2026-10-05 02:43
BY Rui Pastorin
During a marathon of scrolling through social media over the National Day Golden Week holiday, I found something that caught my attention.
It was a post made by US magazine The New Yorkerthat talked about toys, more specifically the point that adult-only households made up the most of toy sales in the US.
In fact, childless adults, at least in the US where several brands from Marvel to Barbie bring in billions, are in the running to replace parents with kids for the top spot, as reported by the New York Poston the recent findings by global market research and analytics company Circana.
While adults buying toys is nothing really new, especially nowadays when it has arguably become more normal, one of the things that stuck with me from the prior post is that some people found this as a soothing way to deal with uncertainty, being apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Situations of uncertainty, along moments when you feel like you have less or absolutely no control over an outcome, can of course cause unease and distress. And in times like these, we need something to help us get by. Toys may have become an increasingly expensive, yet soothing solution. But why is that? Well, that’s kind of what I wanted to explore in the context of Macau.
As a young boy, I grew up loving race cars and worshipping superheroes, just as many around me did. But the older I got, the smaller the toy box seemed to get, until it was eventually reduced to a small container that had to be given away because “I was too old for them”.
For a while, I forgot about the small representations of superheroes who frequently saved the world while boasting incredible feats, or the oddly designed race cars that rolled their plastic wheels across warm, sun-drenched wooden floors. But that changed when I found myself visiting a local toy shop out of curiosity. At that time, it wasn’t just children and their parents who were busy exploring each aisle, but other adults too.
It wasn’t just this specific shop either, being common around the shops located on Rua do Almirante Costa Cabral (賈伯樂提督街), where many sell a variety of toys and pop culture items. And from observation, it seemed that a child may not always be the first one to reach for a new Beyblade*, model kit, Lego set, action figure or toy car.
This partly gave me the courage to spend on a toy myself and after doing so, I immediately understood what the appeal was. There was a small moment of excitement that kept building up as I held an ornately packaged, somewhat overpriced piece of plastic while walking to the counter. And opening it brought back a childlike wonder and excitement that we seem to lose as we get older. In a way, I had just bought back a piece of my childhood, a glimpse into a messy living room chaotically littered with cars and superheroes. Most of all, it brought me a little bit of joy. And all that, I think, is part of the reason why toys are becoming so appealing to adults.
Buying a toy isn’t an elixir that opens a gateway to being young again, nor is it a refusal to grow up, at least in my opinion. We may not be able to buy back our youth, but we can purchase a piece of our childhood, memories, and small reminders of simpler times. Is it needless consumerism that gives you a short-lived dopamine boost? Perhaps in many parts, yes, just as it is a tactic for certain companies to use nostalgia against shoppers.
But sometimes, buying back a piece of your childhood that makes you happy isn’t a bad thing, albeit when done responsibly and with enough self-awareness.
Sometimes, it’s what we need. In a world where people find themselves tired, overwhelmed, unhappy or stuck in sombre days, they need something to help soothe them and ease their minds, even just for a short-lived period. And if buying a toy brings back a little bit of a few carefree days as a child, when the word “worry” sounded like an exclusive club among the sphere of grown-ups, then go for it.
*A Beyblade is a customisable spinning top toy used to battle other tops inside a stadium arena. Launched with a ripcord mechanism, the goal is to knock the opponent’s top out of the arena or spin longer than it. – Gemini
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