WTF Pops? (Funko)

I know many people that do. A boss at my job has walls of them. He collects them all.

[quote]Is this like Humble Figurines?

No, more like Ladle Figurines.

Hummel

aspie?

Tristan is so never gonna get any

Tristan is so never gonna get any

I’ve always thought they were the Beanie Babies of the 2000s but their popularity hasn’t waned the way Beanie Babies did. I have a few that have been given to me but overall the trend baffles me.

There’s a guy on Chaturbate whose walls are covered in Funko Pops. He has hundreds of them watching him jerk off with their black eyes.

r7

which ones??

Which ones do I have? All 4 Golden Girls, Elvira Mistress of the Dark, Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers, Carrie White, Dracula. They were all gifts and I’m not quite sure what to do with them. They’re cute enough but not really my thing. Right now they’re scattered around my bookshelves.

You took them out of the BOX???

Now they are worthless

[quote]I’ve always thought they were the Beanie Babies of the 2000s but their popularity hasn’t waned the way Beanie Babies did.

They are like Humboldt Figurines which we all know always go up in value

Over Christmas I found they're actually pretty useful as presents if you can't think what to get someone, or are just lazy. Given that there's some sort of weird rule 34 with them that if a fandom exists there's a Funko Pop of it.

I have Beavis and Butthead...don’t ask. But I want the Clockwork Orange one.

I want the Bob's Big Boy

Tristan his hot

I've got some Marvel ones: Storm with the mohawk, Marvel Girl, Psylocke, Captain Marvel. The major Walking Dead Characters and an Amy Winehouse.

[quote]Given that there's some sort of weird rule 34 with them that if a fandom exists there's a Funko Pop of it.

We await the Helix Studio Soap Opera line.

I want a DL Frau Funko Pop

Interesting question. Funko Pops bemuse me, but that is a given since I don’t partake in or understand figurine collecting.

It seems like a serious all-consuming addiction for the niche of people who are into finding rare toys, though, so there must be something to it that hooks a particular personality type. Maybe it has something to do with the natural human drive to hunt & gather, or the fascination we all have with taxonomy & archive - notice that collectors often have encyclopaedic knowledge banks and high attention to detail as well as obsessive focus. There’s also the nostalgia factor, and the fact that trading in itself is a big lucrative underground market - some of these toy dealers & stores make thousands of bucks in one day on just a few sales.

Funko Pops, however, seem more banal and pointless to collect by comparison, as they don’t have any mystique or anything unique about them like vintage figures. They aren’t old enough to have nostalgia value and can’t be played with so have no use as actual toys, nor do they any particular monetary worth at a trading post either. I can’t see what someone would want with them on any level, but maybe forecasting suggests they’ll be worth something someday (sounds like Beanie Baby Megalomania talk to me, but....)

I will admit I find collectors as people morbidly fascinating. There’s something a bit taboo about seeing someone spend their hard-earned money on molded plastic then get hype about it in a barrage of useless trivia.

It’s even more engaging when said fanboys are hot (a rare occurence), like buff scruffy wrestling/movie/animation toy enthusiasts and former(?) pro-wrestlers Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins. Curt (the quieter blond guy) is so hot to me in spite of his fixation on Mattel action figure playsets (as a Dad in his ‘30s with an actual job) that I’d bang him in his home-gym or living room right in front of the Funkos.

I like that Tristan takes his mom with him everywhere.

He's a good son.

The only one I own is a limited edition flocked Hello Kitty one that came in an Amazon exclusive Funko Hello Kitty themed box along with an enamel pin, a notebook, a pair of socks, a water bottle and an iron on patch.

r22

If you take it out of the box it's worthless

It seems to me like only men in their 20s and teen girls collect these, given that you can’t really do much more with them than display them decoratively. Actual kids like toys they can use, and adult male collectors usually have more old-school interests.

What do grown women collect in this way? Is this Pops thing similar to an interest in say, horse figurines, or is that a Frausclusive thing?

