The new indie horror title Poppy Playtime has swept the internet, and kids have unexpectedly fallen in love with its popular main monster, Huggy Wuggy. Something about the giant blue doll with a set of gnashing teeth is extremely appealing to today's kids, but it's not readily apparent exactly what it is. It might be a little confusing why such a terrifying monster would be the internet's latest obsession, but there are a few possible explanations.
In Poppy Playtime, Huggy Wuggy is the main antagonist of Chapter 1. He's a giant blue doll with eerily human-looking eyes, as well as multiple rows of sharp teeth that don't become apparent until relatively late in the game. After players make their own Playtime Co. toy and solve Poppy Playtime's Make-A-Friend room puzzle, Huggy starts chasing them in an apparent attempt to eat them. He's become an iconic symbol of the game, even more so than the titular toy, Poppy. There are likely a myriad of different reasons for his popularity, and there's no saying definitively what the one root cause is.
One possible reason, among many, is that kids don't perceive scary things the same way adults do. It can sometimes be hard for adults to see from a child's perspective, so being confused by the sudden popularity of a horrifying nightmare creature is understandable. The trend seems on the surface like it doesn't make much sense, but when examined closely, some logic begins to emerge. Poppy Playtime's classic toy-inspired designs are somewhat kid-friendly, at least on the surface, though they also become nightmarish over the course of the game's chapters, and this combination of a toy-like exterior with a scary interior might make them more compelling characters.
Huggy Wuggy Could Be Popular For Simple Reasons
One of the reasons that Huggy Wuggy is popular is that kids and adults don't always have the same definition of the word "scary." Multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth might be cool instead of frightening for some. Some popular mascots such as Mickey Mouse, Chuck E. Cheese, and even mall Santas scare the daylights out of certain kids, so it stands to reason that the principle sometimes works in reverse. Certain parts of Poppy Playtime that are meant to induce dread and a low-level terror leading up to Huggy's chase scenes also might not work as well on kids. A big part of what makes the game so scary is the little details, which kids may ignore in favor of bigger things like solving puzzles. They might not be thinking about things like what happened to Poppy Playtime's employees. Kids also have a tendency to watch a lot of YouTube videos, and watching others play the game might lead to a general diminishing of its scarier elements.
That said, most kids are also smarter than adults give them credit for. They know that Huggy Wuggy is animated and that the game is a work of fiction, so that takes a lot of the bite out of Poppy Playtime in a way that it might not for an adult. There might be a worry sometimes about kids having clear distinctions between reality and fantasy, but that's not always the case. There could be any number of reasons why Huggy Wuggy seems lovable instead of scary, but it could just be that he (kind of) is. With his mouth closed, he still has the child-friendly design that the Playtime Co. gave him.
Kids Could Be Getting A Good First Impression Of Huggy Wuggy
There's also the fact that Huggy Wuggy isn't portrayed as menacing at first. Hints that Huggy Wuggy is Poppy Playtime's Experiment 1006 don't come until later in the game. To an adult, the very knowledge that they're playing a horror game certainly makes Huggy seem creepy, but a kid might just see the big blue sock monkey-looking doll Huggy Wuggy is supposed to be in the first part of the game. First impressions go a long way towards future perceptions of things, so seeing Huggy as something innocuous at first glance could make kids a little more enamored with him despite later scares.
And of course, not every kid who likes Huggy Wuggy will have played Poppy Playtime. Trends go viral in real life and online, so kids are certainly learning about Huggy from other kids, whether at school or while using social media. Poppy Playtime isn't free-to-play, so not every kid is going to get the chance to spend time with it, but they don't always need to in order to be a fan of its characters. If they're told that Huggy is cool or cute, then they're more likely to believe it, even if they play the game themselves. They might also see it from YouTubers who crack jokes while playing Poppy Playtime online, helping to spread the game's popularity through their personalities.
Is There A Deeper Reason For Huggy Wuggy's Popularity?
Another reason could be the horror genre itself. Horror games are popular for a reason. They're exciting and give players a little rush of adrenaline, along with a sense of relief when they don't actually die after failure and when they make it through a scary scene unscathed. Poppy Playtime and Five Nights at Freddy's are both good examples of this. Being scared is just plain fun sometimes, and the monsters in horror games have their fans just like characters in any other form of media do.
There could even be a deeper psychological reason for Huggy Wuggy being so popular, as horror games offer a form of catharsis that borders on the therapeutic, potentially as much for kids as for adults. Pretend monsters can make scary things in real life less so. A fear of heights, or being afraid of creepy-crawlies like spiders, are phobias that are grounded in reality, and fictional scares can help blunt the real ones. This could also explain why sales of merch like plushes are booming. Playing with a toy version of a scary monster lets kids interact with said monster on their terms, creating a sense of familiarity. This helps to further the feeling of making too-real fears less scary. Poppy Playtime might not be safe for kids at the end of the day, but it and scary games like it may have their own benefits for some players. Huggy Wuggy's popularity could be coming from deeper in its players than it may seem like on the surface.