Help! I’m Addicted to Buying Funko Pops!

Legit question: why would a non-nerd 31-year-old man (myself) purchase collectible toys?

Here is my collection of Funko Pops:

Count ‘em. Seven. These little vinyl characters represent over $70 of my money. All of the figures are approximately 3.75 inches tall. They have the same round eyes and big heads. A Pop is a Pop is a Pop, right? Like, after buying half a dozen I should have hit my threshold?

One of the reasons behind my purchases is that I have two kids who are Funko Pop crazy. My wife and I tend to be clutter-shunning minimalists. But the Pops find a way into our home because it’s hard to deny children something expressly designed to bring pleasure (also, fun hack: Pops make great teething toys).

And pleasure they do bring. I’ve started a new trick where I fill a kid-sized backpack with Funko Pops. When we stop by a coffee shop or a bakery my daughters have something to do: they line up the little figures and make believe that they are riding bicycles.

Part of my Funko Pop craze has to do with the toy company's shrewd marketing—marketing to which I am apparently prone.

Funko knows their market and their market is everyone. If you don't believe me visit the flagship store on Wetmore on a Saturday morning. Lines out the door, mixed demographics.

Also, Pops are $10 a piece. Hey, that’s cheaper than eating out. Why, you could get a real collection going and fill a shelf for under a hundred bucks.

The other factor is that so many franchises are represented in Pop form. As much as Funko caters to comic book culture and fandom, they know how to hook in normies like myself. I’ll probably never buy a DC Comics Pop or a Star Wars Pop. But my kids are really into Disney films and I can’t resist the charm of a Bob Ross Pop or a Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite.

And once you buy one…

It’s hard to say what happens next. It’s a gateway drug experience. You find yourself at the Funko flagship store (a miniature amusement park), chatting with the clerk about the “collectability factor” of Peasant Belle from Beauty and the Beast versus Formal Gown Belle.

Me? I’m trying to tone it down. I know on some level that my collection of vinyl figures depicting pop culture icons is kids’ stuff.

But they’re so fun to buy.

Everett-based Funko is slated to be a billion dollar company in under five years. This is how they do it: hooking dads like me one vinyl figurine at a time.

And I like it.