I’m staring at a giant Furby mascot walking around the halls of NYC’s Javits Center for Toy Fair 2025. The next minute I’m being accosted by the flatulent sounds of a farting monster plush. There are hundreds of booths vying for my limited attention.
There’s a man on stilts at the Beanie Baby booth and a whistling echoing from the rafters, though I can’t figure out from where. This is the magic of Toy Fair, an annual expo and celebration of what’s next in playing around.
Some companies use toy shelf staples like superheroes or Disney Channel mascots, while others have learned that today’s kids are focused more on what’s happening online. Moose Toys had a large booth showing off their collabs with the Amazing Digital Circus and MrBeast, who are getting a new line of figures and animated shorts.
Meet Bonkers Toys, The People Who Brought Skibidi Toilet To Store Shelves
Tucked away in the corner of the hall is Bonkers Toys, a brand that’s quickly grown to one of the largest playmakers in the toy space by collaborating with content creators.
Founded in 2015, Bonkers was a small company under everyone’s radar until they had their first massive breakout success making blind boxes with Ryan’s World, the nearly 40 million subscriber toy opening channel. They went from a drop in the bucket of companies selling plush or plastic to one of the largest toy brands on the market. In 2021, the brand alone made $250 million, according to the NY Times.
According to Dan Meyer, Head of Marketing at Bonkers Toys, other companies failed to capture the audience of influencer fans “because they didn’t tap into the fandom.” That core fan base that watches every video, comments enthusiastically, and describes influencers by their first name is incredibly powerful, turning a brand into a supernova overnight.
Bonkers sells an array of toys, like blind boxes that include a random toy inside, rainbow-colored kitty cat plushes, and R/C controller toilets. Some of their top partners include LankyBox, a 40-million-subscriber variety channel, and Aphmau, a Minecraft creator with 23 million subscribers.
Then, of course, there’s the infamous Skibidi Toilet toys line. Drawn from the 45 million sub-animator DaFuq!?Boom!, Skibidi Toilet has become a minor phenomenon.
How do you turn a toilet-headed mascot into a toy line? By making toys featuring toilets with human heads that fight robots with alien heads. Then, you expand the brand with more traditional action figures and “battle buckets” of mini figures.
How Do Creators Get a Toy Line?
So how does Meyers choose which creators Bonkers Toys will collaborate with next? Meyer says that the company first dives into their fandoms. They check fan-generated content on social media, like engagement on hashtags or comments on Reddit. This helps ensure there’s an audience that’s hungry for merch.
One trick Meyer uses is to see how much bootleg merchandise there is for a creator on RedBubble. If there’s enough demand for fake stuff, there is clearly room for something legitimate. “We truly study it and become fans ourselves,” Meyer said. “What artwork, what characters, what design themes are resonating in sales? That’s a good measure.”
It’s also essential to ensure the influencer and their fans have a “level of authenticity” that fans connect with. There have been failed influencer toy lines, like 2014’s Tube Heroes. This line failed because it was based on already outdated Minecraft creators who didn’t promote the product.
Meyer wants to ensure the collaboration has “a connection to the brand DNA that’s much deeper than some other folks who might be trying to do this.” The goal isn’t just to slap a sticker on a box and hope for the best. Bonkers Toys seeks to really ingrain themselves into what a fandom is looking for.
From Meme to Skibidi Toilet Toys
Skibidi Toilet was an organic find where Meyer and his team had seen the “meme going around everywhere.” Bonkers managed to get into contact with Boom’s management team. “The deal came together rather quickly,” he said.
The collaboration has been a huge success. According to Bonkers, “SKIBIDI Toilet Mystery Toilet” has sold over 1,000 units on Amazon in the past month alone.
The main Skibidi Toilet head is actually a ripped asset from the video game series Half Life. That isn’t an issue when you are just making shit posts online. But it could be a real problem when you are trying to sell Toilet R/C cars and blind boxes. Meyer couldn’t comment on the legalities but acknowledged that the faces are “compliant and different.”
Selling these toys might be easy once they get into fans’ hands. However, first, Bonkers has to convince retailers and offline people why they matter. “We oftentimes say, ‘Do you have children?’ And if they say yes, we say, why don’t you text them and see if they know who this (creator) is? And that trick works a lot,” Meyer said.
Toys based on content creators are beating out traditional brands. MrBeast’s Swarms was a number-one bestseller on Amazon. Aphmau’s mystery plushes (from Bonkers) are a constant presence on the charts.
Though kids will always want a Spider-Man or Darth Vader action figure, Bonkers is betting on the growing market of influencer merch. According to Meyer, as long as it’s “a good fandom and we can translate the product into something toyetic,” it’s worth giving an influencer a shot.
You never know. The toilet meme of today may become the big toy of tomorrow.
