Squishmallows: What are they and why are they so popular?

They're soft, squishy and have sold in their millions around the world - we're talking about Squishmallows!

The cuddly plushies have quickly become one of the most popular toys on the market, and even celebs like Lady Gaga and Charli D'Amelio are fans.

Last year more than 100 million of the toys were sold worldwide.

But what are Squishmallows and where did they come from?

Where did Squishmallows come from?

Some of the origional Squishmallows Squad

Squishmallows are egg-shaped cuddly toys made from a super-soft stretchy material.

They were designed by Sunny Cho, who worked for the toy company KellyToys.

The first official Squishmallows 'squad' - or collection - was released in 2017 and was made up of eight different characters: Cam the Cat, Wendy the Frog, Fifi the Fox, Hans the Hedgehog, Piper and Puff the Penguins, and Hoot and Holly the Owls.

They were fairly tricky to find when they first came out, and were only really sold in amusement parks or specialist shops.

In 2019 the toy maker Jazwares bought KellyToys, and decided to sell the cuddly toys in more shops, making them easier for people to find.

Squishmallows started to become popular during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when people shared their collections on social media, and said that hugging the toys helped them to feel calmer and less anxious.

"While we don't say in our brand statement that we are a mental health pillow, we embrace how they help people" said Gerhard Runken, the senior vice-president of brand and marketing at Jazwares.

Now there are more than 1,000 different Squishmallows designs sold in 50 countries around the world, and the Squishmallows hashtag on TikTok has been viewed more than five billion times!

But, Squishmallows aren't the only toys to become super popular, take a look at some of these other toys, you might recognise a few!

Rubik's Cube

The Rubik's Cube puzzle is one of the best-selling toys of all time

It was invented in 1974 by Professor Ernő Rubik, and it took him a whole month to solve his own puzzle.

The game has squares of different colours on each side and the idea is to move it around until each side has only one colour on it.

Between 1980 and 1983 more than 100 million Rubik's Cubes were sold, and it is thought that one in every seven humans in the world have tried to solve it.

Pop-its

Pop-Its are a fidget toy where people pop dimples in and out - similar to bubble wrap.

But did you know, that the original pop-it was created by two Israeli games designers named Theo and Ora Coster.

Between them, Theo and Ora invented more than 190 games, the most famous of which is Guess Who?

The idea for pop-its came from a weird dream Ora had in 1974, and led to them making a prototype - a first test version - in 1975.

In 2009, the idea for the toy was bought by Montreal-based company FoxMindGames, and 10 years later they teamed up with Buffalo Games to rebrand the toy under the name Pop It!

The toy's huge spike in popularity can be traced back to a 2020 TikTok video where a monkey called Gaitlyn Rae played with a Go Pop toy.

Fidget spinners

Hundreds of millions of fidget spinners sold after the spinning toy went viral in 2017.

They were originally designed to help kids with conditions like autism deal with stress, but quickly became a popular toy.

Fidget spinners rapidly became pretty controversial though and lots of schools decided to ban them on the grounds that they were too distracting!

What are you favourite toys? Let us know in the comments.