Consumer Infantilization

How Adulthood Became Optional in the Age of Nostalgia

In a world where it’s normal for 40-year-olds to proudly display shelves of action figures, wear cartoon-themed pajamas, and refer to themselves as being in a “second childhood,” it’s worth asking a difficult question:

Are we actually growing up, or just getting older?

Over the past decade, something strange has crept into mainstream culture. It’s more than just fandom or hobbyism. It’s a subtle shift in how adulthood is understood, and increasingly, avoided.

Welcome to the age of consumer infantilization: a cultural and economic system that actively encourages adults to cling to childlike behaviors, aesthetics, and identities, not because it’s healthy or meaningful, but because it’s profitable.

What Is Consumer Infantilization?

Consumer infantilization is the process by which industries, media, and marketing narratives shape adult identity around childhood nostalgia and consumption-driven pleasure.

In this world, adulthood isn’t a stage of growth, it’s just childhood with a credit card.

You’re not a grown-up because you’re responsible, wise, or invested in the future.

You’re a grown-up because you can finally afford the $600 LEGO set you never got as a kid.

From Toys to Totems

A figure or two on a shelf as a nod to your past? That’s nostalgia. That’s human.

But step into many adult homes today and you’ll find walls lined with dozens, sometimes hundreds, of action figures, plush toys, or collectibles. The living space begins to look less like a home and more like a curated memory vault.

What’s being displayed isn’t just taste, it’s identity.

“This isn’t a decoration. This is who I am.”

It’s not play… it’s preservation.

Not growth… but emotional retreat into a time before responsibility, hardship, or consequence.

The Economy of Extended Adolescence

Make no mistake, this shift isn’t an accident. It’s being engineered.

Brands have realized that selling to adults who behave like children is a goldmine:

• Nostalgia sells, especially when adult life feels unstable or unfulfilling

• Products are designed not for utility or legacy, but for comfort and dopamine hits

• Corporations frame consumption as self-care: “You deserve to indulge your inner child”

Even basic adult products are infantilized, from cartoon-covered bed sheets, to brightly colored smartphones, to food packaged like it’s aimed at six-year-olds.

Infantilization by Design

Social media platforms, especially Reddit and TikTok, reinforce this trend. Criticize it, and you're met with defensive mantras like:

“Why should I give up something I love just because I'm older?”

What seems like harmless joy is often emotional regression defended as identity.

And those who suggest growing up, not in bitterness, but in purpose, are often mocked, labeled as joyless, bitter, or toxic.

Adulthood isn’t the villain here. Adulthood is what allows culture, families, and nations to function and flourish. It's what builds, protects, and provides.

Why It Matters

At scale, this isn't just quirky, it’s dangerous.

When a society begins to reframe maturity as oppression and equate joy with childlike consumption, it produces:

• A population less interested in responsibility

• Citizens less engaged in civic life

• Adults less capable of sacrifice, discipline, and leadership

You can’t run a civilization with everyone emotionally stuck in the sandbox.

Dopamine Nation and the Infantilizing of Society

• Buying is healing

• Nostalgia is therapy

• Permanent adolescence is more lucrative than maturity

We've all felt it.

The dopamine hit. That wave of fleeting satisfaction when you buy something you covet. It might be something you’ve wanted for years or something you just saw online and had to have.

But what happens when that feeling becomes addictive?

Take action figure collecting for example, one of the clearest illustrations of dopamine-driven adult consumption.

Some collectors go overboard. A completionist mentality takes over. The hunt becomes the high: finding the figure, clicking “Buy Now,” fantasizing about the pose or the shelf spot it’ll fill. But then…

The box arrives. Still sealed. Days pass. Weeks. It just sits there… unopened, unneeded.

The dirty little secret is that global brands and marketers count on this. They know how to push the lustful buttons of the emotionally underdeveloped consumer. And when it comes to nostalgia-driven products, it’s easy.

X-Men? You need the whole team. Even if you hate Dazzler.

GI Joe? You can't be a “real fan” if you're missing Shipwreck.

Hot Toys? Now you’re dropping $300 per figure and calling it self-care.

And just when you think you’re done, there's another wave of plastic figures being released for preorder.

The Second Hit: Social Dopamine

Once you’ve bought the figure, the cycle continues with social validation.

It’s the dopamine of Instagram likes and Reddit karma. You start posing your figures. You want clicks. You want admiration. You tell yourself you need just one more to finish the scene in your head… a new figure, a better accessory, another preorder. The endless need for what's next.

And just like that, you’re not just collecting anymore. You’re chasing.

“I just need this one to complete the shelf.”

“I’m doing a photo series.”

“I deserve this.”

The figures keep coming. The shelves get heavier. Your bank account gets lighter.

And your social life gets quieter.

Plastic Statues and Private Regret

Not everyone shares those perfect poses online. Scroll through Reddit and you’ll find collectors opening up about burnout, guilt, and regret. Some post photos of unopened shipping boxes stacked by the door, figures ordered months ago and never even opened.

From Reddit

The truth is, many are realizing they weren’t chasing joy. They were chasing a feeling. And the feeling never lasts.

For some, it becomes an addiction, not to the toys, but to the dopamine hit of buying them. And the corporations? They exploit this pattern, frame it as empowerment, and turn emotional avoidance into billion-dollar revenue.

“You deserve to feel good.”

“Indulge your inner child.”

“Reclaim your joy… through plastic.”

And when someone raises concerns? The apologists rush in:

“If it makes you happy, what’s the harm?”

“I couldn’t afford these as a kid, so I’m healing.”

It’s the same language every addict uses.

Reclaiming Joy Without Regression

Let’s be clear: this isn’t a call to throw away everything fun or nostalgic. There’s no shame in keeping a figure that brings you real joy. The problem begins when nostalgia stops being a lens for reflection and becomes a prison of regression.

So how do we break the cycle?

Reframe Nostalgia as Memory, Not Identity

That figure from your childhood? Keep it. Just don’t become it.

Honor the memory — don’t live in it.

Shift from Collecting to Creating

Instead of chasing dopamine hits, build something:

• Photograph with purpose (and with what you have)

• Write, sculpt, customize

• Use your fandom to make, not just to buy

Redefine Adulthood as Power, Not Restriction

Adulthood isn’t about losing wonder, it’s about directing it.

Maturity is not the death of fun. It’s the foundation of meaning.

Find Joy in Community, Not Consumption

When collecting stops being about status and starts being about sharing, the stories, the memories, the struggles, it becomes something human again. Not a coping mechanism. Not a compulsion. But connection.

Outgrowing the Loop

Consumer infantilization is profitable. It’s easy. It feels good… until it doesn’t.

But you’re not powerless. You’re not broken because you loved something deeply. You’re only stuck if you stop evolving.

You can still love Batman.

You can still keep your shelf.

But maybe… just maybe… you also build something bigger than it.

Because adulthood isn’t the end of joy. It’s the beginning of real joy. Joy you didn’t have to buy.

Besides… do you real want to be a manchild your entire life? Those who put the plastic before their responsibilities to their family, are clearly the definition of that term. So for them…