A Deep Dive Into Littlest Pet Shop

[Music] ah the nostalgic toys of our youth from barbie to polly pocket to gi joe to hot wheels to i don't know those weird like horse toys regardless of what toys you grew up with i'm sure you have pretty fond and nostalgic memories for them as you get older you kind of stop caring about toys and start developing a crippling addiction to video games instead so they just get shoved into a box somewhere together dust i was reminded of one of my favorite childhood toy franchises when i was scrolling through twitter and found an account called lps every hour where go figure they post photos of littlest pet shops every hour i actually went down a bit of a rabbit hole researching this topic and it turns out there's way more to the franchise than i thought from the history of the toys to the strange youtube fanbase to the huge modern resurgence and popularity if there's one thing i love that's unnecessarily long deep dives into nostalgic topics that like one percent of the population remember and if you're in that one percent you're in luck so buckle up and let's explore the world of littlest pet shop littlest pet shop or lps has been around for decades and there's a lot to cover so let's start at the beginning littlest pet shop was a toy line developed and produced by kenneth in 1992. keno was like one of the biggest and most successful american toy companies back in the day they've been around since the 1940s but gained major success in the late 1970s with their line of star wars figures kenner popularized the 3.75 inch action figure that became industry standard with their star wars and ghostbusters lines so they were kind of an industry titan back in their day by 1992 however it was clear that they lost a lot of their spark and this really showed with their littlest pet shop range the toys themselves had modest success but after only four years they were retired due to loss of interest the 1992 toys themselves are a far cry from modern littlest pair shops they look more like puppy in my pockets with more realistic proportions in anatomy smaller sizes and that kind of 90s vintage look each of the pets had their own little mechanical gimmick like pressing their head to flap their wings or pressing their tail to scratch their ears notably a few pets had these kind of bobble heads that had magnets inside so they could attach to accessories and both of these gimmicks would go on to become staples in the future littlest pet shop toy line personally i'm pretty divided on these toys on one hand you had awesome sets like the fox or lion set where they have actual fluff in these cool little environments and i also really like the super miniature sets like the hamster fish tank and chameleon if there's one thing i know about children's toys it's the more tiny choke hazard parts there are the better on the other hand these pets could look really weird and uncanny for example you have these hideous monkeys and the soulless cockatoo that looks like it's seen unspeakable things in general these toys fit far better with the whole pet shop theme they came with carrying cages terrariums and pet food and one of the big sets was quite literally a pet shop complete with a front desk and cash register the whole idea of the toy line was for little girls to collect all of the pets to build up their own pet shop and i'm only mentioning this because in later years this premise would be almost completely dropped in favor of a general melting pot of random themes and ideas it's interesting to go back to the franchise's roots and see how grounded in reality it originally was and stark contrast to what would become in the following years okay so back to our timeline in 1995 a year before littlest pitch that would be retired as a toy line it actually got its own television show produced by sunbow productions it got one full 40 episode season and ran for a year before being cancelled alongside the toy line this show is um weird it focuses on five tiny anthropomorphic animals who live in a tree house inside a pet shop and they get up to the shenanigans it's pretty weird by all accounts as just a very stock standard 90s adventure cartoon made for tv but with the littlest pet shop label slapped on top i'm gonna go out on a limb and say that cannon probably commissioned the show to try and save lila's pit shop as a toy line and coax the public into wanting to buy the toys a lot of toy brands do this from my little pony to he-man to rainbow corns i don't know what kids watch these days i don't know why i'm trying to be relatable unfortunately for kenna their marketing ploy didn't exactly work and lola's pet shop was taken off the shelves just four years after its initial release fast forward to 2005 and hasbro has acquired kenner and all of their associated brands you know hasbro right the literal multi-million dollar toy monopoly no like they literally own monopoly anyway they're looking for a new girl's toy line and perhaps to cut costs and avoid the lengthy process of conceptualizing a whole new line they decide to revive littlest pair shop but it was 2005 and everyone was living in the new digital age with their top eights and their guitar heroes and their everybody loves raymond box sets i'm not kidding according to nielsen this was one of the top shows in 2005. what was wrong with everybody it was clear that the old lilies pet shop was far too dated to be released and so hasbro got gail middleton a renowned toy designer who had also worked on my little pony to redesign