![]() ![]() TikTok is rife with examples of this sort of behavior. “Everyone started bullying the woman and attacking her over her weight in the comments, just because she’d bought some stuffed toys.” “There was one reseller who’d bought up all the Squishmallows at a store, and a girl posted her picture to a local Facebook group,” Tabitha recalls. The abuse and harassment can get severe in the Squishmallow community. ![]() ![]() “People are so scared now that they make up stories about how they got a Squish - pretending they got it from a cousin or something - just to avoid the backlash.” Vigilante justice Tabitha says that hostility toward resellers “is honestly kind of frightening sometimes.” “I’ve seen resellers get absolutely smashed for adding a finder’s fee of $10 to their Squishmallow,” she says. “ The Valentine’s Day Squishmallow Caedyn was sold at $14,” says Amelia, who has 23 Squishmallows, “but on Mercari, I saw her being sold for $100.” Which means big business for “shelf clearers” - “people who wake up really early and buy all of the popular Squish” to resell, according to Amelia, a 17-year-old collector from Alaska - and price gougers. Squishmallows often retail for under $20, but many collectors are willing to pay hundreds for the right toy. “I’ve heard stories about people having the toys snatched out of their hands when they try to buy them. “I remember my parents collecting Beanie Babies when I was little, and the craze of collecting is just the same as it was back then,” she says. She’s old enough to realize that the Squishmallow fad is nothing new. ( Input is withholding the last names of interviewees in this article for their privacy.) The situation is bad enough that Tabitha has given up reselling.Īlyssa, 29, is a pet caregiver from Utah who started her collection of 58 Squishmallows in 2019 after finding the hobby eased her anxiety. “I’ve seen people get fully doxxed online for reselling, and I’ve seen people post pictures of ‘shelf clearers’ at the store with their names and everything,” says Tabitha, who tells Input that the harassment of resellers is encouraged in online Squishmallow groups. Her collection soon ballooned to 50 Squishmallows, 30 of which now she keeps on her college dorm bed, much to the chagrin of her boyfriend.īut while Tabitha’s initial experience was as wholesome and fluffy as the toys themselves, it quickly soured as she became more involved in the Squishmallow online fandom, which is spread out over Discord, Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. Although she sold many of the toys she acquired for a modest profit, her main passion was building up her own Squishmallow squad. Courtesy Sabrina Kaylor the year that followed, Tabitha channeled her energy into collecting the toys, a hobby she found soothed her OCD. ![]()
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