kay, I thought. I actually felt myself backing away from the TV set a little bit. This is starting to freak me out…

“On a side note,” the Wii continued, “did you know that eye contact is very important in establishing an owner-dog relationship?”

Wow, either this Wii is just full of fun facts, or it has a bipolar disorder, I considered. Images of HAL the supercomputer in 2001 and ‘70s movies like Westworld (Yul Brynner as a homicidal robot) and Demon Seed (in which Julie Christie gets impregnated by an obsessive home computer) started to dance in my head. The Wii Fit is checking up on us… There is no question about it…

Odd, yes. But I decided to let if go, and continue with my workout. And the checkups continued, with the tone of the messages growing a little more prodding, almost snide and petulant at times. It started asking about the sleeping habits of another sister-in-law, Marie, and I started to wonder if Wii had somehow surreptitiously installed video cams in our bedrooms.

Now, the Wii Fit already has a few detractors. Some reports claim it doesn’t actually help people lose weight. But those doing the complaining are generally slothful Americans, and this is no doubt because they bought the system and stuck it, unused, under the coffee table in front of the TV. Or if they did use it, perhaps they were turned off by the snarky little reminders about their non-exercising ways. But you can’t blame Nintendo or Wii for that. People buy Absculptors, Thighmasters and every imaginable home exercise device, and nobody blames those companies for not producing results if people don’t use them.

But the Wii Fit has got a slightly more Asian, results-driven, shaming approach to physical fitness that doesn’t sit well, it seems, with Americans. Another report had parents criticizing Wii Fit for labeling their kids “fat” or simply “overweight.” Well, the truth does hurt.

Another time, I stepped off the Wii Board (a kind of electronic step device that records your footwork while exercising) in the middle of a boxing routine. I jumped off the board to get a refill of water, and I clearly heard the instructor rudely shouting “Hey!” from the TV screen at me. Really, if a human instructor did that, I’d have to fire him.

You see, people have reached a point where they need to be forced to exercise. It’s another instance where robots are creeping into our daily lives via technology. The Nintendo Wii is quite clever, because it actually makes working out seem like fun. There are kawaii (cute) touches, like the personal avatars you design in your image (your personal “Mii”) that perform the exercises onscreen. The Wii even calculates your “Fitness Age” based on your ability to perform certain balance tests. (People are usually scandalized or permanently discouraged when they first calculate their Wii Fitness Age. Mine was, er, 58. But it’s down to 34 now, on a good day.)

Not so cute, though, are the little remarks that arise, unbidden, from the Wii screen. The queries can be a bit unnerving. (In fact, maybe I shouldn’t even be writing this… the Wii might be monitoring my messages… Oh, well…) The comments seem aimed at sussing out who’s been staying out late, snacking after midnight, not getting enough rest. Then it likes to gossip to you, reporting on other people’s slipshod behavior. It’s like having Perez Hilton as your fitness instructor.

Still, I decided to plow on, no matter how pissy the Wii Fit got about reminding us to become more fit. Hey, it’s my program, my body, my results. I’m not going to be bullied by a computer.

So here’s the message I got yesterday morning: “Remember the reason you gave for gaining weight recently, Scott? ‘Eating too much’? Well, let’s make sure this doesn’t become a recurring excuse…. I mean, reason…”

“What the f—?” I found myself mouthing, between chomps on a Fig Newton. “Sarcasm, now? Really?” (I’m not the only one who noticed this change in our Wii. My wife says it has an “odd sense of humor.” She notices that it sometimes plays practical jokes, displaying a fake fitness age, then revealing the true age. What’s up with that?)

Since then, I’ve started to contemplate the possibility of unplugging the little bastard, if things keep up. But I’m careful not to discuss any such actions while in the same room as the Wii — not even in a whisper. After all, the thing just might know how to read lips.