the toys she gave them a much more cartoonish look with big eyes and large bobble heads quote in redesigning littlest pet shops sharon john head of hasbro's girl division group decided to mix the modern with the traditional they gave the animals the big vulnerable eyes made popular by japanese animators they toned down the pink packaging and went with more contemporary purple and green but they kept the figures the same size as before much smaller than most dolls knowing girls like to collect and carry little things this little chihuahua also known as lps dog one was the first littlest pet shop created for gail's new line despite the fact that he yeah he looks a little off this didn't stop him and the rest of the lps line from selling like crazy judigale's redesign littlest pet shop went from a 60 million dollar brand to a 600 million dollar brand in just five years making it one of the biggest toy brands in the world gale's 2005 designs would come to be known as generation one toys characterized by their fairly realistic color palettes and the pink magnets found on the bottom of the toy two years later hasbro introduced their generation two line generally considered the golden age of littlest pet shop generation two was basically a refined version of one with far more experimental designs it's also worth noting that some sources i've used say that generation two is actually two separate generations two and three but aside from basic packaging and logo changes the physical toys are identical so let's just merge the two for simplicity gen two would also introduce more whimsical pet designs with bright neon colours sparkly decals and fantasy creatures like dragons and fairies this generation also introduced eye symbols where pets would have certain symbols reflected in their eyes to indicate what kind of personality they had from hungry to messy to chilly to friendly to everything in between while generation 1 pets generally played it very safe with realistic designs generation 2 produced around 4 times as many pets and therefore had to get a little more creative with their designs weird cabaret mice creepy octopi mod walruses multicolored spiders whales roller skating iguanas pelicans puffins pirate parrots nefarious lizards psychedelic dogs a spider that is seen into the pits of hell and more some fans argue that the franchise had jumped the shark and these fantasy designs were too much of a departure from the series roots but for the most part kids and collectors loved them and happily added these sparkle demons to their growing collections with new pets releasing frequently hundreds of thousands of fans and millions of dollars in revenue it seemed like things could only go up for hasbro and lilla's pet shop [Music] despite how wholesome and innocent these toys may seem there has been a fair amount of strife within the community while gail middleton's 2005 designs had skyrocketed lps to the top and gained it millions of fans the brand went through another redesign in 2012 which tore the community apart to coincide with the new littlest pet shop animated series set to feature on the hub network alongside my little pony artist kirsten alvey was brought on to redesign the toys for generation 3. from this piece we can see that she used the main character designs from the show as a baseline to create other pet designs kirsten gave the pits a far more stylized look using very strong shapes sharp edges and more exaggerated proportions and fans hated it searching bring back old lps will yield thousands of results for youtube videos and petitions demanding hasbro to bring back the old generation 2 pets as well as floods of hatred towards the newer generation kids and adults alike were outraged and sent waves of hate to both hasbro and kirsten herself the toys were called cheap ugly scary poorly designed pretty much every name in the book and while this was very harsh not all of it was necessarily unfounded personally i'm a huge fan of kirsten's work but i feel that hasbro kind of butchered her ideas and execution the toys captured the exaggerated proportions of the concept art but in doing so they made the toy incredibly unbalanced and top heavy meaning that many of them couldn't even stand on their own i remember i had this megamind looking ass zebra and it was just designed so poorly because it never stood up its head was just way too big fans also complained about the paint quality with poorly done paint jobs alongside reports of cheaply painted accessories rubbing off onto the pits damaging them in general these toys were of a much lower quality with cheap textures that made the pits slippery and unsuitable for custom work loose heads that would snap off and thin limbs and tails that would morph and bend looking through the generation 3 releases it's also easy to track the decline in quality in the beginning even though they weren't to everyone's taste it was clear that hasbro were putting a lot of work into these designs with unique moulds pleasant color palettes and detailed paint jobs some examples that i really like are spaniel 2688 cheetah 2857 and horse 302.7 these are nice quality designs but then you look at later designs especially the blind bags and the work is just so low quality a lot of these pets are just old modes which have been taken and painted in a single flat color with eyes painted on top they look terrible and combined with their cheap and plasticy build they look more like cheap knock-offs than anything some of the worst offenders include panther 