Okay, this is highly embarrassing.
Grown adults — people 18 and older — have officially overtaken preschoolers as the largest consumers of toys.
TOYS!!!
Adults are now considered "the most important age group for the toy industry."
Bro, those might be the most embarrassing words I've ever written on this website.
For the first time ever, toy demand from preschoolers was surpassed by demand from toy enthusiasts over the age of 18, with the latter accounting for $1.5 billion in sales from January to April, according to data from Circana …
Circana, which tracks consumer trends, described 18 and over "as the most important age group for the toy industry," pointing to a recent survey showing that 43% of adults purchased a toy for themselves during the past year.
43% of ADULTS have purchased a toy for themselves over the past year!
Does anyone find this as strange as I do?
Look, I get it, some of these are like action figures and stuff. But that doesn't mean you're off the hook, nerd. It's still a toy.
But this next part right here, this is just unacceptable.
‘Lego has someone on staff whose job is outreach to "AFOLs" [or adult fans of Lego], who are buying $200 sets,' explained James Zahn, editor of Toy Insider.
Ineeed, Lego sells sets for adults that are far pricier, including a Titanic set that sells for $679.99 and a Star Wars Millennium Falcon priced at $849.99.
In another key trend, grown-ups are buying collectible plush toys reminiscent of the Beanie Babies and Cabbage Patch Dolls that sparked frenzies in the 1980s and 1990s.
Eight-inch Squishmallows, collectibles that look like Humpty Dumpty with various faces including cats, pandas, clowns and bananas, were the top-selling toy in the first quarter, thanks in large part to adult collectors, according to Zahn.
"Kidults."
I mean, that's a fair way to describe them.
And it's a nice way to separate us non-toy-buying adults from the toy-buying ones.
In fact, my algorithm recently punished me by revealing THIS GUY who has thousands and thousands of toys, collectibles, DVDs, and "[crap] he doesn't need" and is now selling them off because he's tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
I mean, at least he now realized he doesn't need all the crap he's collected, but now he's trying to get internet famous for selling off his pile of junk.
Anyhow, I gotta get to Walmart real quick, I heard they have the new Hello Kitty Squishmallow and I simply cannot sleep without 37 of those things in my bed.
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