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Top 10 toys imprinting children: Walmart or the ParticleZoo?
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Walmart
A look at the top-10 selling items at Walmart and a small, one-woman (almost) company selling unique, cuddly particle products (more on that later) make a striking contrast.
According to corporate figures, Walmart serves rings up 200 million customers per week at more than 7,900 retail stores in 15 countries; 2.1 million employees sold $401 billion worth of merchandise during the most recent fiscal year completed in 2009.
Top 10 selling toys at Wal-Mart
1. Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition--The object of this game is to end up with all the money, property, and resources while everybody else goes home broke--whoops, by the end of the game, they don't have a home to go to. No government regulation; light jail time for white-collar time, failure to pay taxes and you lose your turn 3 times--gee, this all sounds familiar.
2. EyeClops Night Vision Infrared Stealth Goggles--The perfect gift for that budding little voyeur, burglar, snipper...
3. NERF N-STRIKE Vulcan EBF-25 Value Pack-According to the ad copy, "Become the master of mayhem in the first NERF blaster action game. In a world created to be the perfect landscape for NERF pandemonium, players can wreak havoc and perfect their blasting skills or challenge friends to clashes with both single and multi-player game modes. With the brand new custom NERF blaster, players can then take the action outside as their controller transforms to fire actual NERF darts."
4. Baby Alive Learns to Potty (Hasbro)--Enough guy stuff; how about something for our little princesses? Hasbro provides a little too much information: "'Playing mommy' is even more realistic with this sweet baby doll! Press the doll's bracelet to 'wake' her up. It's time to eat! Mix her special food and feed her, using her bowl and spoon-she'll really 'chew' her food and even 'drink' from her bottle--and tell you how much she likes it! And since she's 'potty training', she'll also let you know when she needs to go. Better hurry, though! Put her on the potty and she'll 'pee' and 'poop'. But if you don't get there in time, you might hear her say, 'Oops. I had an accident!' Change baby's messy diaper and she'll be happy once again. Is that a yawn?"
Could be; or maybe a gape-mouthed expression of incredulity.
5. Fisher Price Kid Tough Portable DVD Player Pink and Accessory Kit--This baby's rugged enough for a 2-mile parachute drop into a hot war zone. Armed with EyeClops Night Vision Infrared Stealth Goggles and a fully loaded, automatic Nerf n-Strike Vulcan EBF 25, and your 10 year-old killing machine will be ready for action. (Note to Fisher Price: Pink? Please! Better re-evaluate design department personnel. Forest green or dessert brown camouflage only.)
6. Vtech V.Motion Active Learning System --"Keep kids moving, learning, and having fun with the award-winning V.Motion Active Learning System from Vtech. This educational gaming system is designed to keep kids aged three to seven amused and motivated for hours at a time. They will have plenty of fun using the wireless controller to practice hand eye coordination, solve puzzles, and win races." They'll need these skills when they move up to potty training dolls and live ammo.
7. Fisher-Price Elmo Live--This Muppet been showing signs of severe emotional stress for years; he's made specific and general death threats on at least two separate occasions. Like Nixon during his last agonizing days in office, Elmo refers to himself in the third person. PBS tried to cover up his increasingly erratic behavior by saying, "Elmo mimics the behavior of many preschoolers. Like 3-year-olds, he doesn't always have the skills or knowledge to speak proper English."
Elmo first appeared on Seasame Street in the early 70's--when he was 3 1/2 years old--that little red fluffball is pushing middle age now.
8. Littlest Pet Shop VIP Cat (Hasbro)--Cute, but why not a real flesh and blood feline?
9. Darth Maul with Collector Coin: Star Wars Saga Legends--Can a kid ever own enough psychopathic killer dolls? And a Collector Coin, to boot! Bring the coin and $19.99 (+tax) and you can buy yourself a "Star Wars Mighty Muggs Shadow Trooper Action Figure"!
10. Star Wars The Clone Wars Action Figures-See # 9.
BTW, every single one these toys are manufactured in China; only the board pieces on the Monopoly game are made in the USA.
The much smaller ParticleZoo operation is a little different. (See their list of best-selling toys.)
If Dr. Lera Boroditsky (psycholgy/neuroscience researcher @ Stanford and M.I.T.) is correct--that language shapes worldview far more profoundly than previously believed--you might want to consider the ParticleZoo, jam-packed with cuddly, gender-neutral toys that help reveal the very fabric of consciousness, life, and earth in the context of our mysterious universe.About The ParticleZoo
"The particles are hand-sewn in a 'sweatshop of one' in Los Angeles, California (there is actually very little sweating as we do have air conditioning). Particle Zookeeper Julie Peasley is the sole seamstress, web designer, conceptualizer, mail packager, proofreader, driver, and emailer. (UPDATE: The Zoo has hired a part-time helper as of October 8, 2008. Hooray for Laura Wong!)
"I have had a lifelong interest in cosmology, the quantum world and theoretical physics. The particle plushies idea came about after attending a physics lecture at UCLA by Dr. Lawrence Krauss entitled 'The Beginning and End of Time.' A couple of difficult physics books later (including Lisa Randall's Warped Passages), I realized that the individual particles seemed to have various 'personalities' that could be 'felted out' with relative ease."
Julie Peasly at Wonderfest Science Festival, Berkeley, California, November 2008--photo: Raven Hanna.
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