Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Miscellaneous | May 6, 2026
We said it was going to happen and, of course, it did. The Labubus are now polluting the shelves of charity shops, right next to the Stanley cups. This time last year, people were getting into physical fights over these cuddly bag charms. Certain editions were selling online for thousands of dollars. You could spend hundreds just dressing them. They became a status symbol turned representation of the dizzying current era of brainrot capitalism. The trend is dead, as we already covered. The bubble was always going to pop. Unfortunately, it was not going to inspire us to learn our lessons and consume less. The internet has already moved onto a new fad, and this one is a little different. Did you wish you could pull apart your Labubu for stress relief purposes? Then the NeeDoh is for you.
Like the Labubu, the NeeDoh has been around for a while. Made by Schylling, a toy company based in Massachusetts, these brightly coloured squishy toys are essentially a new-ish take on stress balls. They can be pulled and squeezed and reshaped, a handy tool for whenever you're bored or anxious or trying to avoid picking up your phone. There is, of course, a wide bariety of NeeDohs available, both in terms of shapes and colours. They're supposed to be affordable too, starting at under $2. Now, it's a hot commodity, and the cycle is back with a vengeance.
TikTok turned it into a must-have, and soon, people were queuing outside of stores hoping to buy one or a dozen. Resellers have emptied shelves. Some shops have refused to stock them because they were sick of putting up with rude customers. Counterfeit versions are clogging up Temu and Alibaba. Paul Weingard, CEO of Schylling, told Business Insider that the company sold a year's worth of NeeDoh stock within the first nine weeks of 2026.
At first sight, they don't seem to be the kind of toys that would spark a feverish trend resulting in in-store fights and obscenely overpriced resales. Compare it to those demonic Labubus, which were designed to be an addiction thanks to their blind box formula and the artificial rarity of certain collectibles. It's an item with a function that is instinctive and distracting, and that is certainly appealing to a great number of people (and it's also less creepy than a Labubu.) The NeeDoh reminds me more of the fidget spinner or any number of toys and accessories that were initially designed for people on the autism spectrum or with sensory issues that became inescapable for a brief period of time. Still, it exploding in the way it has does feels somewhat surprising. I know we're all under a lot of stress lately but is this the way to deal with it?
It's not entirely TikTok's fault but I do think the site is largely to blame for this trend, as it is for so many of the recent cases of overconsumption. Once something is popular or has the potential to be popular, everyone jumps on it lest they be left behind. We got endless videos of people buying dozens of NeeDohs to open up for their viewers. It created the allure of a must-have product, and the more that hype increased, the scarcer the actual items became. If everyone else gets it, surely you have to as well, especially if you've got young kids and they're demanding the same thing all their friends are. Why it became so suddenly popular after years on the market is harder to explain. Sometimes, stuff like that just happens, although it probably helps to have a KPop star showing off your wares.
I'm all in favour of sensory toys and people finding something to do that isn't ceaseless doomscrolling. I know how hard it is to fight that instinct to grab your phone when you have five free seconds to waste. I certainly find myself reaching out for it without even thinking, then I'm confronted by the horror of my own dependence on this stupid screen. There's been a major push over the past year towards an analogue life, be it through cozy hobbies or physical media, anything to keep yourself entertained and away from the dark side. But, as with every overconsumption fad that drives people bananas for five months before being resigned to the trash heap, the NeeDoh boom feels like people are poisoning the entire lake just to catch a few fish. Doesn't turning a device like this into a status symbol make us more anxious?
I hope that Schylling doesn't go overboard in trying to keep up with this fad, for their own sake. Trends are nothing new but the speed with which they occur in our current times, and the ways that they are quickly reshaped into an endless cycle of plastic tat and fraud is thoroughly, depressingly modern. We know what's at the end of this road and yet everyone sticks to the path of buy-buy-buy, brag-brag-brag, then dump it once something shinier comes along.
