Toys can be a creepy thing when they want to be.
When I was a youngling, Furbys were all the rage. With their bug eyes, hairy faces and odd shape, these things looked like something out of a horror film, and frankly, I'm glad they don't really exist anymore.
I also remember my grandma buying my brother this tiger toy with eyes and paws that lit up red when you pressed a button. It scared him so much, she took her receipt and brought it back to whatever bougie toy store she'd gotten it from.
When a friend introduced me to Funko Pops back when they first started to emerge, my extent of interest was finding them cute and moving on. I had never assumed they would grow to be so popular, but here we are, and it's definitely not going anywhere.
There's Too Many Of Them
Ironically, something that turns me off from these little figures is their lack of sparsity. Every time I turn around, it seems like they're spitting out another collection of characters. I've invested in a few scale figures, and I find that when it comes to owning chatchki-type things, less is more.
Granted, I'm extremely biased because at sixteen I helped a junk collector family friend move out of their home and swore I would never take on any kind of packrat tendencies after a day of tissue wrapping what felt like 2,000 variations of glass Christmas angels. Personally, I find more of a value in having one or two nice detailed figures in the hundred dollar range that I usually buy once a year.
But I know not everyone has the means to afford such things, and this is where the market value of pops comes in. See, as creepy as they might look, it's a nice little affordable thing for someone on a budget to collect, gift, or decorate a desk with. They're likely cheap to make, cheap to buy, what's the harm really here.
It's All In The Eyes
Still, I can't shake off the uneasiness that those void eyes give me... or maybe I've just watched too many episodes of Supernatural, and assumed by default anything with orbital black eyes is an evil spirit. I can't help but feel like they're trying to pull off a cute chibi-style theme here, and while the intention is surely good, it just doesn't work all that well here. No mouth and button eyes? Bad combination.
Nevertheless, I'm sure anyone would be happy to own their favorite character in Funko form.