Funko Pops, to me.
I understand that some of them are fairly overpriced, but I also really like them as is. It doesn’t work on all characters, but it sometimes work on a lot and there’s so much representation and variety that it’s good to have a few.
If people want to talk about waste of plastic and vinyl, they should bark at the companies who make teeny tiny figurines that serve no purpose and have so little detail that spending any money on them is a waste.
I would argue that collecting things having purely aesthetical value is also legit, though there is an issue about manufactured demand and role of merchandise in popculture, but fair enough.
I see benefits of displaying art made by a person, but I take issue with collecting. It feels like a form of hoarding.
I collect comics, which are (printed, yes, but) art made by people. Sometimes I’ll sell off a run, some I’ll keep forever because they’re fantastic. Different strokes ig.
Keeping them to read them is different than keeping them to have them. The former is an in-use library, the latter is collecting.
Fair enough.