3-5-12 three five three two there three five three four sheepdog three five four seven and ram three three sixteen now i understand that blind bag toys may look a little cheaper than box toys but many of the fully packaged and themed pets still look cheap kangaroo 2762 sheepdog 2829 chipmunk 2841 and cauli3222 are just a few examples of this i'm not at all trying to bash or criticize the designers i know a lot of love goes into designing and creating toys within these companies but i do feel like a decision was made higher up at hasbro to cut corners for the sake of money taking away the bobble heads and magnets using more lightweight plasticy materials releasing waves of extremely basic repaints all of this just seems to indicate that a decision was made to put quantity over quality that's just my personal opinion of course as a kid i even owned some of these generation 3 toys and i enjoyed them decently enough but for the wider community this was an outrage and one of the worst periods for the fandom lps fans genuinely didn't know whether their beloved franchise would ever be the same again or if this new generation marked the downfall of littlest pet shop but on one fateful day the heavens opened up and the gods of hasbro bestowed upon the fandom a gift of a new generation but it wasn't really the generation that the fans were hoping for the generation 4 pets were the most bold and expressive year with clear facial expressions unique accessories and very complex and detailed moulds personally though while i can appreciate the great concepts and execution they just don't look right to me if anything they kind of remind me of the old 2000s mcdonald's toy exclusives there's just something about them that looks incredibly cheap and plasticky whether it be the hair or the paint job or just something isn't right an issue that frequently came up with these toys was that they were just too expressive kids weren't able to imagine their pets having a custom personality or identity because their designs had too much character say what you will about the gen 1 designs being boring but they were great for kids because they were very ambiguous and kids could imagine them to be whatever they wanted it's not often that a character design having too much character and personality is a bad thing but within toy design imagination is a very key element so the fandom was once again left in the lurch some considered this an improvement over generation 3 some people didn't but what they really wanted was generation 2 back it's kind of a mark of how good your product is when you go through the exhaustive process of overhauling your line twice over and the fans are still begging you to go back to the old dated line and so well after years of complaints and hatred hasbro caved and gave the fans what they wanted the pets went through another redesign in 2017 to coincide with the release of littlest pet shop a world of our own which aired on the discovery family network despite being a successor to the 2012 littlest pit shop series the show was considerably less successful only running for a single season before being cancelled the art style of the show is very reminiscent of the early 2000s toy line and concept art taking a huge departure from the modern and cutting edge style of lps 2012 to go for a more classic look and received a fairly average reception from fans generation 5 also known as the current generation reverted almost fully back to generation 2 design staples gradients and shading more realistic color palettes and more true to life proportions or at least as true to life as littlest pet shop can get there's a marked difference in paint and build quality and while the line hasn't lost its fantastical elements they're much more grounded in reality there are a few duds here and there that are more reminiscent of generation 3 but for the most part lps has been restored to its former glory while fans were appreciative that hasbro had listened to the fan base and kind of given them what they wanted they couldn't help but feel that they had kind of missed their chance by this point it had been years since the gen 3 scandal and whether it's because they grew out of it or the gen 3 design turned them off a lot of fans just weren't really into the series anymore the franchise and fandom had lost a little bit of its magic and while the fandom is still pretty big the general feeling is one of nostalgia for the old days of classic lps [Music] phew that was a lot of history we're gonna touch on the youtube community fandom and video games in a second but to keep off our discussion of the toys let's spit a few miscellaneous toy facts first let's talk about blythe blythe was a character from the 2012 animated lps show where she served as the main character as well as the inspiration for a new doll line that was packaged with the gen 3 pets a lot of kids really didn't like blyth myself included she just didn't really fit with the toys and she had a really weird and uncanny appearance well it turns out there's actually a pretty interesting explanation for this slythe was actually a doll created by kenneth in 1971 the doll was a flop and only sold in stores for a single year before being recalled though a japanese toy company called takara began producing them and popularized the doll in the modern era blyth quickly became a very popular doll within the custom doll making community also known as the ooak community this community could get its own video with how much there is to it but essentially ooak