Sock 'Em Boppers

If you ever wondered what the 90s were really like, allow me to present to you the concept of child on child violence disguised as fun. Whether it was something like "dodgeball" in PE or everyones favorite pseudo boxing gloves here, child on child violence was a very real thing when I was growing up. But, despite baby fights being something we had to deal with, these hold a special place in my heart for just how goddamned goofy they are.

Clearly the marketing team behind this figured, "Well, we can't just openly say we wanna see kids beat the shit out of one another senselessly, so how about we make them oversized and ridiculously colored?" and it clearly worked, because this is the design we got. And the commercials sold them as being wildly fun, with a vibe that I can only describe as rivaling that of WWE but for children. I'm not even kidding, the commercials for these are insanely over the top, even for the 90s. Don't believe me? Watch one for yourself and tell me you don't wanna go back in time when it was socially acceptable to fight your peers for fun while your parents cheered you on.

See what I mean, now? They made this look like you're just hitting your best friend with something that resembles a balloon, but believe me, that isn't the case. I mean, for god sakes, their tagline is "More fun than a pillow fight!", which I can assuredly say is NOT true. At least a pillow fight doesn't break your teeth from impact. These things will ruin your face, trust me. So that's pretty misleading, honestly, right out the gate. Oddly enough, I discovered during my research (and by research I mean reading the Wikipedia page) that these fucking things have been around since the 70s, paining children for 20 years before they ever reached my peers. Evil sure is hard to kill, guys.

Also, apparently in 2002, Mattel sued them over the name for 1 million dollars, claiming it infringed on their toy "Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots" which, frankly, is just ridiculous. That's about as frivolous a lawsuit as one can have. First of all, Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots are even older than Sock 'Em Boppers, so why did it take them until 2002 to finally decide to litigate? Secondly, I'm sick of this idea that you can copyright a completely nonsensical made up word, and it's not even a single word, it's just a mash up abbreviation of two different normal words. Absolutely ridiculous.

That being said, that's why they're now called Socker Boppers, which is an even stupider name, because they have absolutely nothing to do with Socker (even though it isn't spelt the same) and you use these on your hands, not your feet. I mean, I don't deny there's likely some little asshole kid who used these on his feet and went buckwild about it, but that doesn't by any means make it an okay thing to do. And honestly, aside from all of that, the name Socker Boppers just sounds plain stupid anyway. Mattel clearly got too big for their britches, and it shows.

I never owned a pair of these personally, but I knew a few people who did, and they were a popular toy to use during playdates, because children have a ton of aggression, especially against other children. Probably helped their parents, because it wore the kid out, but I don't really see the appeal in bopping the shit out of your best friend Dave's face for an hour straight. Unless Dave was the kind of kid who wouldn't trade Halloween candy with you, then it's entirely justifiable. That's just a dick move, and thus Dave deserves to have justice socked upon him, albeit in the goofiest least violent way possible.

The 90s were nothing but vaporwave and violence. No wonder so many people want to go back to it. That's a winning combination, right there, if video games like Hotline Miami has taught us anything.

I'd also like to acknowledge how hypocritical our parents were. They told us over and over again not to hurt one another and not fight with our brothers or sisters and that violence solves nothing and yet they bought us things like Sock 'Em Boppers and Nerf Guns. I guess if you can disguise violence in bright colors and goofy names then it somehow makes it more acceptable. If you can market and sell it to children, then it's especially acceptable, because let's face it, most adults see children as nothing more than mere parasitic leeches to their parents host bank account. These companies will sell children anything, even if under any other circumstances it wouldn't be acceptable. That's how they get away with selling dolls with serious eating disorders and plastic surgery to little girls at an impressionable enough age that it fucks them up even more than they likely already were.

Isn't childhood just full of fun things?