The early bird gets the worm — or, in this case, the decorative figurine.
Loyal Target shoppers and devout fans of the store’s festive felt birds rise in the wee hours of the morning in an attempt to snag one of the $5 fabric figurines online before they sell out — again.
Cicero, New York, resident Theresa Hoffman woke up three hours later than intended — at 6 a.m. — on July 14 to score the newly dropped Halloween set. The 24-year-old got her hands on seven that day, she told the Wall Street Journal, which only added to her 75-strong collection.
The fowl frenzy bears resemblance to the ’90s Beanie Baby craze or the current Gen Z obsession with Sonny Angel figurines and often results in the coveted creatures selling out.
“The stress is palpable,” Megan Frantz, a 32-year-old electrical engineer who owns 180 felt birds, told The Journal.
The birds, which were first produced over a decade ago, are released every season or holiday — the summer birds donned pool floaties and sunnies, while the winter collection sported scarves and hats — but can be found on resale sites months late at a major price hike. On eBay, for one, a set of four, Easter-themed birds lists for nearly $100, while a variety of 15 Christmas birds sells goes $350.
Collectors can join Facebook groups dedicated to sourcing, selling and swapping their “birbs,” as they’re lovingly called, which garner thousands of members, while Redditors and TikTokkers boast their latest finds, behemoth collections and creative display methods online.
Frantz, along with her sister, Anna, 34, have joined such groups to be in-the-know about upcoming drops. The Portland, Oregan, pair also construct custom creatures and sell them, often made to mimic famous figures like Taylor Swift or Dwayne “The Flock” Johnson.
Target released its own celebrity lookalike earlier this year, which fans claimed looked like Tippi Hedren despite the “birb” being billed as a “Movie Star Featherly Bird Friend.”
Regardless, the fabulous fowl went viral as the best of Target’s Pride collection and quickly sold out online, forcing 24-year-old Connor Clary to visit multiple brick-and-mortar stores to find one.
“A lot of the hype around the bird is people seeing other people struggle to get them,” the content creator told The Journal. “It makes other people want to get them.”
In fact, people are so enamored by the decorative figures that one superfan tattooed the 2021 Valentine’s Day bird, named Poppy, on her leg. Some devotees have even had to limit their spending habits when it comes to the collectible critters.
“My rule now, especially now that I have one for every month of the year, unless it’s cuter than the ones I already have, I can’t buy more,” 33-year-old Alyssa Fine, a second-grade teacher and proud owner of 62 birds, told The Journal.
The New Jersey resident uses the fabric figurines as educational tools in her classroom and often goes “bird watching” with fellow educators at Target to hunt down new birds, some of which have sparked contention among loyalists.
The new Halloween birds, for one, have ignited furious debate online for being beakless, their typical bills swapped for silly mouth expressions and smiles.
The lack of their hallmark beaks — dubbed “mouthgate” — has disappointed and upset many collectors, prompting some fans to perform seam ripper “surgery” to remove the uncharacteristic mouths.
“Why do they have mouths?” inquired one spooky season-obsessed content creator, arguing that “they still need beaks” in a recent TikTok video.
“They’d be so much cuter without the mouths,” one distraught user commented on another clip.
And yet, nearly all the models are sold out online.
The popularity of the cloth critters, and the accessories and merchandise that accompany them, is “another example of the creativity, playfulness and magic our in-house product design team brings to their work,” Jill Sando, an executive vice president at Target, told The Journal, hinting at new collections that are anticipated to come later this year.
And the craze is contagious, as current fanatics sing the birds’ praises.
“Every workplace I’ve ever had, I’ve gotten people addicted to the birds so now, former bosses still text me, ‘Let me know when the new birds drop,’” Hoffman said.
