What happened? The answer isn’t one thing. It’s everything.
Funko built its empire on mass nostalgia - the idea that you could hold a tiny piece of your favorite show, movie, or game. And for a while, it worked brilliantly. From Marvel to The Office to anime to K-pop, every niche became a shelf. But the problem with mass nostalgia is that it ages quickly. What happens when there are too many tiny Batmen, too many Spider-Men, too many limited editions that aren’t actually limited?
Collectors changed. The new generation doesn’t want 400 Pops in boxes they’ll never open. They want a few things that feel personal, handmade, or rare. They’re buying boutique art toys, high-end statues, and even AI-generated collectibles that don’t exist in physical form at all. The thrill is no longer in quantity but in meaning.
The biggest irony is that Funko’s real audience was never kids. It was adults - the “kidults,” the nostalgic millennials who grew up with VHS tapes and early YouTube. But even that market has fractured. Those fans are now spending on LEGO’s adult line, on designer vinyls, on experiences rather than things.
And the company knows it. Earlier this year, Funko made headlines for destroying millions of unsold Pops to clear warehouse space. It’s a tragic image - the physical symbol of a fad outpacing itself. You can’t claim exclusivity when your products end up in a landfill.
The truth is, pop culture itself doesn’t work the same way anymore. When Funko exploded, we were living in the golden age of shared fandoms. Everyone was watching the same blockbusters and binging the same Netflix hits. You could sell a Pop to almost anyone because the references were universal. Now, fandom has splintered. It lives on Discord servers, in niche subreddits, and on TikTok accounts with twenty thousand devoted followers. There’s no single pop-culture center anymore, and that’s a nightmare for a brand that built itself on mass recognition.
That’s why Funko’s next big bet - the K-pop Demon Hunters line- feels risky. It might succeed, but it also might expose just how fragile the model has become. The collectibles world is crowded with cooler, fresher options: Super7, Mighty Jaxx, and endless indie creators making toys that feel like art pieces instead of plastic replicas.
Still, for all the cynicism, I can’t fully dismiss Funko. There’s something endearing about those little vinyl heads, about how they captured a moment in pop history when fandom felt simple. The few Pops I kept are the ones that remind me of why I collected in the first place: the thrill of a drop, the sense of belonging, the joy of unboxing a tiny version of a character I loved.
Maybe that’s what collecting should be again - not hoarding, not flipping for profit, just holding onto the things that make you smile.
Funko’s future will depend on whether it can adapt to that shift, from mass production to emotional connection. But even if the brand fades, its impact won’t. It taught a generation how to participate in pop culture, how to display what they loved, and how to make fandom tangible.
And maybe now, as the walls of Pops start to come down, we’re just learning that loving something doesn’t mean owning every version of it. Sometimes, a few well-chosen favorites are enough.