These cute little cuddly toys are all based on the shape of real microbes that you've probably come across (or not). The best sellers from GiantMicrobes include: "The Common Cold, The Flu, Sore Throat, Stomach Ache, Brain Cell, E. coli, Kissing Disease, Ulcer, Martian Life, Beer & Bread, Black Death, Ebola, Flesh Eating, Sleeping Sickness, Dust Mite, Bed Bug, Bookworm, and many more!" The categories for each type of microbe are enticing too... choose from calamities, exotics, infirmaries and maladies, to name a few.I like the way they all look so cute with their little beady eyes, almost pleading to be taken home. They're supposed to be educational too, so what more could you want? It's a purely personal opinion of course, but I think I would prefer to see these toys in someone's home than a large collection of dolls or teddy bears, which I find slightly twee when adults have them.
5 comments:
There was something in the newspaper about these a while ago - it was about the std collection and using them educationally. I don't really see how that works as some of those are quite cute, unlike the real thing. Perhaps there is a market for them as breaking-up presents?
Yes, that's true - I wonder how they are supposed to be educational? If it's to make kids wash their hands and be ultra-hygienic to avoid germs, the toys are too cute for that, as you say. Unless they're meant to instil wonderment at the hidden excitement of modern science and the natural environment or something.
I can't imagine all parents being universally thrilled if you gave one as a present to their young kids though, as the sentiment behind them seems a bit too dark. Unless the parents were scientists or medics maybe? I can imagine them selling in Forbidden Planet but not Hamleys, for some reason.
As microbes are living things, they are part of a romantically beautiful concept, just as garden roses or human beings, or so I was told at a lecture at Art College.
Plush toy microbes? I'm not sure, though if embryo cells could be seen as art by Helen Chadwick there's no reason why microbes shouldn't be seen as art by toy designers...
Hi Helen, yes, maybe that would be true if you were a Buddhist or something. The aesthetic qualities would also be charming if you were an artist, I guess!
I suppose I like them from a sociological point of view really. A modern version of Victorian deadly miasmas. I was wondering what scientists who actually work with microbes think of them, but I've never met any microbiologists before so can't really find out at the moment...
I know a scientist - I'll ask her when I see her, she works on models of the gut. Smelly.
I think it's quite cute, especially as we seem to have a cuddly-everything else. I mean really - a cuddly spider? a cuddly great white shark? a cuddly crocodile?
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