【外刊英语精读】年轻人爱毛绒玩具 | Young adults turn to plush toys

Toying  with an idea of companionship手边的毛绒“陪伴”Young  adults turn to fake furry friends to bolster their spirits年轻人向“毛绒朋友”寻求陪伴和慰藉Internet  operation officer Gao Qingmeng, 24, from an internet enterprise in Shanghai, was in a reflective mood while working overtime from home one weekend. To tackle her ennui, she scrolled through social media platforms, and suddenly came across a post from Jellycat, a UK-headquartered soft-toy company, and was instantly smitten by it.24岁的上海互联网运营职员高庆萌（音译）在一个周末居家加班时心思沉重。为打发无聊，她刷起了社交媒体，偶然看到一家英国毛绒玩具公司Jellycat的帖子，被其产品深深吸引。She  immediately felt an urge to buy one. Without hesitation, she left home and took an hourlong subway ride to purchase one — a Bartholomew Bear, a popular product from the company. This was just the beginning. One toy led to another, and one by one, her legion expanded into a large collection.她立刻产生了购买的冲动。她毫不犹豫地搭乘一个多小时的地铁，去线下门店购买了一只Jellycat的热门产品“巴塞洛缪熊”（Bartholomew Bear）。从此她踏上了“不归路”，收藏的毛绒玩具数量越来越多，毛绒“军团”越来越壮大。On  various social media platforms, many young people are showing off their plush toy collections. There has been an increasing demand for plush toys in the Chinese market, not merely from their targeted customers — children — but also including young adults. Consumers of the post-2000 generation account for 43 percent of the market, followed by 36 percent by those of the post-1990 generation.各大社交媒体平台上，许多年轻人在展示自己的毛绒玩具藏品。毛绒玩具在中国市场的需求呈现上升趋势，不仅包括目标群体儿童，也包括成年消费者，据统计，00后消费者占市场份额的43%，90后紧随其后，占36%。This  trend is attracting attention and some experts, such as psychologists or psychotherapists like Zhang Chun, who works for Pencil Psychology, a company based in Xiamen, Fujian province, have begun to use such toys for the comfort of clients who come to their offices for counseling.这一现象引起了广泛关注，一些心理学家和心理治疗师也开始尝试将毛绒玩具引入心理咨询环节，帮助缓解客户的压力，其中就包括来自福建厦门“铅笔心理”的心理治疗师张春。Zhang  describes them as "hyperlinks" to evoke imagination. Touching these toys, according to psychological hypothesis based on studies, such as the US psychologist Harry Harlow's monkey experiment during the 1930s, is "like clicking a hyperlink". "Generally, they can connect people instantly to their favorite works or characters," says the psychotherapist.张春把毛绒玩具描述为一种“超级链接”来激发想象力。根据心理学研究假说（如美国心理学家哈里·哈洛于20世纪30年代进行的猴子实验），触摸毛绒玩具“就像点击一个超链接”。“这能迅速唤起人们与自己喜欢的作品或角色的情感联结，”张春表示。Qiu  Jiangyi, 30, a Hangzhou-based human resources worker from the jewelry industry, also loves collecting plush toys. In order to obtain her favorite toys, once she finds there are stocks of them online, she would often click quickly to snap them up, or even pay more money, say several times the original price, to secure her purchase. Qiu dresses her toys, takes them on outings and even seeks out craft enthusiasts on social media to customize toys' faces — a process referred to as "face reshaping", which involves tailoring techniques to make the plush toys look cuter.30岁的杭州珠宝行业人力资源从业者邱江怡（音译）同样喜欢收集毛绒玩具。每当她发现自己喜欢的玩具有库存时，都会迅速下单，甚至愿意花几倍于原价的价格购买。邱江怡还为自己的毛绒玩具“打扮”、带它们出游，甚至通过社交媒体找到手工爱好者为其定制玩具的脸部表情——这一过程被称为“换脸”，通过定制工艺让玩具显得更加可爱。While  these activities resemble parenting, to Qiu, her actions don't carry any deeper meaning. "They're just toys to me — visually appealing and providing aesthetic satisfaction, but I don't attach deeper emotions to them," she says, "My relationship with them is more of friendship, and I'd feel better when these toys of mine accompany me during many moments."虽然这些行为看似有“养娃”的意味，但在邱江怡看来，这些行为没有其他深刻的含义。“对我来说，它们只是玩具，满足了我的视觉和审美需求，我并未赋予它们更深的情感意义，”她说道，“它们更像是我的朋友，在很多时刻陪伴着我，让我感到安心。”前往小宇宙评论区与主播互动