The Popularity of Cotton Dolls: The Desire to Return to Childhood

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The Popularity of Cotton Dolls: The Desire to Return to Childhood

Cotton dolls, originally of K-Pop idols, have become a favorite object of high school girls and young office ladies, a totem of "Peter Pan syndrome.” Baudrillard called non-functional goods "gadgets," meaning that they were divorced from practical value and had only symbolic meaning. The practical value of the cotton doll lies precisely in the implementation of the symbolic meaning on the concrete and perceptible material, which forms an interesting contrast with Baudrillard's "gadget."

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Contemplating Molly: Notes on Pop-Mart Toys (Part Three)

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Contemplating Molly: Notes on Pop-Mart Toys (Part Three)

Meet Molly. She was gifted to me during the seven weeks I spent this summer teaching, lecturing, and doing field work on fan culture in China. She is a product readily available at any of the Pop Mart stores in Shanghai. Across this post, I am going to explore some of the different ways we might make sense of Molly as an embodiment of Chinese fan culture.

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Contemplating Molly: Notes on Pop-Mart Toys (Part Two)

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Contemplating Molly: Notes on Pop-Mart Toys (Part Two)

Meet Molly. She was gifted to me during the seven weeks I spent this summer teaching, lecturing, and doing field work on fan culture in China. She is a product readily available at any of the Pop Mart stores in Shanghai. Across this post, I am going to explore some of the different ways we might make sense of Molly as an embodiment of Chinese fan culture.

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Contemplating Molly: Notes on Pop-Mart Toys (Part One)

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Contemplating Molly: Notes on Pop-Mart Toys (Part One)

Meet Molly. She was gifted to me during the seven weeks I spent this summer teaching, lecturing, and doing field work on fan culture in China. She is a product readily available at any of the Pop Mart stores in Shanghai. Across this post, I am going to explore some of the different ways we might make sense of Molly as an embodiment of Chinese fan culture.

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Self-Dissection Through My Obsession with LEGO

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Self-Dissection Through My Obsession with LEGO

At first, my love for LEGO was an intuition. Later I started to think about it with rationality. I suspect one of the basic logics behind my love for LEGO is my obsession with miniature versions of common items. Lately, I’ve found that Johan Huizinga’s concept of “free play” could partially explain my obsession with LEGO and miniatures.

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