Why Do You Love a L.O.L. Surprise?

Aside from the argument that giving it is encouraging kids to mindlessly love what everyone else is mindlessly loving, this plastic pastiche seems to be raising the finger to the environment.

Again capitalist greed wins out over environmental concerns.

At last, what the civilized world has been waiting for: a toy with absolutely no positive value beyond the 59 minutes of delight your reviewer took from unwrapping the cheap, garish plastic tchotchkes. Well, maybe not so cheap: $89.95 plus S&H and taxes is the cost to the purchaser, but what will be the price our only planet ultimately has to pay? Sign me Aghast

Picture the LOL Surprise factory worker watching an unboxing video. Good Lord.

Also, buy glitter stock NOW.

More pollution in the world. It takes over 400 years for pollution to break down. the oceans are dying. I was reading how those cheap plastic Frisbee's that go astray at the beach are killing seals and dolphins as they get caught around their necks and when they grow the edge of the Frisbee's cuts into the mammals neck and slowly kills them.

I have 2 daughters - 5 and 3. The LOL Surprise Dolls are the only toys they requested this Christmas. In Asia, they even sell "knock-offs" of these dolls. I guess that's when you know a toy has "arrived"!

American Exceptionalism made in China, small, plastic, and fit for a landfill. We're conning ourselves anew. LOL, indeed!

My 10 yr old daughter wanted LOL Surprise for Christmas. With Daddy assigned the big LEGO buy, my sister gladly (initially) took on getting these. Because her area is porch-pirate susceptible she soon discovered they had to hit stores high and low to collect an assortment of these soulless devils. When we visited them on Christmas, my daughter was thrilled; not so much Daddy. One of the LOL she got was a tube with combination locks to open multiple compartments. The locks are 5 pairs of dials with symbols on them. Separately you got a sheet with possible correct combinations. But to see the symbols you must use a plastic magnifying glass with a red tint. But the thing is...it was still darned near impossible to clearly see what the symbol pairs were. Yes, maybe this challenge is part of the LOL attraction, tho the Scrooge in me says price-point justification. Soon those most traditional of Yuletide phrases wafted upon my ears: “Dad? Could you please help me open this.” Off my daughter went to play with her cousins and their dog. After an hour of traversing each of Dante’s nine circles of Hell - angle the paper this way...try some more/ less intense light on the paper...reclean reading glasses ...keep track of which symbol combinations work (God Bless Us Everyone but especially the creator of iPhone Notes)...resist urge to reach for that tried-and-true Rubik’s Cube solution (a hammer and screwdriver)...I opened the final lock. I felt like Indiana Jones. LOL indeed!!!

It’s an interesting take on a new trend of unboxing. Where I can see the charm is in the cute little accessories, the interlinked storyline and the play value of the dolls. In the 1960’s/70’s we had Penny Brite and Heidi that came in little pocketbooks packed with accessories. And then Mattel brought out Liddle Kiddle’s and won hands down. Kiddles were originally 3” posable boy and girl dolls with oversized eyes and silky hair, each cutely named to coordinate with their theme, packed with theme accessories including removable clothes and shoes and —importantly—a “Liddle” comic book. “Freezy Sliddle” doll came with winter coat, leggings, adorable snow boots, teeny hair brush, a sled— and a comic book with a story about her adventures with Soapsy Diddle (doll, hairbrush, bathrobe,slippers, towel,rubber duckie,bathtub and box of bubble bath) and another Kiddle. Well— you HAD to have them all to act out the story and make up more stories and so...... I probably owned 30, including the later morphs— Kiddles that walked, were scented & packed in flowers or perfume bottles, were in giant plastic jewelry lockets, were aliens from outer space. I still have most of them, all these years later.

I watched my niece and sister on Xmas morning spend way too long trying to figure out how these dolls work only to watch more and more plastic junk come out of it. What a waste of money and family time. And no...recycling the plastic junk doesn't make it better. Most of this stuff will end up in a landfill in a few weeks to months even if recycled.

Are LOLs really any worse for the world than the numerous decades of buying all those little boy-oriented matchbox cars, baseball cards, plastic toy soldiers, etc.? I wonder how much of the outrage people feel towards LOLs is because interest in them very much skews towards little girls.

Our brains love novelty and randomization. In those moments of suspense, our brains are rewarded through the stimulation of dopaminergic pathways, leaving us with a feeling of well-being and satisfaction. It’s why gambling is so addictive- whether we win or lose our money (and our shirts)-our brains “win”- if only for a moment.

Am I the only one to look at the ratio of packaging to actual to useful toy(s) and think : How environmentally unfriendly this product is?

My granddaughter got this gift for Christmas. I had withstood getting the gift for her, but her great grandma succumbed. Score a win for great grandma. As our granddaughter opened the Bigger Surprise with care, my Grinchy little toy heart grew and I knew that if I were a six year old I’d love it too. Anticipating what is in the individual packages is part of the fun, but playing with the individual pieces is even more fun. For our granddaughter it’s as if she were collecting baseball cards. She is able to spout facts and details about each of her LOL dolls. I’m pretty sure none of these dolls will reach the level of collectibility that rare baseball cards have, but why should we care? These are low tech toys that support imaginative play. And while there is a lot of packaging, all of it Is recyclable. Christmas was six days ago and our granddaughter plays with her dolls every single day. While other toys often get discarded after just a few hours of play, I consider the LOL dolls a success.

There's something very sad about these little toys. I'd rather my kids play with dirt over LOL dolls. I actually avoid asking my children what they want for Christmas and purchase what it is I can tolerate living with. This year, it's been puzzles and books with a few hot wheels for measure for my boys. For my daughter, I got her an American Girl like doll and a care bear. I mean, I suppose there will be a day when they ask me for something I'd rather not have in my house, in which case, I don't know, I'll say no?

While I will admit to having purchased small versions of this general crapola - Pikmi Pops, Shopkins etc - because I have three granddaughters ages, 4,5, and 8, it really is insipid and horrid. Encouraging small children to consume useless, mass-produced plastic that requires overabundant plastic packaging is fun because everybody is doing it? It's sad that the demands of capitalism result in such uselessness. Collectibles? The only collectible here is the profit. Am adding the avoidance of all such purchases to my 2019 To Do list.