We like to write science fiction thinly disguised as industry commentary, or vice versa, and we also really like Antiques Roadshow. This sturdy triangle offered unprecedented strip opportunities, the kind that leave precedented strip opportunities in the dust. This, I thought. This is how we drive brand loyalty and earn share in crowded marketplace.
I told Kiko about the this strip yesterday, and he grew feral and snarled like a boar. I learned that he had very serious opinions not only about Funko broadly but the Pops! so deeply associated with it. He drew word pictures with his mouth: a landfill-elegy, apocalyptic heaps of discarded figures cavorting in a death-orgy. I was like, okay man, jeez. I guess I won’t buy you any Pops.
The last time I was even consciously aware of these objects was when they made that boardgaming play, which I thought was cool as shit – partly because the Golden Girls were so OP. The next thing I saw was when my feed told me a company I’d never heard of called PSA wasn’t going certify the figures anymore, maybe because the Funko had delivered grisly financial news.
Linear time began to fray. Next I found myself in some kind of Reddit thread where people were gassing up the toys, saying that shit was actually kick ass, but I’m just reading about all this now. I’m not an expert on how tarrifs might affect the fortunes of collectible vinyl figures. Maybe he was just clapping to keep a fairy alive (metephorical) until such time as he could shift his fairies (literal Pops) on the open market. It never even occurred to me to buy toys as an investment! No doubt this is why I have fallen so far behind my peers.
(CW)TB out.