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   HebrideanHecate (hebrideanhecate@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 09-Feb-2025 21:40:53 JST HebrideanHecate

   Ridiculous, and then they complain they have no money. Grow up.

   https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g34x51en8o

   Amanda Hope dreads to think how much she has spent on her collection of Jellycat soft toys but reckons it's more than £3,000.

   "They are just so cute and cuddly," the 36-year-old software specialist from Surrey says. "There is something so irresistible about their happy little faces!" Amanda is one of a rising number of adults buying toys for themselves. And it's not just Jellycats, it's also the likes of Lego plastic bricks and Sonny Angels dolls filling up TikTok feeds as people post videos of their latest purchases. These toys don't necessarily come cheap though. Jellycats range in price from £11 to over £700, while Lego gift sets for adults can cost as much as £730.

   As well as just selling the toys, Jellycats has started putting on pop-up "experiences". Currently at London's Selfridges you can buy exclusive fish and chips soft toys, sold to you by an assistant pretending to fry and put salt and vinegar on your selected teddies. Amanda visited the pop-up twice, once for herself and once to get a present for a friend. Videos of such experiences have millions of views online, with fans essentially advertising to each other - the same applies to the Sonny Angel unboxing

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     Flick ?? (flick@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 09-Feb-2025 21:40:52 JST Flick ??

     in reply to
     @HebrideanHecate

     As well as just selling the toys, Jellycats has started putting on pop-up "experiences". Currently at London's Selfridges you can buy exclusive fish and chips soft toys, sold to you by an assistant pretending to fry and put salt and vinegar on your selected teddies.

   • Embed this notice
     HebrideanHecate (hebrideanhecate@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 09-Feb-2025 21:40:52 JST HebrideanHecate

     in reply to

     • Flick ??

     @Flick I know, don't tell me this is normal behaviour or desirable either, not with grown ass adults.

     KeepTakingTheSoma likes this.
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     KeepTakingTheSoma (keeptakingthesoma@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 09-Feb-2025 21:50:07 JST KeepTakingTheSoma

     in reply to

     • Flick ??
     @HebrideanHecate @Flick I'm all for people following their hobbies and pursuits. What's interesting is the number of adults who seem to be stuck in a form of childhood. I think we saw this with Disney when it started to abandon its core group of families with young children and started to appeal more to young adults who grew up with Disney and never left childhood. In teaching I met no end of young teachers who knew no songs unless they came from Disney films, who knew no folk tales except the Disney version.
     I think it's a manifestation of a fear of the adult world. It's why we have this culture of safetyism and emotional harm; we're having to pander to people who can't/won't take responsibility for decisions (like adults have to do) because they fear getting it wrong.
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     Flick ?? (flick@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 09-Feb-2025 21:54:56 JST Flick ??

     in reply to

     • KeepTakingTheSoma

     @KeepTakingTheSoma @HebrideanHecate Hobbies are great, but can buying stuffed toys really be described as a hobby?

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     KeepTakingTheSoma (keeptakingthesoma@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 09-Feb-2025 21:56:29 JST KeepTakingTheSoma

     in reply to

     • Flick ??
     @Flick @HebrideanHecate Some people collect stuff as a hobby. I'd rather make things or do things as a hobby, but each to their own.
     What we all have to be aware of is when a hobby becomes an obsession.
   • Embed this notice
     HebrideanHecate (hebrideanhecate@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 09-Feb-2025 22:00:57 JST HebrideanHecate

     in reply to

     • Flick ??
     • KeepTakingTheSoma

     @KeepTakingTheSoma @Flick Yes, this, infantilising and wilfully so, see also the trans bull etc, this permanent childhood/adolescence and retarded development in general.

     No harm in liking something from childhood, a fondness for really nicely illustrated kids books or childhood favourite films or whatever, but there is a definite refusal to grow up around for so long now. Seeing it in the refusal to work or accept what work means and what it means to adult.

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     KeepTakingTheSoma (keeptakingthesoma@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 09-Feb-2025 22:19:38 JST KeepTakingTheSoma

     in reply to

     • Flick ??
     @HebrideanHecate @Flick Indeed.
     One thing I noticed more and more when I went into teaching was how resilience started to go out of the window. Children would cry at the thought of having to learn something new because they only wanted to do things they could already do and feel good about themselves. Parents would demand perfect scores in every test rather than see improvement over time. Adults in the school would value the constant success of *prizes for all* rather than reward effort to overcome obstacles. Learning is hard, but it's essential to becoming an adult. It means failing and getting up again. It means small steps rather than instant wins.
     Small wonder we have an infantilised population who cling to the comfort of childhood idylls.
     We see it in the *most marginalised* arguments, in the *government must keep us safe* covidians, in the hate speech laws. We have people crying out to be controlled and nannied. These people have always been there, but we're making more of them and calling it a virtue. And for every person demanding to be treated as fragile and needing help to exist, there will be a bad actor who would love subjects to control.
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     KeepTakingTheSoma (keeptakingthesoma@spinster.xyz)'s status on Monday, 10-Feb-2025 01:07:58 JST KeepTakingTheSoma

     in reply to

     • Flick ??
     • sim
     @sim @HebrideanHecate @Flick That's a good point. We can't underestimate the power of propaganda and advertising. We also can't underestimate the number of people that are in thrall to it. I like to think I can't be swayed by adverts or propaganda, but perhaps I might not recognise it if it works on me. Eternal vigilance.
     I do object to paying for government propaganda. The lockdown years were appalling.
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     HebrideanHecate (hebrideanhecate@spinster.xyz)'s status on Monday, 10-Feb-2025 01:07:59 JST HebrideanHecate

     in reply to

     • Flick ??
     • KeepTakingTheSoma

     @KeepTakingTheSoma @Flick I saw something a while back re this woman complaining that her daughter was always moaning about money and how could she ever buy a house or pay a rent but she was spending thousands of pounds on expensive clothing that she was getting hand made by someone on etsy, and some of it was costume derived, not just everyday clothing. She had tried remonstrating with her, this was a young woman of 25, but she would not listen, it was strops of are you trying to spoil my fun.

     Fuck sake, at 25 I had a child and was working and have never been in a position to splurge like that on just nonsense that I didn't need.

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     sim@shitposter.world's status on Monday, 10-Feb-2025 01:07:59 JST sim

     in reply to

     • Flick ??
     • KeepTakingTheSoma
     @HebrideanHecate @Flick @KeepTakingTheSoma You aren't allowed to save your money up to buy a house now. The state requires that you go out and buy things to prop up the economy and we wonder why this happens. Not to mention that advertising has gotten a lot better now, it targets our addictions and feel-good hormones. A lot of people have grown up being exposed to this.
     
     On the one hand, I want to hold people responsible but on the other hand the incentives have changed now. The advertising is a lot better and our brains are more wired to that. We're a lot more disconnected from the community which would have given us purpose, support and that sense of moving into adulthood. We're more disillusioned. Technology has changed life so much, the job market has gotten harder to get into that it's just not the same world as each generation comes along.
     KeepTakingTheSoma likes this.