Kill Me Now

The third episode of Gilmore Girls doesn't look like it contains a whole lot of technology at first. The most heavily featured technologies during Rory and Richard's trip to the golf course are a metal pole with a weighted end, and a wooden room with some steam in it (a golf club and a sauna).

However we get to see an absolutely seminal device when Rory makes a visit to Luke's diner. Soon after Luke makes the comment "golf courses are an environmental blight because of the chemicals they use to keep the grass green" (as always, ahead of his time), Rory leans back and brandishes the timepiece that defined a generation:

The Baby G

The baby G watch is often mentioned in nostalgia-pieces about late 90s/early 2000s fashion. This is the first device we see in Gilmore Girls that hints at the world-changing innovations Japanese companies wrought in the late 20th century. G-Shock watches are a Casio product, and were the brainchild of a designer called Kikuo Ibe. Short for gravity-shock, the G-Shock watch was designed to be as indestructible as possible. It was originally built for blue-collar workers, firemen, and police. People who needed a watch that could withstand rugged conditions. This gave the G-Shock it's quartz display and distinctive bull bars.

In the 90s, Casio decided to participate in the time-honoured tradition of creating a line of products that was both lower quality and more expensive, and branding it as a "women's" range. Thus the baby G was born. I'm unsure around the choice of the word "baby". Was this watch originally designed for children? Or is it "baby" as a reference to a romantic interest, the way you might use the word in an old love song? You can still see the baby G range in store on the Wayback machine The skateboard-laden youth-culture branding makes it appear like they had pivoted towards targeting the range at teenagers.

Looking at this snapshot of the Baby G store from 2000, we see that the Baby G range was split into different sub-ranges. There was the G-lide, with models designed for snowboarding, surfboarding and skateboarding: "You can’t just wear any watch. You need one that can go where you go and have as much grit. G-LIDE takes to the street". You can taste the desparation to attract the youth market. There was also the Tough Label - a watch that could play music and was described as "an aggressive expression of you." I couldn't find more information on what music the tough Label could play, but with the lack of power on these devices, and mp3s only just starting to gain popularity, I can't imagine spectacular results. Perhaps you'd be able to have a single song on the watch?

The Baby G Rory Gilmore wears in "kill me now" is from the G-File range. It gets a lukewarm description on the website: "You’re not always doing something extreme. Get a Baby-G that just looks nice." This is not a watch for an extreme sportswoman. This is a watch for the princess and heir-apparent of Stars Hollow. The model looks like the G-file BG380 - Sky Blue. It has a fabric strap, bull bars, and a screen split into two sections by a white separating line. The larger section of the screen would show the time. What was the smaller section for?

Well to store and read up to 20 pages of telememo for your phone numbers of course! That's right, the killer feature of the G-File was that you could store number-name mappings for your contacts. With a maximum storage of 20 * (16+16) characters, the watch wouldn't be able to store 3 full-length tweets.

Although telememos no longer seem to be such a game changer, Baby Gs are still being made today, and have had a revival as there has been a renaissance in y2k fashion. Indeed, Dean's middle-parted hairstyle would hardly look out out-of-place worn by gen Zs who were born around the time of this episode airing. Baby Gs continue to exist as a way to call back to the early naughties.

The pastel-blue Baby G Rory wears may be branded for women and described as a "less extreme" version of the G-shock family, but it is still designed to be robust. Rory, presented as innocent and booksmart at the start of the series will prove herself to be resilient and adaptable as time goes on. The G-file is the watch for Rory because both it and her contain a hidden strength.