stands for one of a kind and the community specializes in turning mainstream dolls and toys into custom characters by using a variety of craft materials for some reason takara blythe dolls became highly valued among the ooak community to the point where the line was barely used as a toy anymore and instead a blank canvas for dole customizers blyth is a strange case her cartoony and exaggerated style fit perfectly with the aesthetic of the show but this doesn't look like this the physical doll looks overly realistic and almost uncanny in comparison to the stylized and cartoonish pets which put a lot of kids off i understand that it's easier to use a pre-existing brand than design a whole new toy and hasbro already had the rights to blythe but they clearly weren't willing to change her old design to fit with the new lps brand they could have simply designed a new toy to match the tv show blythe but instead they went for old haunted canner blyth creating a really weird dissonance between the toys and the doll now let's talk rare pets interestingly enough littlest pet shop youtubers have actually impacted the economy quite heavily and dictated which pets are rarest videos and series on youtube that get extremely popular will drive up the demand for certain pets making them rare and increasing the value it's pretty crazy that lps youtubers were influential enough to literally affect the rarity of some toys but it just goes to show how big lps tube was don't worry we'll get to that soon if we're talking the ultimate rarest most people claim that it's the lps comic-con cat released in 2009 the metallic cat was sold exclusively at san diego comic-con and goes for as much as 500 to a thousand dollars for a legitimate toy and speaking of legitimacy let's discuss the huge issue of fakes within the collection community see some pets are rarer than others and depending on their age style and scarcity they can sell for some serious money wanting to cash in on this fraudsters began producing fake replica pets and circulating them throughout the community though thankfully fans figured out a few ways to identify them bad paint jobs loose glitter rust or dirt and incorrect coloring are a few of the major giveaways but some fakers have become pretty adept at perfectly replicating the pets so the telltale signs have become a little more obscure legitimate pets have glossy reflective eyes while some fakes have matte eyes littlest pet shops have a clear neck ring and peg used to connect the bobble head to the body while fakes would generally have a white neck ringing peg the quality difference is also notable with fake pet shops often breaking due to the low quality neck pegs generation 1 pits will have a red paw print magnet on the bottom while fakes will almost always have the blue magnet that was introduced in later generations however even these more complex tips are not always reliable some fakes will have glossy eyes resellers have started using clear pegs in their fakes and later generations had holes instead of magnets rendering the magnet method useless ultimately it can be pretty hard to tell fakes apart but the general advice is don't buy from bulk sellers don't buy pets if they seem too cheap to be true and try to buy from legitimate sellers that are known within the community if you have any of the toys it might pay to go through them and check and see if you're harboring any imposters moving on to another topic it's also worth mentioning the sheer amount of littlest pet shop merchandise that was produced it's not just the toys plushies and blind bags but a huge number of other products wrapping paper christmas wrapping paper rollerblades paper cups mugs cakes perfume stationery shirts stickers and more the brand especially in the 2000s had a huge hold in the market and similar to brands like barbie was so big that you could pretty much slap the lps label on anything and sell it for a premium and lastly to finally wrap up our discussion of the toys let's go through some of the best and worst that the series had to offer best moonlight furies series this might be controversial lots of people didn't like these but i love these little sparkly clown demons worst any of the human flesh colored mice just no best the year of the tiger chinese new year exclusive this was hands down my favorite pet from my entire collection i used to just stare at this thing because it was so shiny and pretty the year of the dragon exclusive was also really cool worst littlest pet shop mod series spider this toy looks like it has real human eyeballs inside of it and that unsettles me on a primal level best generation one race about ranch said i had this set it was awesome it has brooke hayes in it it's just a badass set worst generation one little luxury salon said i don't like that the animals have gross little hair tufts and i certainly don't like this poodle with an unsettlingly small face best any of the crocodiles no exception worst any of the octopi no exception obviously depending on your nostalgia your favorites and least favorites are gonna differ but it is very fun going through all these old databases and kind of reminiscing about the sets that you used to have or the pets that you had alright enough about the toys let's move into the virtual space to discuss the video games [Music] believe it or not littlest pet shop actually has a pretty long list of video games one of hasbro's first endeavors was the littlest pet shop virtual pet in 2007. these were essentially tamagotchis with an lps coat