Yeah they didn't make any impact on my life either however when we moved out we inherited two popples from the basement. When we got Molly she took those popples
and used them as chew toys, what we noticed was that while Molly could tear apart a toy from Petsmart in 10 minutes or so these popples would survive for months. Now I'm sure the lead paint and toxic herbicides from the 80's that are on these things are bad for Molly but, she's having fun, who cares? So when the first two got finished off and we got tired of Molly dejectedly carrying around the carcass we bought her a couple new popples from eBay. That brings us to November 8th 2009 when she finally finished off the 4th popple. She was sitting among a pile of stuffing from the stuffed animal and we took a picture and put it up on the flickr. Apparently that was a huge mistake.If you visit that picture on flickr you'll notice that the "popple people" came out of the woodwork pretty quickly. Which was strange because the picture wasn't even tagged with popple and if you search for popple on flickr the picture is on the 6th page now, after 10 comments and 276 views. Anyway, these people did not appreciate the way we treated this stuffed animal. I even deleted a post which was (in hindsight) not that bad but struck me as a little, threatening...
The reason I write this now is today (3 months later) I got yet another angry post from a popple person about letting Molly use the stuffed animals as chew toys. I think to myself "what the hell is wrong with you people!?" This is a stuffed animal, yes it is considered a collectible by a small group (apparently who all use flickr), and yes it is expensive for a dog toy, but Molly seems happy and they hold up a lot better than the cheap ones from Petsmart. Really am I hurting YOU by giving the dog these toys? What could the stuffed animal be contributing to the world if it wasn't being destroyed by my dog? Was it an important part of the culture in the 1980s? I was only 3 when the TV show was on the air so I don't remember it but they certainly aren't making a blockbuster movie out of the story now are they? Even if the culture did revolve around popples for a short time, if I can find it on eBay is it really my problem that a collector doesn't buy it before I do?Then you must ask the popple collectors what is your collection contributing to others? Then ask the photo commenters do you really have nothing better to do than criticize other peoples purchases?
It seems like a ridiculous thing to have to write down, but, really evaluate your
reaction to what I've done and ask yourself: "if it was a Spongebob Squarepants toy would I have the same reaction?" How about a 12" GI Joe toy from the 70s? Why does it matter what I do with my purchases, with my stuffed animals? I have one stuffed animal that I hold very dear and will not get rid of, I would be upset if it were to be destroyed, but I have a true genuine emotional attachment to it. Is the popple that you've never seen before in your life that important to you that you are actually getting angry about other people destroying it?Popple People: change the way you react to the treatment of stuffed animals. They are just objects, things, insignificant toys from a different decade, if you put your energy into something else (something creative for instance) you could be doing way more good then protecting the innocent lives of popples.
I just recently bought 2 more stuffed animals from eBay (they were both popples) and
Molly has already thoroughly abused one and when she is done with the first she will be getting the second. Those will be my last eBay purchases for popples but only because I found out you can buy stuffed animals at goodwill for $0.25. Now for the price of one popple on eBay I can buy 120 popples at goodwill, just imagine that massacre.
