R. Emmett Tyrrell: Goodbye Minka

WASHINGTON — I hope you had a Merry Christmas and that you will have a happy new year. I believe 2023 will be a very happy year for those of you who live in countries that support the Western alliance. According to everything I have seen, Ukraine is winning its battle against the brutes currently residing in the Kremlin. Their soldiers fight amid the rusting and worn armor of their counterparts and the scattered corpses of their enemies lying around on the frozen plains. The Kremlin offers them the luxury of comforts while the brutes continue to fight. This won’t be the last. His Excellency Vladimir Putin has suffered thousands more casualties in the war with Ukraine than any Soviet counterparts during the entire Cold War. And he accomplished this feat in less than one year. Vlad, Happy New Year! It can’t last any longer.

But what was the most amazing thing about this Christmas season, you ask? While millions of Americans were struggling to cope with the holiday cheer and Christmas shopping, I saw something more surprising. This year’s most notable event was the arrival of a new sociological class of Americanos, the “Kidult.” Sociologists call it the phenomenon. These are adults who don’t feel happy being adults. They want to be children through their hobbies and pleasures as well as the things they purchase and consume.

Although the Kidult is funny, it is not something to laugh at. These Kidults made up one-fourth all toys sold this Christmas season. They purchased their toys. Many of them were gift-wrapped. They took them with them to their home and placed them under the Christmas tree. They opened the gifts with great joy on Christmas Day. These Christmas gifts were purchased for their own use. Our newspaper reported that “‘Kidults’ have a great fondness for cartoons, Star Wars and Lego.” This will help you decide what gift to buy your Kidult family members or friends next year.

Although I would never claim to be Tom Wolfe, In my lifetime, I’ve only ever met one sociologist with a literary flair. However, I was visiting Harvard State University when I noticed a significant shift in American taste in the late 1960s. A couple of young professors had to leave dinner early in order not to miss the next installment of a television show whose name I now forget. They were deeply involved in the series. They stressed to me the series’ profound intellectual content. The same thing happened several years later. “Star Wars” was shown at a local theatre. Today, “Star Wars” Kidults is a customer for this fascination.

I saw the above newspaper report yesterday. “Kidults, who tend to spend more on toys, have a great fondness for cartoons, superheroes and collectibles that remind them of their childhood. They buy merchandise such as action figures, Lego sets and dolls that might typically be considered ‘for kids.’ However, in recent years, toy makers have created product lines just for these consumers, realizing that demand is high for this generation of adults who still want to have fun.” To be honest, the Kidult’s sociological development is only a passing interest. Toy-loving adults seem to me the most trivial of all, especially when you consider how this column started. It started as a tribute to a people fighting against huge odds for freedom and winning.

Let me close this column about adult Americans buying toys for Christmas. However, not everyone was this infantile. Many people saw Christmas as a celebration of the birth Jesus Christ. American citizens donated to veterans charities as well as hospitals for the very ill. My family paused to grieve Minka, a Labrador retriever who was almost fifteen years old, at our home. Goodbye, girl. We still love you.

Ukraine: Glory!

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. founded and is the editor-in-chief of The American Spectator. He is a Senior Fellow of the London Center for Policy Research, and most recently the author of “The Death of Liberalism,” Published by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

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