of paint with the toy allowing kids to play basic mini games and care for their virtual pet not much to talk about here other than the amazing designs of the toys themselves and the adorable tiny little charms that came with them very aesthetically pleasing let's move on in 2008 hasbro decided to take littlest pet shop into the digital age by releasing littlest pet shop for microsoft windows wii and nintendo ds the game was very simple with most of the gameplay being comprised of simple mini games coin collection and character customization but in terms of aesthetics it fit in pretty well with the franchise these games had multiple version with virgin exclusive pets kind of like a very low quality pokemon but instead of pokemon diamond and pearl it's littlest pet shop garden in winter i had this game as a kid and i don't remember it being hugely popular or anything but it must have been considering nintendo released multiple officially licensed littlest pet shop ds light covers and stylus packs not gonna lie these are actually pretty cool pieces of merch a year later in 2009 wanting to expand their brand into the digital age has brought teamed up with ea to create littlest pet shop online also known as lpso this website was essentially an online virtual world for kids in the same vein it's club penguin or webcams and it actually had a lot more in common with webkinz than you might think to unlock pets in lpso you had to get a membership code and to get one of those you had to physically go and buy a littlest pet shop online toy in stores these came in many different forms from plushies to packs of multiple smaller pets the littlest pet shop now you can take your littlest pet shop hats online pet has a code on its collar for you when you log it on it goes online too it was actually a pretty cool idea since not only could kids go and pick out the pets they wanted to unlock in game but they could also play with them in real life too to be fair you could play without buying any of the toys but you'd be stuck with the boring default dog and no customization options so it was essentially pay to play i mean to be fair it was created by ea in terms of gameplay though it was very much the standard fare basic mini games house decoration and character customization were the main features but most of this was locked behind a premium membership and the chat was severely restricted lpso was shut down in 2013 due to low returns and a dwindling player base the game was entertaining for a short while but kids naturally started migrating to more mature sites where the chat wasn't so restricted and the gameplay wasn't so childlike of course the fanbase made many petitions to bring lpso back since that was their response to every change in the franchise that they didn't like but due to the huge cost of running an online game if hasbro ain't making the dough they're not going to reopen it a team of fans are actually working on lps are revived a remake of the game and seem to be making steady progress it's great that people are actively working to recover old lost media since the internet is like the library of alexandria these days with how much content is becoming lost to round off hasbro's thrilling trilogy of high octane games we have littlest pit shop three biggest stars from 2010. this game was released for nintendo ds and was about character customization in many games and yeah these games are all basically the same figure stars had a theme at least it revolves around you trying to get your pets ready for this big competition and all the minigames are kind of like your training once again the game was released in three different varieties blue team pink team and purple team with each version having exclusive pets the only notable thing here is the name it's pretty bizarre considering there's no littlest pet shop too so i don't know why they suddenly jumped to three when none of the previous games were numbered alright you already know what it is we're talking about the littlest pet shop youtube community possibly the most interesting thing to come out of the franchise ever if you don't already know about lpstube this is gonna be a wild ride for you so buckle up the littlest pet shop community also known as lps tube is a community of fans and collectors from across the world who post their littlest pet shop content on youtube obviously a large chunk of this community is made up of children which has actually caused a lot of problems for the community but we'll touch on that in a minute on one side of lps tube you have reviewers unboxes and general discussion channels where fans show off their collections examine fake pets unbox and review toys and generally discuss the franchise and toys on the other side you have the filmmakers and directors let me explain in the mid 2000s to the early 2010s kids began to create short films and series using littlest pet shops as characters these videos could range from short and crude sketches to music videos to entire episodic series spanning multiple hours of content in all kinds of genres crime reality tv fantasy and of course teen drama which was by far the most popular genre despite the fact that they're made using plastic kids toys lps tube videos have racked up tens of millions of views and accumulated a huge audience one of the first videos i could find was from april 2007 titled littlest pet shop the dance which has over a million views it's a very basic stop-motion animation made by a nine-year-old but it's possible that this was one of if