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Honestly it makes sense even without the stated reasoning. There was no reason for Toys R Us to go out of business in and now there’s a gaping hole in the market they used to fill.
Toys R Us didn’t fail, it was bought by venture capital and ripped to pieces. Left to its own devices it would’ve remained to this day.
Likely they would’ve made a shift towards selling more products to adults over time anyway because that is a growing market, but they never should’ve closed in the first place.
Toy sales among adult-only households have now outpaced households with children for toy sales
This is the damning part and it’s because the economy is fucked not because Millenials never grew up. Households with children can’t afford shit, the only people who can afford to spend money on toys are couples who both have jobs and don’t have kids.
I have more legos as an adult than I ever did as a child, because my spouse and I both have decent paying jobs and we don’t have to pay for child care. My dad made decent money when I was growing up, and that was before childcare costs skyrocketed along with everything else.
Childless households have become more common (people can’t afford to have kids), and households with children can’t afford to buy toys.
Millennials were never allowed to grow up because it helps consumerism. It's even weirder for Gen Z because your childhood is just you talking with adult children online all the time. Gen Alpha is just a stasis pod. The same 3 social media sites their whole life. The same games, the same movie/tv franchises. Nothing changes, time doesn't pass.
Truke. While I’m a zoomer, I legit feel like I have been banned from adulthood. No jobs, we decided housing is for rich people gambling and not…well, housing.
Is anyone else having a love-hate relationship with what they grew up with? Let’s take Dragon Ball. Goku’s one of my favorite fictional characters…but I just can’t live vicariously through a cartoon.
Yeah I was thinking about it today, the boomer fantasy is like being a spy or a viking warrior while the millennial fantasy is owning a home or being financially independent.
I think also millennials didn't really "grow up" because there's nothing really happy about growing up anymore. Why give up on the things that make you happy when there's not a whole lot else to replace it other than drugs and alcohol.
Millennials were never allowed to grow up because it helps consumerism.
What does "growing up" mean here? The vast majority of millenials are working full time, many millenials are getting married and/or having kids (at lower rates), apparently a majority of millenials now own their own homes. If we're just talking about the phenomenon of the disney adult, then sure, but I'd hesitate to say that's more than 10% of the population. Is it because millenials have "childish" hobbies like lego and video games rather than something more "adult" like miniature railways or watching sports?
I mean it was always adults buying the toys. 
Kids dont have money
We need that kids face as an emoji, but I dont know for what. Smug?
:check-fraud:
Is this the one with the entrapment pedophile kiss?
This was the 90's you're gonna have to be more specific.
Toy sales among adult-only households have now outpaced households with children for toy sales
It's not adults with kids that are driving the spending.
Toy sales among adult-only households have now outpaced households with children for toy sales
That's pretty damn funny.
This place will be 25% Funko and 25% Lego
Unsurprising. Kids are expensive as fuck.
Once more capitalism provides the most efficient allocation of resources. Those pesky kids were simply playing unproductively with the toys.
There will also be pokemon cards for the scalpers
Abolish "adulthood", let there not be any cap to the age that people can enjoy things.
Allow adults to trick-or-treat in a way that folds the performance into something like a drag show or an open mic.
How much fucking space do people have?
none here. literally every time we go to a store and my partner or i want to get something we have to ask ourselves, "where would we put this?" and then we don't buy it 99% of the time.
I remember working with a guy who did overnight stocking at one of these stores. They'd lock the doors so you couldn't leave on your shift. Capitalism is so magical.
Even the fire doors?
Wouldn't doubt it. Walmart got in trouble for exactly b that a few years ago.
Don't know, this was years ago.
I mean on the one hand fuck every Pokemon card scalper and shit like that
On the other I kind of feel like these hobbies are just replacing other ones (like binge drinking) so it's not so much arrested development as it is a cultural shift
But on the third collecting - when the collecting is primarily expressed through purchasing - is clearly the result of capitalism and advertisements blasting our collective brains to mush. modern corporations have intentionally cultivated obsession in their consumer base's minds. funkos are the purest form of this - something with zero aesthetic value besides the feeling it gives you when you purchase it
This is the take I have too. I don’t think this is a matter of arrested development or “not growing up”; I’m suspicious of the prejudice behind such statements.
Collecting vs playing with toys is the difference between exchange-value and use-value. You can infinitely accumulate exchange value in the form of toys, but use-value drops off after a small number of toys. You only need one or maybe a few toys in order to play. All that has changed is the social acceptance of collecting and the mainstreaming of that hobby. I would guess in proportion as adults are unable to make “real purchases” (in scare quotes) on housing and such, because those are too expensive.
Adults have long been toy collectors. Before we had funko pops, Boomers were buying Barbies and other dolls.
Literally nothing is for kids anymore, it really sucks. The toy stores and video games and comic books are for adults with arrested development. Fucking McDonalds has gone "mature" to make the real estate easier to flip. They can't even leave the house and play in the neighborhood. All they get is YouTube unboxing videos.
In this economy?
Most of them aren't actually grown-up collectors, they're scalpers betting on the existence of grown-up collectors.
So is this gambling or a scam?
The scalpers think it's a scam, but it's actually gambling
Capitalism is so breathtakingly innovative, wow.
ah, so another scheme
I literally just stole a Cowboy Bebop cardigan from a closing Toys R Us here in Canada. There's no way in hell this isn't some kind of Morbius-style miscalculation.
Wait. I thought Toys R Us was dead ? Is it back ?
you defeated the first phase of the boss fight and he comes back with a second health bar
yeah, according to natopedia they closed all of their stores in the u.s. back in 2018 and restructured under a new parent company that partnered with macy's.
In September 2017, Toys "R" Us filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. and Canada.[2] In June 2018, Toys "R" Us closed its remaining 200 stores after entering bankruptcy, but certain international divisions outside the United States continued.[3]
In January 2019, the global (excluding Canada) Toys "R" Us intellectual property was transferred to Tru Kids, Inc. In August 2021, Tru Kids announced that Toys "R" Us would be opening over 400 stores within Macy's starting in 2022.[4] A few new standalone stores would open, starting late in 2021. The flagship store is located in New Jersey at the American Dream shopping and entertainment complex.[5][6][7] A second flagship store was opened inside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, in November 2023.[8]
toys were us
Like Spirit Halloween, yeah
they're going to cannibalize empty bed bath & beyond storefronts for 2 months a year too?
:yea:
It was, looks like it's back now 🙃
We "Я" so back
Let me have a little gate keeping as a treat:
You aren’t a collector if you’re just buying stuff as it comes out. A true collector wants all the figures so they can pose them all together. A true collector seeks nostalgia or novelty. These “toy collectors” are just desperate, alienated people gambling on plastic and cardboard.
It's all so grim. Seeing actual kids get crowded out of lego by adults over the years and now this happening has me reaching for the apology form for the 'millenials are cringe' poster.
Treats R Us