The Human Urge to Corrupt These Wholesome Critters

New York Times

12 hours ago

When Paul Welander, a health care worker in Britain, heard about a lawsuit that the maker of Calico Critters toys recently filed against a social media content creator, he wasn't totally surprised.
The critters, introduced in 1985, are tiny velvety-bodied animals — rabbits, mice, moles, bears, beavers, badgers, pigs, penguins — dressed in modest clothes and sold in sets as families.
The lawsuit alleges that the creator committed copyright and trademark infringement by making videos that portray the twee toys in scandalous situations: having affairs, driving drunk, taking drugs. Videos not unlike the crassly captioned pictures of the toys, also known as Sylvanians, that Mr. Welander, 51, started sharing on social media back in 2016.
One of his posts, featuring a photo of two squirrels in cottagecore attire near a pile of leaves, had the caption: 'Cover the feet, we have till spring to get our story straight …' Another, featuring a bushy-tailed rodent sitting at a piano, was captioned with a lyric from the song 'Baby Got Back.' It read, 'I like big butts and I cannot lie, you other brothers can't deny …'
When Mr. Welander began sharing the posts on X (back when it went by Twitter), his account, called Sylvnianans, amassed some 10,000 followers within a week, he said. He attributed the interest in it to the humor of imagining the squeaky-clean creatures engaged in 'adult topics,' as he put it.
Soon after, his account was suspended. The reason Mr. Welander was given, he recalled, was for 'misrepresentation of a product.' A representative for X said it would be hard to confirm the reasons for actions taken against accounts as far back as 2016.
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