not the first littlest pet shop video uploaded to youtube it's clear that kids were amazed and inspired by this video at the time and you can even see comments by other popular lpstubers praising the video so it clearly inspired many other kids to start making videos a few months later in november of 2007 a video was made by the account lps lover titled littlest pet shop the haunted house it's a very simple video but would introduce a number of staples to lps tube the use of actual hands to move the characters around and make them talk and walk instead of stop motion as well as voice acting and simple editing and music the description of this video reads the beginning of lpstube this video is up for historical purposes so it's entirely possible that this was the very first classic lps tube video from there more kids would be inspired to tell their own original stories using littlest pet shops after all the buffet entry was low unlike animation machinima or live action you didn't need any skill for acting or animation or art all you really needed was a few littlest pet shops and a camera at least in the early days when the lower quality was more widely accepted some of the most popular and influential early creators include lps lover lps skittles lps hannah and ellie lpstb however it would be sophie gtv who put lpstube on the map with her series lps popular this series was one of the most successful on youtube at the time and inspired thousands of kids to start making videos launching lps tube into its golden age so let's talk about it of course lp is popular as getting its own section how could it not if you somehow don't know what lps popular is it was a high school drama series created by sophie gtv for youtube first airing in july of 2010 the series would end up spanning 29 episodes over nine years and gained a fairly large viewer base i don't know just somewhere in the ballpark of over 83 million views yeah it was kind of a big deal not just in the community but on youtube in general episodes were regularly pulling into 3 million views which was pretty unheard of at the time especially for a series made using plastic toys these days animated shows on youtube with budgets in the thousands may not even break these numbers so it's clear that sophie gtv had something truly special the show shaped lps content on youtube for years to come causing thousands of littlest pet shop-based series and movies to flood youtube some were carbon copies of popular while others created more original words and stories and found huge success many people still remember this series very fondly despite its flaws so let's take a look at the cultural phenomenon of lps popular so popular is essentially a teen drama show in the same vein of riverdale slash gossip girls slash euphoria okay maybe that last comparison is taking it a little far but it definitely took a lot of influence from early angsty high school drama shows its biggest influence is clearly mean girls with the plot revolving around the battle between two groups of rich and fashionable girls as they struggle to cement their place at the top of the pecking order according to its fandom page quote the show is a youtube phenomenon and has been accredited for its unrealistic interpretation of high school events and yeah the show is probably one of the most cliched things i've ever seen literally every high school trope and contrivance is in the story but despite that it deals with some interesting and fairly mature themes social status in class bullying eating disorders toxic friendship and of course the struggles of popularity i'm not saying all these topics were exactly handled well or with nuance but it was 2010 and the creator was like 15 and honestly it was a noble attempt to kind of weave important issues into a story now i'm not going to do a play-by-play of everything that happens in the story as much as i wish i could i don't want this video to be like two hours of me just explaining the plot of a decade old littlest pet shop role play but basically the story revolves around savannah reed the new girl and brook hayes the queen bee as they become rivals and fight to become popular go figure the twisters they used to be best friends as kids but something has changed in brook and turned her into a mean girl hell-bent on destroying savannah most of the subplots revolve around makeovers rumors boy trouble etc pretty standard fear and it has every cliche in the book from everyone started clapping moments and be my girlfriend i will to me goes who the tail do you think you are you fat little sausage excuse me to jocks to well let's face it brooke your problem is that you're a hundred percent peanut butter and jealous of me is that what you eat for lunch every day brooke a peanut butter and jealous sandwich well that what i will talk about however is how groundbreaking this series was for lpstube lps popular was one of the first big lps series on youtube and therefore it kind of influenced everything that came after the first few episodes were filmed on like the first cell phone ever known to man which was pretty standard at the time but by episode 3 the video and audio quality was significantly improved then it's rachel rivera and alicia hamilton a couple of the meanest and most popular girls in the school i just had a class with you that was 10 minutes ago this was alongside the gradual introduction of more advanced camera shots and lighting which separated popular from other series that would just use one or two basic camera angles