If you keep up with TikTok trends, you have probably heard of the new craze that is taking teenagers by storm: NeeDohs. A fidget toy from a relatively small manufacturing toy company is now sold out in most stores. A toy designed to reduce stress is now causing stress to find it.
“I’ve known about them for a while, like before they were viral and ticked out. I used to always find them at Walmart,” Madalynn Moore (11) said.
NeeDohs have been around since 2010 but have recently been given new life on TikTok. The trend started a few months ago, going store to store searching for the highly desirable item. This trend is commonly known as squishy hunting.
“I go squishy hunting frequently. I go to all these different stores to find ones,” Moore said. “I go to Target, Walmart, Cracker Barrel and Five Below. If you go after like 30 minutes after a store opens you’re not going to get one.”
With the trend expanding so has the need, and with stores selling out quickly, TikToks have spread trying to inform others when stores restock that toy so people have a chance of getting one.
“I called Cracker Barrel when I asked them if they had any NeeDohs left and they said yes and I asked them to keep it on hold and they said they couldn’t do that,” Brooklyn Giesler (11) said. “So I drove really fast and when I got there, I parked in the middle of the street and I ran inside and I bought the last NeeDoh. It was a really glorious day for me.”
The NeeDoh comes in many variants, like the Dream Drop, the Gumdrop and the most popular, the Iceberg. Even with the difficulty of many not being able to find one NeeDoh, many have made it a mission to find every type of the toy.
“I was going to Target to get the Ice cream NeeDoh. I saw they had some and I was going to get the ice cream, and the girl just grabbed the whole box,” Moore said. “All 12 of them. And I was like, ‘Hey, can I have one?’ and she said no.”
The NeeDoh was made to reduce stress, but it has been shown to help some students focus while in school. With the new ban on phones students, have used fidget toys to stimulate their brains instead of their phones.
“It kind of just gives me something to do with my hands because like usually I have my phone, but now I don’t. So now I just fiddle with that instead,” Moore said.
While it started as a trend on TikTok, students share that it might have a lasting effect on their everyday lives.
“I feel very emotionally attached to mine,” Giesler said. “I feel like if someone were to pop it, I would cry. If I don’t have it, I feel like I can’t focus as much.”
