I was a very arts and crafts heavy kid.

I remember being obsessed with that like plastic string that you could make

lanyards out of as well as like embroidery floss of all types, which like my children

have recently gotten into friendship bracelets, like all that kind of stuff.

I remember having like one of those, it looks like

Saturn. It's like a ball that you can bounce on. And it's like a pogo, pogo, maybe. A pogo.

Yeah. Pogo ball was like very coveted, a scooter. Yeah, those are the ones that are really just coming to

mind. I was obsessed with my little ponies. My collection was a real mix of, I'm sure, like,

ones that were bought at a normal store, and then we got a lot of garage sale ponies. And that

was how we also got, like, their various places where they resided. I don't know how to, like, their home.

There was like, there was my little pony like barber shop and a my little pony mansion and all

that sort of thing. And I, in my, in my memory, they were always like just slightly worn and

degraded, but none the less precious precious and then the other one that's like

kind of a more like everyone remembers the commercial or like what was that weird toy I had a popple

oh yes yeah yeah and was obsessed with it just yeah like very of a moment. And I feel like the popple has not

come back, although it maybe should because people love stuffies. I mean, there's still time

for things to cycle back. This is the Culture Study podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.

And I'm Young to Park. I'm a writer. I cover children's toys. I read a substack about parenting

in the modern age, and I have a background in building digital products for children.

I will say this more as we go along, but I love the substack. I read it every week. I'm not a parent and I love it. So part of the reason I wanted to have you on the show is because you actually have a really interesting background in thinking about toys, not just like, you know, I could have a parent come on and be like, this is my opinion about toys, but you have thought a lot about how to create toys,

how kids interact with toys. So can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah. So my background

before, like I've thought about physical toys is actually in building what we call what were

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