Bob Friedland’s house in Little Falls, Nj, is filled with lego. Lego flowers adorn the table of his dining room. A reading reproduction of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” depends on his office. He has 10 Skylines of Lego City scattered throughout his settlement. On Halloween, he hangs the lights on his “Nightmare Before Christmas” reading and displaying it in the breast window on the front of his home.
“I had to move from my Condo and in a house to find a place to set everyone,” Friedland, 50, told The Post.
Friedland has worked in the toy industry as a trader for decades, but he just starts playing with Lego in 2020.
Like many adults stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic that spring, Friedland found himself alone and restless. He remembered how to play with the blocks of torrential plastic construction had brought them joy as a child. So he bought a 1,000 -piece “Voltron” interpretation based on the 1980s cartoon. And then bought another, and another. He has completed at least 50 groups since then, re-controlling everything from a bonsai plant in the Jerry apartment group in “Seinfeld”.
“They’re a stress soothing,” Friedland said. “They don’t break. You can put them on a shelf and watch them and they give you fun, good memories.”
Friedland is not the only adult that hugs their inner child. What began as a pandemic past has exploded in a phenomenon, with companies such as MGA Entertainment, Hasbro and reading pumped products targeted for the so -called “Kidults”: fake miniature food, Formula 1 figures of limited publication and intriguing groups.
Even schools training the next generation of toy creators such as the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles have included “Kidult” products in their subjects.
“Revolution is revolutionized the world of toys,” said Jessica Kavanough, Vice -President of Jakks Pacific, who produces toy products licensed for brand -centered giants such as Sonic, Nintendo and Disney.
Adults now make up 28% of all global toy sales, according to the analytical firm about 2.5% since 2022. In 2024, adults bought more toys than any other group, including preschools.
In the 12 months of ending June 2024, US adults made up more than $ 7 billion in toy purchase. And while European children’s toy sales had fallen by $ 217 million between 2019 and 2022, they would increase by about $ 1.1 billion for adults, with a 2023 district report.
The trend is also accelerating in Mexico, Brazil and South Africa. And the Imarc Market Research Group expects the Chinese Kidult market to grow 9.3% per year by 2032.
Michelle Steinberg, owner of the public relations firm The Challenge, List Model Kits, clay sculpture, commercial cards, painting and collection, figurines and LEGO collections as the most popular categories for “Kidults”.
“It is about nostalgia, it is about self-expression and has to do with the social bond,” said Steinberg, whose firm represents toy manufacturers.
Social media has fueled rage.
“She has made it a cool kidney,” said 25-year-old Sydney McKenna, a micro-esteem centered in Kansas City who posts about Instagram and Tiktok’s action figures at @sydneymcardoso.
McKenna said she did not have many adult friends, and that she and her father were associated with their love for transformers. She joined social media about an act of year to show their collection of thousands of figures. Now she has more than 28,000 followers in Tiktok and 23,000 followers on Instagram, and launched a Youtube account in January.
“I did a tiktok post, thinking nothing about her, and then she spent viral overnight,” said McKenna, who is married and manages a bridal shop. “People in the comments were like, ‘that’s so interesting. I’ve never seen anything bigger before. You guys gather everything!’ I really didn’t realize how big the toy community was, or the Kidult community or nostalgia. “
In Jakks, Kavanough was a witness to this rage first. While the toy market usually sees no big sales until the Q4 holiday season, last year it noticed an increase every time a new product landed on the shelves. Kavanough recalled the beginning of a line of figurines “The Simpsons” last July as a turning point.
“This is when I noticed that Kidult’s client is actually running our business,” she said. “I saw more sales in July than I would see before, and it was because of these adults like my husband who have always been fans of ‘The Simpsons’ seeing them on social media and being like, ‘I need it now!'”
“Like children’s best books, children’s toys – the best of them – have something to offer for adults,” said Roy Schwartz, a historic pop culture and author of “is the circumcised superman? The full Jewish history of the greatest hero in the world.”
Adults have long gathered and loved for children, Schwartz said: train groups, troll dolls, Beanie Bebe. Sometimes these “toys” were investments (like Princess Diana Beanie 1997, which can now go for hundreds of thousands of dollars on eBay).
But often they were something that brought pleasure or comfort. For example, Schwartz mentioned that many Vietnam veterans gathered old dolls with 12 -inch Gi Joe from the 1960s. “This was more to connect with their army days than to play,” he said.
Toys also offer an outlet for adult creativity.
Stetheimer doll house – currently in appearance at the New York City Museum (MCNY) – is an important example. Carrie Stetheimer was a theatrical aspiring stylist who hosted a fashionable art salon in Manhattan with her two sisters. It passed nearly two decades, from 1916 and 1935, creating a miniature version of the residence of the eccentric family, displaying works of art from artists like Marcel Duchamp.
“She made it so much herself, in terms of stencillation and painting on walls, needles, small mahjong tiles in the library,” said Lilly Tuttle, curator in MCNY.
“It was like a colossal craft project, for many decades, and it has the kind of meditating quality of things how it will read.”
The Lego group began in 1932 as a small manufacturer of wooden toys. In 1958, she introduced the brick of the law we know today, a series of interconnecting in various shapes and sizes that allow endless construction opportunities. However, early on adults, such as architects or design heads, who used their children’s blocks to create the worlds of their dreams.
In 1999, Lego began producing ambitious groups to judge these elderly fans, starting with an X-Wing fighter “Star Wars”, and launched Lego Architecture in 2008 with a chicagos Sears Tower.
But according to the senior director of LEGO marketing to raise CAPA Cruz genevieve, the first “openly identified” products as they were made to adult “came out in 2020, with more sophisticated black packaging and an 18+ note. In 2024, she added, Lego launched approximately 563 groups, 13% of which “were specifically assigned to adults”.
Lego debuted on its botanicals line in 2023. Groups – including floral bundles and a bonsai tree. They are now the best -selling brand products.
“It mixes a natural predisposition to nature and flowers with hands, creative twist, where you are building and arranging these beautiful flowers,” said Capa Cruz. Plus, you don’t have to water them. “They are always in bloom, and they offer a steady memory,” she said.
Recently, I took my 6-year-old baby to visit my aunt Josefina at Sea Cliff, Long Island. I was amazed to find that the dining room table was taken over by Lego groups: a medieval castle, a “Harry Potter” village, a pirate ship.
“My obsession,” my aunt admitted. Like Friedland in New Jersey, my aunt was also fixed during the pandemia when she found a hockey bag filled with the old bricks of my (now) cousin. Now, she watches videos on YouTube and Lurks messaging boards on Facebook dedicated to the toy. She has introduced her 7-year-old nephew in Lego and they can talk hours building together.
“I see it therapeutic,” she added. “Even the search for pieces or their solution is so absorbing, and if I’m stressed, it’s the biggest escape.”
As the mother of a single child who constantly asks me to play with her, I have found pleasure and calm in those childish escapes. We have built a reading farm together, built a mini vegetable garden for her puppet home, and spent hours wearing my American Dol Dol Dol Doli daughter I had as a kid.
Conclusion: We can all use a little more game in our adult life.
“I believe it requires maturity to maintain the simplicity of childhood,” said Pop Schwartz culture expert. “It is very simple to see a child’s things as our culture simply becomes more and more infantilized.” But, he added, “Being an adult … It’s serious business, and it’s probably serious today than ever: more complicated, faster, fastest, more. I think it’s more important than ever to enjoy and celebrate the things we love.”
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Image Source : nypost.com