most impressively of all popular began to use some super cool editing tricks which were very advanced at the time at one point when savannah is facing an eternal struggle sophie gtv uses these pretty impressive angel and devil effects she seems to have hung the pits on strings to give the appearance of floating before superimposing them over the footage with a bunch of ghostly effects in one scene savannah is looking into a mirror and her reflection talks back to her [Music] is what she said true [Music] yes [Music] and in some of brook scenes motion blur is used to show her lightheadedness and basically all of the party scenes from the end of season one are a masterpiece for context they throw a massive schoolwide costume party at brooke's house and obviously goes down and it's kind of amazing brooke is wearing a devil costume savvy is wearing an angel costume yes savannah reed walks so jules vaughn could run everyone is in their little outfits the lighting is all dark there's a disco ball it's just amazing later on savannah finds out she's being cheated on because of course she does and she has all this makeup running down her face truly no expense was spared the party of the century was the most viewed episode in the series and it deserved it it really showcased why popular became so well popular within the community and why it inspired so many copycats aside from a few very poorly aged jokes and subplots lps popular is honestly still a blast to watch and i highly recommend it you'll laugh you'll cry and you'll be upset that sophie gtv never uploaded part two of the season finale of season two just it's been two years sophie still waiting on that episode [Music] so with tens of millions of views lps popular became a huge staple in the community and inspired many other series that would come after it these series include rapunzel the enchanted quest superstar double trouble totally super bully school summer camp hashtag deiros and csi littlest pet shop of course there are a few oddballs like the lps 911 special crying emoji prayer hands emoji never forget from the 2010s onward lps 2 became more popular than ever and the production quality increased accordingly while the old videos were usually recorded in a dark bedroom with like a nokia new videos were coming out in high definition with nice lighting and sound quality not to mention some really impressive set building as we discussed with lps popular special effects were also becoming more widely used with creators using more complex editing and even animation to increase their video quality some would even abandon the classic hand and frame method in favor of handmade wire handles that would wrap around the toy and allow them to control the character without getting their hand in frame it's actually really impressive looking at where lps tube started and where it is now with many modern videos being genuinely competent and impressive in terms of direction camera work and editing this is due in part to the advancement of technology over the years but i also believe it's due to the increasing age of the creators making this content many of the original lps tube videos were made using kids who are now grown up and are still doing these kinds of videos or were doing these kinds of videos because within the last few years lpstube has seen a sharp decline in popularity coinciding with the exit of multiple large channels it's understandable i mean a lot of them are adults after all and while there's nothing wrong with using toys as a medium to tell stories some may feel that they've kind of outgrown lps tube and want to move on to bigger things creators like sophie gtv are now fully grown adults who have jobs and responsibilities while other creators like lps hannah have cited the introduction of copper as the reason they've quit for the uninformed copper or the children's online privacy protection act was an act put into place on youtube to protect children under the age of 13. youtube took all the content that it deemed four kids and heavily restricted at disabling comments and removing targeted ads in theory this is a good thing and makes content for kids a little safer but many hard-working channels that made all ages content were completely ruined by copper the largest lps tuber lps hannah who has over 500 000 subscribers made a goodbye video in which she discussed copper and the impact that it had on her channel i will only speak from my own experience in this video but in short on january 7th 2020 kappa hit my channel hard among many of the copper changes one of the biggest is the revenue drop overnight my youtube ad revenue dropped by eighty percent one of youtube's big changes to all made for kids channels was that they turned all the comments off i hate it i am sad angry and so frustrated that this has happened especially that i can't even go back to read all of your lovely sweet and funny comments on my old videos they're all gone because of copper ad revenue was being cut by as much as 80 and creators would get zero feedback whatsoever from fans due to the disabled comments this meant for any channel struck with copper which is most of them on lps tube making videos was no longer viable as a career nor was it fun or rewarding copper even struck more mature series like lps popular which i wouldn't necessarily say is for young kids and removed all of the comments across the entire lp's popular series hundreds of thousands of comments have been completely purged it's a truly sad state of events and while i