Millennials are ‘kidulting’ through their parenthood stage, spending their free time on blind boxes and claw machines

Most arcades in the 1980s and ’90s had one. A glass box in the corner, stuffed with plush bears and off-brand cartoon characters, where you would throw away your money for the chance to claw at something you didn’t really want. The claw would drop, close on a bear’s head and lift it, then either lose its grip or hand you something else.

This is the impulse behind the “blind box” economy, the most visible piece of a trend marketers call “kidulting,” adults buying the toys, games and experiences of childhood for themselves. A new Harris Poll report, shared with Fortune ahead of its release, measures how far it has spread. In a survey of 2,158 U.S. adults conducted June 25–27, 80% said they’d done something playful for their own enjoyment in the past year. Among millennials who’d done something playful in the past year, 92% spent money on it and 78% spent $100 or more. Fifty-seven percent of Gen Z and millennials bought a blind box or mystery box for themselves, compared with 16% of Gen X and boomers.

“It’s got the same kind of psychological draw as a slot machine,” Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at The Harris Poll, told Fortune in an interview. “It’s like a fun, physical lotto ticket that you can buy and then play with and then display.”

The blind box economy is the claw machine scaled to a generation. It sells small, affordable gambles on joy, wrapped in the characters of childhood.

The blind box economy is the claw machine scaled to a generation. It sells small, affordable gambles on joy, wrapped in the characters of childhood.

The blind box economy is the claw machine scaled to a generation. It sells small, affordable gambles on joy, wrapped in the characters of childhood.

The blind box economy is the claw machine scaled to a generation. It sells small, affordable gambles on joy, wrapped in the characters of childhood.

Older millennials, born between 1978 and 1988 by BofA’s definition, spend more per customer on hobbies than any other generation, Fortune reported last month. BofA’s category covers arts and crafts, hobby shops, ski resorts, outdoor retailers, educational toys and some toy stores. It excludes video games, golf and travel, so it is not a direct measure of blind-box buying. In the three months through August, they spent a little more than twice what Gen Z did per customer, according to BofA card data, and a larger share of them have hobby spending than any other generation. Overall hobby spending rose 7.9% year-over-year in August, more than double the 3.4% growth in transactions.

Perhaps impressively, their free time is the shortest of any age group in BofA’s data. Americans ages 35 to 44........

© Fortune