On December 20, 2022, Roskachestvo presented the results of its expert assessment of Huggy Wuggy toys. The research team from the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Contemporary Childhood at Moscow State University of Psychology & Education (MSUPE) was asked to address the following questions:

• How do Huggy Wuggy toys influence the play of preschool and early school-age children?
• How are these toys perceived by preschool and primary school children, educators, and parents?

We invite you to review some of the study’s findings.
A distinctive feature of contemporary children’s subculture is the abundance of frightening motifs. What is scary for a child is not only a negative factor. It allows children to experience and work through their fears by objectifying them—giving them a concrete frightening image—and thus gaining mastery over their fear. For this reason, scary toys occupy an important place in children’s subculture: they provide an emotional jolt and help children live through fear by engaging with the frightening. At the same time, children’s play should not be reduced solely to interaction with “scary” toys. On the contrary, their set of play characters should be as diverse as possible, enabling them to explore different images and enact a wide variety of play scenarios.
On YouTube, videos featuring the Huggy Wuggy character have become widespread. These videos have no relation to the storyline of the original computer game; instead, they include calls for aggressive behavior that come exclusively from the video creators. The study suggests that the image of Huggy Wuggy carries a certain negative emotional load. This tendency appears to stem from the fact that the vast majority of children learn about Huggy Wuggy through YouTube videos, where negative information about the game’s content and this character is presented in a highly affective way. Given the background of the Poppy Playtime computer game, which has no formal age restrictions, parents should be vigilant and limit their children’s exposure to frightening or disturbing digital content.
The empirical study indicates that the popularity of Huggy Wuggy toys is primarily linked to peer influence and the “trendiness” of the toy. An interesting finding is that even children who are aware of the Poppy Playtime storyline almost never use it in their own play. Children’s play with Huggy Wuggy toys does not differ from their play with other soft toys. This fact is confirmed by survey data from both parents and educators. Educators and parents generally view Huggy Wuggy negatively, considering the character’s appearance and backstory to be inappropriate. Parents tend to be especially categorical in their judgment. At the same time, about half of the parents acknowledge that “evil” characters also exist in traditional Russian folklore, and that children’s play should include both positive and negative heroes.

Reed the full article: Klopotova, E.E., Smirnova, S.Y., Tokarchuk, Y.A., Rubtsova, O.V. (2023). Preschoolers’ Perception of Monster Toys (on the Example of Huggy Wuggy). Psychological Science and Education, 28(1), 85–96. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17759/pse.2023280104