LoL. These things are overpriced junk anyway.
(www.ibtimes.com)
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A couple of years ago I watched a few people on Youtube. They were "collectors" of these abominations. They would buy collections for tens of thousands of dollars. They had whole walls and sometimes rooms full of them. There are protector cases for them that cost more than some of the cheaper Funko pops. Some pops went for hundreds of dollars. I've never seen so many soy faces in thumbnails before, or ever again.
It was fascinating ... like watching a horrible, horrible accident.
I know a guy who runs a toy store. He hates these ugly, low-effort things as much as anyone, and yet he dedicates a quarter of his store to them because they sell so well to yuppie dipshits in their mid to late 20's.
Yea, aside from the collectors there's also a bunch of scalpers and resellers of funko pops on Youtube. One man's collectible is another man's investment.
Well scat play is an unfortunate thing.
Funky pops represent a problem with venture capitalism. A bland toy that's sole purpose is to sell whatever IP paid them. The sales and analytics for the brand only exist because venture capitalism made it possible to flood the market with millions of dollars of this junk.
I expect it'll end like beanie babies when the investment money dries up.
But what are 'beanie babies'? They look like just regular stuffed animals. rofl
Same thing as Funko Pops: cheap collectible toys some company churned out en masse to fuel a collectors' market driven by hype. People unironically considered them to be investments. Eventually the hype died down and the market collapsed.
I just enjoyed them because I was a small child and it was a shared cultural experience at the time. I remember my cub scout troop went to some museum overnight trip and we all got Nanook and made a time of it having them all dance to the tune of Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees. Shit was great.
People who put hundreds of dollars into that stuff though? Absolute lunatics.
I think it's because creating a toy collection from things readily available for £10 a pop is an achievable goal for an idiot. Putting years of effort into mastering a worthwhile skill is not.
I'll add that building a collection of things that are worth collecting takes time and money as well. Unless you're someone like Bill gates, you're not going to get a collection of historic firearms overnight, for example.
I grabbed two or so in like, the early runs because they were cheap little knicknacks, and I fucking love knicknacks. And early on they also put considerable amount more effort and detail in, just look at the D.Va one for example which has the entire mech built like a real figurine with just a tiny Funko D.Va inside. Which shows they were capable of making real things of value.
But over time they went the Beanie Baby route. Lower quality, mass production but higher price because now its for "collecting" instead of a cheap pickup of your favorite whatever.
They're not organically popular. They were made that way through sheer marketing capital. Here's how it works:
And that's it. Eventually the fad dies out. Stupid of them not to see it coming and diversify.