This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s senior fall editorial intern Dalal Daher. Find her on Instagram at @dalalllldaher. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
I grew up in the suburbs. The thing about that is you have to get quite creative with how you entertain yourself, so throughout high school, among other activities, my friends and I would wander the aisles of Target aimlessly, chatting and hanging out. This isn’t a unique phenomenon. On social media, people often post about their couple target runs, secret Target finds, and more. But there’s one element of the American cultural Target obsession that feels quite wrong to me- how much kids nowadays are obsessed with Target!
Why does everybody love Target so much? And why do kids love it so much?
I’ve noticed over the past few years more and more children expressing a love for Target on social media. Whether it’s vloggers mentioning offhand how much their kids love the retailer, or videos of the kids’ excitement themselves, it just surprised me how much toddlers and little kids adored the brand. As a child back in the 2000’s, I don’t recall hearing about my friends loving Target, and I personally didn’t register going there as a core memory, even if I was neutral to the experiences.
TikToker Erika Council argues that it’s because traditional toy stores like Toys-R-Us are closed, and that one of the only places a child can see toys in person is at Target, making it a more desirable location to them. This explanation makes sense to me, even if it is sad. In an age where malls are declining and toys are competing with tablets (and losing), weirdly, Target becomes a wonderland for kids even as their parents view strolling through the aisles as a fun activity.
Upon one of my most recent trips to Target, I realized what was rubbing me the wrong way was more than how obsessed children were with the idea of shopping there. Amongst the regular Halloween decorations of Target shopping carts and their mascot Bullseye, I spotted something shocking: Target toy sets for kids for them to pretend to be cashiers at the company! They even have a tiny Target shopping cart for children.
Don’t get me wrong. I also had a cashier toy set growing up. The key difference is it was not a branded shopping cart or toy set. I think there’s a fundamental distinction between kids growing up playing a make-believe cashier role with toys that could be from anywhere, versus cosplaying a Target cashier at age three. The whole point of those toys was to practice social skills, imagination, and creativity. You could pretend to be a store clerk on Mars or at your own little boutique- whereas a Target toy set sucks a lot of the imagination out of the process.
Not only do I find it a little disturbing that Target is glamorizing a job at their company to little kids, and intertwining it with their concept of fun so that they are indoctrinated to like the company even as adults, but that the popularity of such items reflects a loss of creativity in our society. Most kids love shopping for toys, but the point is to love the toys, and the experience of picking them out, not the store itself.
I feel like the popularity of Target among children shows how the up-and-coming American generation, Generation Alpha, has had a lived experience increasingly indistinguishable from over consumerism. From Sephora kids who fiend for expensive skincare before hitting puberty (which is actually harmful to their skin), to iPad kids who are addicted to screens since birth, the Generation Alpha experience feels too adultified. While it’s not their fault at all, it feels like their main toy is consumption, electronics and trends.
At risk of sounding like a decrepit, out of touch old soul, I have childhood memories of playing with toys whose make-believe stories I can recall fondly, but whose brand I couldn’t tell you. I would play with electronics like a Wii or Nintendo but I also had regular toys that I was inseparable from. I feel like the balance of electronics and imagination-based toys for Zillennials was much more even, and not about the department store we shopped at but rather how much I liked the toy.
Our cultural fascination with Target is a facet of American consumerism, but it saddens me how much it’s trickled down to children. The idea of selling toys that enable a kid’s obsession with your brand and indoctrinate the idea of working for you as palatable from a young age feels unfair and wrong. Everybody has the right to like Target, especially in the decline of other in-person retailers, but I don’t think kids should be raised to be as obsessed with it.
What do you think? Why does everybody love Target? Is it getting out of hand? Let us know in the comments!
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