Lee Sung-ha builds Legos for hours after work. The tiny plastic bricks are not just a pastime for the 32-year-old copywriter. His mind flies back to the time when life was simple, joyful and free from stress.
“That is the only moment when I can fully relax from all the stress factors like work and marriage concerns,” Lee says.
Lee, unmarried, spends some 500,000 won ($448) on Legos and other toys every month and says the investment always pays off. The collections help him relive the pure childhood pleasure he lost while growing up.
He may be one of the “kidults,” or adults with kids’ hobbies, who have emerged since the mid-2000s as a distinct sociocultural phenomenon and an important marketing target for consumer and entertainment businesses.
Customers look at action figures at I’Park Mall in Yongsan, central Seoul. (I’Park Mall)
Legos, die-cast car models, and miniature World War II Tiger tanks are among their favorites.
“It was love at first sight,” Kim Sung-wan, 39, recalls of his first experience with Legos at his friend’s home when he was a child.
“It was fascinating to build so many things with these small blocks and be able to take them apart to build even more things.”
That’s still the case for Kim, who currently heads an on and offline Lego community, Bricksworld.
Cultivating juvenile tastes, those people are often considered just grown-ups in body but kids in mind. But many of them have busy lives with adult responsibilities, respectable jobs and sometimes children of their own.
Kidult entrepreneur Hwang Jae-ho disagrees with the terminology.
“Why call us half kid and half adult? We’re normal people just trying to enjoy our hobbies, as much as anyone else,” he says.
“And how is spending $1,000 on golf irons respectable while spending the same amount of money on plastic World War II battleships isn’t?”
Kidult consumers are not simply adults who purchase kid products, says Jay Shim, vice president and chief marketing officer of Walt Disney Company Korea.
“We no longer limit animation or character content as children’s exclusive property. In the case of collectible figures, their degree of perfection is comparable to that of collection items and art pieces.”
Men and women now tired of living up to the demands of the modern corporate world ― keep working, don’t sleep, and don’t whine about it ― are turning to kidult products to remind them that life should have its share of fun.
“I think many people in their 30s and 40s are returning to childhood hobbies they had abandoned for financial and personal reasons. People in that age bracket now have the social independence to pursue those kinds of hobbies. Nostalgia also plays a big role,” says Kim.
The increasing search for a unique identity and consequent encouragement given to formerly quiet individuals to open up their interests also explains the growth of kidult culture, according to Han Sang-ki, founder of the think tank Institute of Social Computing.
The up tick in the number of social gatherings that focus on Lego, Gundam models, radio-controlled toys, miniature figurines, and Disney characters can be attributed to this trend.
A model enthusiast looks at a radio-controlled boat at I’Park Mall in Yongsan, central Seoul. (I’Park Mall)
To some, this is an art.
“To be good at it, you must divest hours, weeks and months of your time, money and effort,” says Min Kyung-chan, a 38-year-old plastic model hobbyist.
Some plastic model buyers do historical research to perfect the finishing touches on their replicas. After buying a World War II German Panzer tank plastic model, one buyer researched the designs and layout of the 1940s armored vehicle so that he could paint the tank with the precise colors.
These enthusiasts are a new class of experts, says Park Kyu-sang, a professor of sociology at Gachon University.
“They are the pioneers in these fields. By extensively researching, buying and otherwise stimulating related industries they are generating externalities that create jobs, better market information, and higher-quality products.”
The coming of Hollywood blockbusters about formerly obscure and “nerdy” comic-book heroes such as Ironman, Batman and Superman helped to push kidult culture into the spotlight in Korea, says Hwang. Korean hobbyists benefited because topics that were obscure and even shunned came to be considered “cool” and attractive.
“I think this growth represents a deeper understanding people here in Korea have in terms of diversity, mutual respect and tolerance towards difference,” Min says. “People are becoming more open and accepting.”
Everyone has a fundamental incentive to show off and look for people who have similar interests, adds Hwang.
“Just look at Facebook. Random people talk about, really, nothing. But still, people like showing friends what they did today, what they are thinking about at the moment, what they ate for lunch, and other trivial things.
“Kidults are no different. They have interests that they want to share with friends, no matter how seemingly frivolous.”
By Jeong Hunny and Lee Ji-yoon
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hj257@heraldcorp.com) (jylee@heraldcorp.com)