[quote]What do grown women collect in this way?

Grievances.

R24 someday they'll be worth millions. Tristan is an 18 year old, soon to make his first million.

I have three... Pee-Wee Herman, Miss Yvonne and Chairy. I set all of them up on a shelf in my office and promptly got yelled at by a twenty-ish intern about taking them out of the box.

I kept the damn boxes, calm down.

R27 noooooo if you let them breathe they instantly devalue!!!

Their HQ is enormous, like a theme park (albeit a very inert one). It’s stocked to the brim, heavily-staffed (by asslicking fanboy nerds) and must take up acres of space. There’s diorama & giant figurines everywhere on-site, even outside the entrance. How did they pay for that?

Until I saw videos of collectors touring the HQ I didn’t realise how extensive the FP! catalogue is; the company seem to have a figure for every fictional pop-cultural character in recent relevant memory, and then variants of those year on year. Doesn’t this high number of designs and frequent release rate create a bubble, though? And that’s an awful lot of toxic Chinese plastic..

FWIW, in my expert opinion I think they’re designed terribly. There’s something creepy, infantile and basic about them. I’m not interested in figures or dolls at all, but at gunpoint I’d rather collect porcelain china dolls, wrestling toys, or those pewter dragons D&D fans favor over Funko Pops. Their encephalitic heads and soulless eyes remind me of Bratz dolls.

I don't understand this kind of shit. Where are the grownups?

Utterly average and unremarkable men collect these for their offices. Collecting behavior correlates to love of superhero movies. Both are signs of extreme retardation.

i have a Funko Harry Potter key chain. It signals to others that I am whimsical and fun-loving.

Tristan must make good money from his YouTube channel. I came across his channel in the fall and was surprised that he has opened a separate office, makes videos of himself shopping for FP at Target, and is Canadian. He has the sex appeal off brand lemon flavored wafers.

To extend R31’s thought, I’ve always heard it said that obsessive behaviours like collecting & hoarding are covering some deep unfulfilled void in the being or standing in for something else the collector actually wants but cannot (or, perceives he cannot) acquire. What would be the emptiness for which a Funko Pop typically compensates? The mind boggles.

Uh I don't know but they sell a shitload of those so I guess everyone is miserable.

r27

No, if they ever have been taken out of the box at all, they are worthless basically.

R30 Bitching and moaning about it online and then dying alone.

OP is an old fart. Good grief.

They’re releasing a Jessica Fletcher one this year!

I have a Sarah Jessica Parker one.

Do they have one of Hitler? Stalin? Mooseahleanknee? Tojo? Tito? Franco? Castro? Idi Amin? (why does he need two names?)

Lmao R25!

Seriously though, I think female collectors have a totally different approach no matter what they’re acquiring. You’ll notice women will typically personally customise or rename their items, and are more likely to get them out of their boxes. They’ll also attach more sentimental value to items and be less willing to easily trade (and usually trade item-for-item rather than sell). Even in organising, they will divide their collection differently to a man - not by brand or by year/series but by fandom or by what the figure represents and looks like. It’s quite an interesting social phenomena to examine.

Perhaps the reason Pops aren’t as popular with women is because they aren’t easily customised (unless you build one from the Parts Lab at HQ) and have such specific formulaic representations of character that you can’t apply much creativity with them.

Tristan keeps all his in an office and his mother opens hers. She'll be poor but not him.

You should watch his channel. He's a nice clean wholesome homosexual. You trashy gays on this site could take a lesson in manners from him.

I'll be patiently awaiting the creation of the Dawson's 50 Load Weekend collection, complete with an attachable gaping hole.

It seems like every few years there's a new collectible fad, like beanie babies.

I get people collecting specific items, like baseball cards, comics, or memorabilia such as Star Wars or Star Trek.

I don't get why the average person would go nuts over something like beanie babies or these bobble heads.

They're the Silly Bandz of the 2010's.