This season’s hottest toy doesn’t have a touch screen, doesn’t link to WiFi and doesn’t use artificial intelligence. It doesn’t even light up.
Squishmallows, a series of plush toys measuring 2 to 24 inches long, recently won the Toy Association’s Toy of the Year and People’s Choice awards. Industry analysts say they’re the favorite this holiday as pandemic-weary Americans seek to wean their kids off screens and stretch their budgets to offset inflation.
“Adults like to share the joy of the toys they had growing up with the kids in their lives,” Hamilton Noel, a data scientist at consumer researcher Pattern, told The Washington Times.