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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/Upbeat_Ruin on 2024-07-01 22:53:47+00:00.

CW: This post will be discussing finger injuries. Also, if you look into my sources, you may run into some gnarly photos of bleeding fingertips, torn fingernails, and sobbing little girls. If that’s going to be a problem, you might wanna skip this post.

MGA Entertainment (henceforth referred to as MGA) is a massive toy company operating out of Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1979 and owned by Isaac Larain, the multibillion-dollar company operates as a sort of rival to Mattel and, to a lesser extent, Hasbro. IPs under their wing include but are not limited to: Bratz, LaLaLoopsy, Little Tikes, Rainbow High, the ill-fated Miniverse (that one might be a Hobby Drama post for another day), and the stupidly popular LOL Surprise. Do you know that weird Poopsie Slime Surprise unicorn that Moistcritikal made a video about a few years ago? Yeah, MGA owns that, too.

Anyway, LOL Surprise is a line of creepy bug-eyed, kissy-lipped, scantily dressed dolls that usually come in what I describe as “blind pods” - you have to open a container and unwrap lots of layers of packaging to reveal the goodies. They often have extra gimmicks like being buried in kinetic sand or revealing a new outfit when dipped in water. Described by MGA as “the perfect unboxing toy,” it capitalizes on Gen Alpha’s obsession with “surprise” blind bag toys, unboxing videos, and Youtube. And oh boy, they struck platinum with this one. Despite being introduced only recently in 2016, the brand has exploded in popularity and it doesn’t show any signs of stopping soon. It’s everywhere, on everything they can slap a licensed character on.

You’ll notice in this post that I’m not particularly kind with how I describe LOL Surprise or MGA, and well, I’ll admit that I don’t like this IP or company. I’m creeped out by how sexualized these toddler-proportioned dolls are, how much plastic waste all this gacha shit generates, and how it’s promoting mindless consumerism and iPad babery. The kids who are into LOL Surprise lose interest in the trinkets very quickly, since they’re designed for a fleeting moment of gratification after the toy is unwrapped, with little regard for staying value. I hate how they claim to be all about diversity, but each doll has perfect skin and perfect proportions and “diversity” accounts to mainly just making them in various shades of brown. So diverse…when they’re not stealing designs from Black artists, that is. These dolls are everything your parents hated about Bratz on steroids.

But that’s not why we’re here today. I’m mean to MGA in this post because I honestly believe this company does not GAF about child safety. And you will soon see why.

In the winter of 2019, LOL Surprise rolled out their big-ticket item for the Christmas season that was sure to end up on millions of kids’ lists. It was a “2-1 Glamper”so your dollies could go glamorously camping in a luxury van. Innocuous enough, and at least that has some replayability. The “2-1” part refers to how you could open the vehicle up into a playset. And that’s where the problem came from.

This feature was operated by pressing a button in a hole on the bottom of the camper, which would open the panels. I must stress this for later: the toy was intentionally designed this way. Children were instructed to insert their fingers into this hole to press the button inside. But apparently, you couldn’t press it too hard. A lot of children (and a few parents) found this out the hard way when they inserted their fingers into the hole to push the button and got their fingers stuck between two plastic panels that moved in opposite directions. The finger and the panels couldn’t be moved without extreme pain, often leading to lost circulation, cut skin, and torn fingernails. In most cases, the fire department or paramedics had to be called to saw the toy off of the victim’s hand. That’s one Christmas these poor kids will never forget.

Concerned consumers were quick to report the issue. Articles about the Glamper’s clamper ran on the news, and instructional videos on how to remove stuck fingers appeared on Youtube. There are 12 separate incident reports (search “glamper” to find them) about this damn thing on the Consumer Product Safety Commisions’ Report a Product page. Each one is the same thing: a child (or a parent, in one case) between the ages of 6 and 10 inserted their finger in the switch hole and it became painfully stuck. One parent likened it to a “Chinese finger trap” that pinched the fingers harder the more they attempted to free their child from the toy. Again, I have to stress that the Glamper was intentionally designed for children to insert their fingers.

And what was MGA doing in the middle of all this? Nothing. They never issued a recall for the Glamper. They gave copy-pasted “Your safety is our priority. The product was tested by a third party laboratory and found to be in full compliance with safety standards” responses to all the reports on the CPSC website. “Full compliance” my ass. A fully compliant product doesn’t try to gulliotine little girls’ fingers. I don’t know who MGA has testing their products, but they must be incompetent AF.

They finally did damage control on December 27, 2019…not by recalling the damn Glamper, but by making a “product safety notice” post on LOL Surprise’s official Facebook. Yes, really. It promised that customers who returned the camper with its box and a receipt within 30 days of purchase would receive a full refund or replacement.

…do you see the problem? Remember, this was a Christmas season toy. Most people got their Glamper as a gift, meaning that they didn’t have a receipt, and who keeps the box after opening the toy unless it’s a Lego set? Also, a lot of these campers were bought months before Christmas, well after the 30-day window. The “product safety notice” post’s comment section is replete with angry customers saying things to the effect of, “And what am I supposed to do if I don’t have a receipt? I wasted $120 on this thing!” To which MGA sheepishly replied that anyone with the camper could call their customer service line or go to the website to have a refund sorted out. The infamously slow, clunky customer service feature. Yeah.

Despite this fiasco, MGA and LOL Surprise continue to reign surpreme in the toy aisle. They’re still selling that fucking camper, by the way. Apparently it’s been redesigned to either have a caution statement telling kids to carefully press the button or have a safer overall design. But if I were a parent, I wouldn’t let them get within ten feet of that thing. I’d take them on a real camping trip. The actual woods would probably be safer at this point.