“Bullying mostly comes from those who don’t collect,” she says. “Then they put them on blast on Facebook and have all their friends bully them and call them a scammer, when they really didn’t do anything wrong.” You don’t have to search too hard to find desperate pleas from falsely accused folks, like this woman who received threats of IRL violence for simply shipping Squishmallows out too late.Īlthough Amelia acknowledges that these problems have spiraled out of control in recent months, she is far more concerned with the drama that comes from outside the community. “These just wanted a reasonable price for the Squishmallow, and their accusers wanted to lowball them,” says Tabitha. They called his higher-ups and got him demoted and punished, and multiple people filed criminal charges and harassed and threatened her family.”Įven worse, disgruntled buyers sometimes levy false accusations against sellers. “Since everyone had her information, they found out her husband was in the military. “There was a large Facebook post where a serial scammer ended up getting doxxed after she tricked multiple people into exchanging Squishmallows with her,” says Alicia, who has more than 100 of the toys. “These people are going feral over someone who’s buying all the stock of stuffed animals at the store,” says Tabitha.Īlicia, a 24-year-old Squishmallow collector and nursing home cook from Massachusetts, has also witnessed this sort of toxic behavior. In one instance, when a TikToker spoke about being “scammed” by a 15-year-old, she was encouraged by commenters to expose the minor’s identity. Vigilante Squishmallow fans will post videos and photos of shelf clearers, often with their names attached. 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.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |