Dealing with a fan group, a fan group you like and respect, is wonderful and terrible and heartbreaking and rewarding, and it’s dramatic as hell. The fans giveth and they taketh away. I once spent a morning defusing a massive fan meltdown about a low supply of in-stock Corgis, only to discover a flattering piece of fan fiction about myself an hour later (wildly inaccurate, but still, flattering). That kind of thing stays with you.
When we release something the fans are into, their excitement is an instant high. We refresh the social media obsessively, reading each comment out loud and debating every piece of feedback. When we release something they don’t like and the outrage pours in, sometimes I just want to say, “Jeez guys, we’re doing the best we can! Stop being so darn mean to us; seriously, they’re only stuffed animals!”
And then I’ll get a note like this: “I honestly can’t express deeply enough how Crabby saved my life. He’s been there for me to relentlessly squish and hold on to throughout the absolute hardest times while I’ve been in the hospitals, recovery centre, etc. and he continues to be there while I fight and push through the daily struggles and pain. Having him has done so much for me and it’s all because he even existed due to Squishable and the lucky chance that I was the one to adopt him.”
And suddenly we feel horrible for not trying hard enough. When a superfan takes an unannounced hiatus, we’ve more than once scanned the news in her hometown to make sure that nothing unexpected has happened. We obsess about them, and make things for them, and try to please them, and feel like total and complete losers when we don’t. And in return, they’ve given us a business.
Things were simpler when we first started up in 2007. Boxes of Squishables filled the living room of our one-bedroom apartment, and I would draw frogs and flowers on each precious package before we carried it downstairs and over to the FedEx store two blocks away. The trick was to really wedge them under your armpits so the boxes on the top balanced out.
As we grew, we started noticing mystifying goings-on among some of our customers. Squishable-themed profiles like Mortimer the Mini Snail, AnonyMoose, Ambassador Bushybottom von Fuzzybutt, and the League of Extraordinary Squishiness popped up online. These customers drew pictures. They took photos. They drew pictures on their photos. They answered questions for newcomers before we even noticed them. They invented Squishable jargon to refer to their collections (a Lem is a Limited Edition Mini!). They made an unofficial “Trading Post” for swapping used Squishables, and started a Squishable book club. And what we couldn’t fathom was, some of them didn’t even own a Squishable.
As our business got bigger, some of the fans made cross-country pilgrimages to see our offices. They signed petitions to get us into conventions and toy stores. They took vacations to visit each other, and sent presents of baked goods and artwork and handmade jewelry. They raised money for charity. A lot of it. One set of fans created a formal committee to convince us to bring back a retired Squishable design, a Squishable Devil Bear. Their group had outreach campaigns. And hand-pressed buttons. We were convinced.
They told us when a product was right and when it was wrong, and they encouraged us to release things we never would have considered. “A Kitsune? What is that? A Japanese multitailed fox? Really? Well, all right, I guess we’re releasing it . . . oh, and now we’re completely sold out.”
If the Shiba Inu debacle of 2012 happened today, we would toss a second style through production without a thought. It’s been years since we’ve needed to budget on a style-by-style basis; these days, we can afford to be benevolent. When fans erupted with anger over the “happy-style” eyes on a mini crab design, we were able to run off a second batch with more tragic-looking eyes within a month. The happy-eyed crabs have since turned into a collectors’ item, which we feel a little smug about.
That wasn’t always the case, and it may not be again. Fandom evolves as the platforms that support it evolve. Already, Facebook’s ever-changing algorithm and interface mean we’re having very different interactions with present-day fans than even a year ago. Perhaps soon we’ll be using something different entirely.
And the fans themselves change too. Early fans who found us in middle school have long since graduated from college. Some are still with us, with collections that fill entire rooms and storage facilities, and in at least one case, a whole extra apartment. And some have moved on. We mourn them. “I wonder what happened to that girl who made that aquatic-Squishable–themed fan page. She was so talented. I miss her photos of narwhals stuck in trees,” we’ll say.
And we’ll feel nostalgic for a moment. And then we’ll get back to work, because we have this year’s Halloween party to plan, and fan designs to critique, and fan tweets to reply to, and fan emails to read. One lady writes to tell us that if we make a Squishable Pug, she will, like, literally tell ALL her friends, and they will TOTALLY buy a billion billion of them, I’m totally not even exaggerating you guys. She says.
Now, fan mail is not a contractually binding document; there’s the tiniest possibility that maybe, just maybe, she might be speaking from a place of enthusiasm rather than fiscal certainty. Dog-lovers—we have been bitten by them before. But then again, fans come up with some brilliant ideas.
A Pug? Well, all right, sure. Let’s give it a go.