understand the intention behind the act ultimately many creators have lost their jobs and passion for the craft and most of the larger lps tubers have quit their channels lpsu will always be around in the form of soulless toy unboxing and kids making their own small series but in terms of the wider community it seems that copper and the aging fan base have truly put an end to the golden age of lps tube [Music] it's common knowledge that memes fashion trends and pieces of media will fade into irrelevance only to be revived years later for the sake of nostalgia rage comics dad sneakers furbys garfield all of these are examples of things that in their time were considered cringe but are now popular trends beloved by the youths what's cringe today might be the next biggest thing tomorrow and in a way that's kind of happened with lilith's pet shop one of the most popular ways that lili's pet shop has resurfaced into the public conscience is through nostalgia posting this type of posting has become incredibly popular in the last few years focusing not only on 80s and 90s culture but now 2000s and even 2010's aesthetics this genre of images generally known as nostalgia core and focuses not on mainstream stereotypes from these eras but instead very specific yet familiar memories within this niche of nostalgic posting are the kid core and toy core aesthetics which usually focus on nostalgic childhood toys games clothes etc this is where littlest pet shop comes into play like i said 2000's nostalgia is coming back in a big way and you can find plenty of accounts posting nostalgia core images of littlest pet shop toys and merchandise this nostalgia posting is also popular within the art community with lps art becoming even more prominent in the last few years or so from art of the old lps toys to art of the modern shows to fan art of lps popular and many other well-known series with the whole unironic cringe thing coming back into fashion and with people embracing their own embarrassing interests in full force i can only see the littlest pet shop community becoming more popular with time it's one of those obscure core memories that many kids resonate with and those same kids are now old enough to be jaded and nostalgic for old times in conclusion is littlest pet shop a good franchise well that's up for debate it's certainly a large and successful one the sheer amount of online fans kind of proves that personally i was a littlest pet shop kid i had like 100 of these things i used to religiously watch lps tubes so you know i'm biased i definitely think hasbro has made a lot of blunders with the franchise their big 2012 redesign unfortunately didn't really work for them and general interest for the brand at least within the community kind of began to drop off by that point by the time they redesigned the toys to look more like generation 2 most fans had lost interest either due to age or dislike of the direction that hasbro had taken the franchise regardless of these mistakes lps is clearly a huge multi-million dollar brand so i'm not gonna lose any sleep over hezbo maybe making a couple million less much like other nostalgic properties like garfield or furby it's the fan base that makes it truly special littlest peer shop is fine it's a nice toy and everything but it wouldn't be what it is today without lps tube without artists without customizers and without fans all these things and more show just how much these toys meant and still mean to kids and how that love can drive them to create amazing things and learn new skills the displays of creativity within the fandom are amazing and unlike other larger fandoms it's an incredibly wholesome and kind community with barely any drama or tension it's great that these plastic toys have allowed so many kids to express themselves even if in the future they may look back and think it was a little cringe that's fine and it's fine to think the fandom or lp is tuber cringe but at the end of the day it's an outlet for kids to tell stories and make films and talk about something they love which at its core is what fandom is all about i hope you guys enjoyed the video um i i don't know how this video is gonna be received i know this is a very obscure topic um i don't know how many people are going to relate to this but you know sometimes you got to talk about lawless pet shop for like 30 minutes that's the theme's the breaks anyway thank you so much for watching um as always i really appreciate it and if you have any video suggestions leave them in the comments if you have any feedback etc i love reading comments so you know go ahead and leave those and i hope to see you in the next one bye a huge thank you to my garfield overlords on patreon sheriff whiskey lady cerebellum xavier araujo grip gunderson sophie skidder x-17 chan simon kindle petchalec american guilt ryan w dozo blunt red meth the furby librarian sir jaylen iii missy robin astriam vortex joe bradshaw john leach jono charles davy helm hamburger hand tyson erin gyro gyro bradito vampiric misfit princess bossy boots pom archantalis chisholm curbicon charlie b icarus finley aiden mcfan and agaraphan thank you so much for supporting me it really means the world to me and if you want to join my patreon the link will be in the description once again i hope you enjoyed the video and i'll see you in the next one bye

Channel: Izzzyzzz

Views: 1,999,706

Keywords: lps, lpstube, littlest pet shop, video essay, analysis

Id: X-_skGlw97o

Length: 40min 39sec (2439 seconds)

Published: Mon May 17 2021