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Has collecting anik-anik to heal our inner child lost its meaning?

Published Nov 05, 2024 7:40 pm

Every week, PhilSTAR L!fe explores issues and topics from the perspectives of different age groups, encouraging healthy but meaningful conversations on why they matter. This is Generations by our Gen Z columnist Angel Martinez.

Tucked under my bed is an old shoebox, filled to the brim with tokens and trinkets that the cover no longer fits right. Most of its contents have now been rendered useless. There’s the museum brochure for an exhibit that ended five years ago, the sticker from a cafe I frequented in college losing its sheen and stickiness, the three-part palanca letter from a stranger who was once my grade school best friend, all swimming in a sea of seemingly meaningless souvenirs. But together, they make up the parts of my life worth remembering. 

I used to think that my adamant refusal to dispose of them could be chalked up to my Cancerian sentimentality. But this is simply anik-anik culture at work. Long before the term made rounds on social media, it has been an integral part of our collective cultural identity. “We Filipinos deal with this gripping feeling of ‘sayang’ as we deal with having to discard objects,” anthropology professor Szusza Velasco tells PhilSTAR L!fe. “Think about our plastic or paper shopping bag collections or the food containers we reuse.”

Practicality aside, Velasco points out that we have “a penchant for sentimentality.” Various items are not just meant to decorate and color our spaces but provide documentation of a life well lived. “Part of it is also fandom-driven, which has existed for a long time but has now become globalized, mainstream, and therefore ‘acceptable.’” Over the years, these have expanded to include what are called “blind box toys”: newfangled bunnies, butt naked babies, and beasts that are only unveiled to the buyer once opened. The dopamine rush linked to the experience has been likened to winning at a casino slot machine, which just proves the effectiveness of uncertainty marketing tactics as a consumer engagement strategy.

Presumably geared towards younger audiences, these toys have found an unexpected home in working professionals seeking to heal their inner child. I’m sure we’ve all seen—and even related to—a social media user’s viral video, where he dropped by a toy store and got himself a bunch of Harry Potter paraphernalia. While some Internet users were quick to criticize how he rewarded himself, it’s actually a psychologically sound method.

“We all process our past experiences in different ways. For some people, buying what they were deprived of as kids now that they have the means to do so is considered healing. For others, it might just be getting to try something that you never had the opportunity to,” psychologist Riyan Portuguez explains to L!fe.

“These are physical manifestations of how an individual has progressed in life. For us Filipinos, it’s important that we share how we achieved our dreams and celebrate the realization of these dreams with others,” former marketing professor and now marketing consultant JB Bolaños adds.

But like any trend that reaches critical mass, the richness of anik-anik culture has been distorted and distilled into an online microidentity. “What we collect serves as an extension of ourselves. Not only do they satisfy what we deem as our ‘ideal selves,’ but they also communicate to the world how we want to be seen,” Portuguez says. That’s why social media feeds are saturated with self-proclaimed “anik-anik girls,” who show off their extensive collections in pristine plexiglass cases and stage photoshoots to be enjoyed by their sizable following. Each sticker, figurine, and keychain adorning a certain space is meant to symbolize their cultural cachet and prove the owner has all the resources needed to sustain an ever-growing collection.

Unfortunately, this means that a practice that once had little to no barriers to entry is now being infiltrated by the ones who are just going with the trend. Such cycles in and out of the public eye, with people holding “quitting sales” for their Sonny Angels or Sylvanian Bunnies to make way for the newest Pop Mart collectibles.

Prices have soared to keep up with the unprecedented demand, with Labubus seeing a 300% increase in resale fees after BLACKPINK’s Lisa posted them on her Instagram story. Celebrities like Marian Rivera are now seen posing with their new fuzzy friends or clipping them to their designer apparel. Fans and fellow collectors have justified their right to spend their hard-earned money however they please, but some say these displays are done in poor taste.

Marian Rivera with her Labubus

How ironic is it that a habit we developed to eliminate potential waste is adding even more of it to the world? How can we say we’re showcasing our creativity and individuality if we’re hopping on the bandwagon and blending into the background?

Anik-anik culture now seems to no longer be a matter of how well we can repurpose or ascribe meaning to what’s already available to us, but how much we can spend on new items even when it’s no longer financially or environmentally sustainable. Objects are no longer collected over time, but bought in bulk, paraded around, and sold once the sparks have gone—which is not what the movement was meant to be about. 

“I believe that crafting and collecting things ourselves makes us realize the incredible labor, time, and skill involved in making them,” Velasco says. “Anik-anik like old bus tickets or keychains, unused yarn, scraps, broken cables, and personal ephemera can also be used to create new artwork. With this, old items are reimagined into interesting art objects with new meaning.” The “participatory atmosphere” of congregating in such spaces with fellow collectors is a feeling that simply can’t be replicated by the endless loop of online buying, selling, and trading.

Honestly, I don’t intend to police the act of collecting nor am I forcing everyone to grow up and forget about the child within. I’m human—I, too, give in to the temptations of consumerism, as evidenced by the number of concerts I went to this year to avenge Little Angel.

“There is no waste to start with because the purchase itself gave a person a feeling of instant satisfaction, fulfillment, or whatever it may be,” Bolaños says. “If you are able to sustain [your hobby] beyond the infatuation stage, then you can make it your passion. You might even say that you’re really in love with it.”

“But buying products is not the only facet of healing our inner child. In fact, if we don’t take care, it might end up being a mere band-aid solution,” Portuguez argues. “Now that the concept of our ‘inner child’ is becoming increasingly popular, brands pick up on this and sell us the idea that this is the solution [to our problems]. In reality, healing our inner child is an integrative process that requires long-term commitment and a lot of internal work to understand how you can thrive as a person today based on what you went through in the past.”

I think it’s worth interrogating what there is to us beyond the tangibles we own. Do we derive actual enjoyment from purchasing more than what is necessary, or is the fear of missing out the only thing trapping us in this vicious cycle? When are our collections a signifier of who we truly are, rather than what we want to be seen as? Take away all the toys we couldn’t afford back then—what would your past self have needed help with? 

The anik-aniks we amass were never meant to be the sole basis of our personality, after all, but a tool for self-discovery. What do the objects we hold on to say about our interests and our fixations? What do we romanticize, what do we treasure, what do we believe is worth keeping and flaunting? The answers will reveal that it was never the ephemera, but the experiences attached to them that form part of who we are.

Generations by Angel Martinez appears weekly at PhilSTAR L!fe.