‘People give me a wide berth’: My weird week of wearing shoulder pals

The latest craze for the kidult market is small stuffed toys you attach to your clothes. But can you look cool – or even just socially acceptable – while wearing them?

There was a time when adults who owned collections of stuffed toys were relatively uncommon, weird even. All that has changed recently: the rise in popularity of toys such as Squishmallows and Jellycat Amuseables has been linked to the growing “kidult” market (adults buying toys for themselves) which accounted for almost 30% of toy sales last year. On the whole, cuddly toys are something people keep at home, on their beds or on display shelves. But that’s changing too – plush toy keyrings such as Labubus are now everywhere. And some “Disney adults” (self-professed grown up Disney fans who might, for example, go to the theme parks without taking children with them) have gone one step further: attaching toys not just to their bags, but to themselves.

“Shoulder pals” (variously known as “shoulder plushies”, “shoulder toys” and “shoulder sitters”) are small toys made in the likeness of Disney characters. They have magnetic bases and come with a flat metal plate designed to be placed under your shirt, so the toy perches on your shoulder. Since the first one, baby Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy, was brought out in 2018, these toys have become a common accessory at the Disney theme parks. There are multiple Reddit threads and TikTok videos about how to track down the latest ones (some are sold at the Disney store, but others are only available at specific locations within the parks). There will apparently be 45 official Disney shoulder pals on offer by the end of next year, with characters ranging from Peter Pan’s Tinker Bell to Anxiety from Inside Out 2. That’s not to mention the many, many knockoffs available online, as well as those sold by Primark, or the DIY pals that some creative TikTok users have been making.