• dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    Speaking as a hoarder collector of many strange things, I still can’t comprehend the appeal of Funko Pops. Even if you’re super into whatever franchise the model in question is from, surely there is a better way to express it than by way of deformed simulacra with dead, soulless eyes. Just saying.

    • Okokimup@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      Thank you, I utterly despise those things. The most blatantly cynical corporate cash-in on nerd nostalgia.

      • SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org
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        19 days ago

        Soulless mass-produced slob. The AI of the figurine world if you will. The Corporate Memphis of the physical world.

    • radicalautonomy@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      A student gifted me a Funko Pop at the end of the last school year. She designed it on their website to look like me, holding a game controller and complete with my signature long hair and fun button-up shirt. I thought that was a very cool gift. 🙂

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        Definitely, I would cherish that forever. But overall Funko Pops are so unbelievably dumb. I mean I still have some pogs somewhere, but I was 10 and they were cheap cardboard.

        • radicalautonomy@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          Oh absolutely. I see the limited edition ones at cons and can only think of the exclusive Beanie Babies that people used to go nuts over. Like who gives a fuck srsly.

    • FoxyFerengi@lemm.ee
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      19 days ago

      One of the most bizarre gifts I’ve ever been given was a random Skyrim funko pop. I don’t really do collectibles, and I hadn’t played Skyrim in a couple years at that point.

      Then I found out that the person who gave it to me has a massive collection of Funkos. They can’t even display all of them because they’re stacked several layers deep all the way to the ceiling

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        19 days ago

        You know how gacha games exploit the same psychology as gambling addiction? I’m convinced Funko pops are like that, but for hoarding. I don’t know what it is about the brand, but you so rarely see people with just a small collection of them. It’s either none or 500.

    • [email protected]@sh.itjust.works
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      19 days ago

      Funko pops are the modern lawn flamingo or garden gnome. They’re tainted things, too corporate to be kitschy, and far too uninteresting to be worth calling a knickknack. I instantly judge anyone who owns one for their future contribution to a far-off landfill.

    • BigDaddySlim@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      I’m a Halo hoarder collector, and I think I only have 4 of those ugly Pop vinyls. They’re all Halo ones but they don’t have the dark soulless beady little eyes the rest of them do. Two of them were gifts anyway so I didn’t give them much money.

      They’re ugly and tacky to me.

    • BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      The appeal is pretty easy. You can collect items from any fandom you can think of and have the style of the figures match each other almost perfectly and look ‘natural’ together. The style chosen has a lot of detractors, but even some that don’t necessarily appreciate it are willing to compromise if it lets them make a little action scene of thor fighting vegeta.

      That’s me, I’m the one who compromised.

    • MagnyusG@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      It’s mostly the design of the fucking things, I’m sure they’d be more acceptable of they were at least appealing.

      (I’m going to be extremely hypocritical here as I do this with my Amiibo) but the culture or keeping it in the boxes never really made sense to me in regards to Funko. What purpose does it really serve when there’s a lot of Funko that have little to no value boxed or not? Part of me thinks it’s because they’re easier to store in the boxes and because you don’t actively play or use them (like you would with Amiibo.) But what gets me is the # of Funko collectors that open their figures is microscopic compared to the people who have entire walls lined with boxes of the things.

      Another brand I see them compared to often is Nendoroids, which are less TV and movie characters and more anime and video game figures. But very few people keep those boxed, because they’re pose-able, therefore more owners purchase them with the intention of displaying them in a variety of poses as opposed to keeping the boxes for anything other than storing the accessories.

    • klemptor@startrek.website
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      19 days ago

      I own one. It’s the Blue Meanie from Yellow Submarine. I saw it at Barnes and Noble and thought it was cute so I got it.

      I don’t really get why people would collect tons of these things, but I didn’t understand baseball cards or beanie babies either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      The appeal is $$$. I know someone who collects those. I thought they were stupid until he needed some extra money and took one of his hundreds of bobbleheads, put it on Craigslist, and had $750 more the next day than before he sold it. This was a long time ago too, so it was probably $1300 worth of today’s money.

    • Zozano@lemy.lol
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      18 days ago

      For the uninitiated: you’re looking at a court divorce in progress, where these two fascinating individuals are splitting the perceived value of their combined Beanie Babies collection.

      Source

  • Zahille7@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    I mean I get your title, but it really seems like you’re at a thrift shop.

    Speaking of, those Legos would be coming home with me.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      Yeah, legos might have some kits that are themed based on fads but the underlying concept is timeless and they are made to last.

    • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      I spy some good pieces in there as well. I’d certainly be digging through that bin.

    • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      I gave my entire collection of Lego to my friend’s kid. Pretty decent amount. But those two green flat boards there on top? I want them even now.

        • Davel23@fedia.io
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          16 days ago

          Many Lego stores have what they call the “Pick-a-Brick” wall, big bins of loose bricks in various shapes and colors. While it’s not priced by weight, there is a flat price for anything you can cram into a provided container. Most stores are very liberal about what you’re allowed to do to fit bricks into the container, too.

      • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        Based on the fact that they have used hot wheels for full retail price, there is a reason the Lego bin is still full.

  • rational_lib@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    The whole point was to put this in your cubicle so you could pretend you had a personality that was more than being a cog in the machine. Then the pandemic happened.

  • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    19 days ago

    Those Pop figures sure do look alike when you take them out of their packaging. I can’t really tell what any of them are supposed to be at a glance.

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    Do you think they go through those Pops first to make sure they’re all worthless, or do you think you might find a treasure buried in there?

  • m_f@midwest.social
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    19 days ago

    I met a traveller from an antique land

    Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

    Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,

    Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

    And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

    The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

    And on the pedestal these words appear:

    "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

    No thing beside remains. Round the decay

    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

    The lone and level sands stretch far away.

    Ozymandias

  • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Excuse me sir, Lego is never irrelevant. My wife had to stop me from buying more cause I got about two Rubbermaid full of pieces and figures. I use them to make scenes for the season or holidays

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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      18 days ago

      Seriously. Lego will be played with even when I’m a old boomer in 2070s yelling about our AI president and being against human-bot marriage.

      Don’t know about funkopops. They look like beanie babies to me.