It's not uncommon for Reddit users to call out excessive packaging or toys that promote overconsumption, but one post on r/Anticonsumption depicted a matryoshka of all those ills.
"They're not even really toys," the submitter's post title read alongside a photograph of a pair of strange toy-like containers.
It wasn't clear exactly what the items were supposed to be — it looked like there were shrink-wrapped plastic balls in the large plastic packaging cylinders, which were plastered with characters including Mickey Mouse, Spider-Man, Baby Yoda, and Frozen's Elsa.
"I don't understand what I'm looking at," one commenter acknowledged, referencing the mysterious nature of the ostensible toys.
That users couldn't identify what was in the boxes was partly a function of the immense amounts of plastic involved — plastic that was barely even single-use, as most of it was designed to go straight into the trash.
Both excessive packaging and single-use plastic are detrimental to the planet — non-plastic waste clogs already overflowing landfills, and plastic is particularly insidious.
Though plastic is ubiquitous in retail environments, its dangers have come into sharp focus in recent years. Plastic can take hundreds of years to decompose, shedding hazardous microplastics all the while.
In the comments, one user explained that the "toys" in question were Mini Brands replicas of regular-size merchandise — effectively an advertisement in the form of a toy.
"Literally just a small injection-molded piece of plastic with Disney property branded stickers on it," the commenter began.
"I've seen these with food brands too. They're selling little plastic effigies of French's mustard and A1 steak sauce. They're physical commercials you pay to clutter your home with," they added, describing the concept as "idea cancer" or "culture rot."
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Save $1,000 this year 💸 "Wow, that is bizarre. And you are absolute spot on with the phrase 'culture rot,'" another person replied.
Remarkably, someone else added context that made the entire thing worse, asserting that the "surprise" nature of the toys amounted to gambling for children.
"The worst part of this is that it's literally nothing but branding being marketed to children using gambling as a hook, like lootboxes," they explained.
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