Have you heard of the commerce app, Xiaohongshu? More importantly: have you seen what people have been posting on it?
Available only for users in China, the Xiaohongshu application, created back in 2013, is an app that looks like a mix between Instagram and Pinterest and was made for people to post and view product recommendations, lifestyle advice, or tutorial videos of others.
Despite this being what it was originally made for, this hasn’t stopped users from making the so-called “IKEA trend” a viral sensation.
What is this trend?
Taking a photo of your stuffed toy and posting it online is by no means a groundbreaking concept, but some accounts on the site have taken it to the next level, labeling themselves the adoptive parents of a stuffed orangutan from IKEA and posting daily updates on Xiaohongsu as well as on other apps like Instagram and Twitter.
These orangutans only started to grow in popularity, with more and more users buying them daily; while #IkeaGorilla only started last April, the hashtag’s gotten millions of views thus far.
These posts depict these orangutans in a number of different positions, doing a variety of different things; one account shows the orangutan either reading at night or strutting around town in their cute little overalls.
For only 19 USD ( PHP 1,070) you may just become an internet-famous baby mama overnight. But why does this concept seem so appealing to the so-called “New Generation?”
Toys as substitute for children
While this trend may seem cute on the surface, there is something much darker – much heavier – lurking beneath all of this.
According to TNP’s Elaine Lee, this trend was made to raise attention to how hard it is to have a child – as well as a family – given today’s economy and society.
At present, more and more members of the New Generation are collecting toys and other knickknacks and calling them their children, or even just referring to their pets as their children, instead of planning on actually having them.
One such example is the current Sonny Angel trend.
These little figurines were created back in 2005 and were referred to by toy manufacturer Toru Soeya as “little boyfriends.” Many Filipinos quickly started to collect them, including 22-year-old Kyra Maxine Gomez, who started collecting them to be her and her boyfriend’s so-called babies.
She stated that she’d thought: “Wouldn’t it be cute if my boyfriend and I had a baby version of ourselves and we brought it on dates?”
Alongside these Sonny Angels are also Smiski figurines, Squishmallows, and the like. No matter the item or the medium, this trend is surely here to stay, especially since a survey revealed in 2022 that 56% of millennials and 27% of Gen Zs do not want children.
Each generation in the Philippines is slowly trying to break away from the traditional image of what one’s future is “supposed” to look like, with the nuclear family and the cushy desk job.
Instead, many are opting to invest in themselves, hoping to spend the money that they’re going to be earning on their wants and needs instead of someone else’s.
In the years to come, the New Generation is going to be all about “me time,” and to be completely honest, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
