With social media being a major part of most teenage lives, trends seem to take off the moment the video hits the screen. The rising trend of this month: Squishy toys.
That’s right, teenagers are obsessed with squishy toys, including students of South High. Just walk around the halls and you will see small, colorful, liquid-filled balls in everyone’s hands.
This obsession started where most do–with TikTok. Social media algorithms are filled with videos like squishy ASMR, squishy hunting, squishy reviews, and squishy hauls.
These videos may sound like they are made by little kids, but almost every video is made by a high school-aged teenager or a full-grown adult.
“I think TikTok really helped squishies like the infamous NeeDohs, and dumplings get seen by the public. I always watch videos on where and how to get them,” senior Ally Horstmann said.
Right now, the most obvious fan favorite squishy is a Needoh. Needohs are manufactured by Schylling, Inc, a company that specializes in toys. The Needoh product line launched in 2018; they were not immediately popular.
That was until 2020 when they started to go viral on TikTok. People loved using them–they were calming, satisfying, and great for anxiety release.
But today in 2026 their popularity has gone off the rails. According to google, “NeeDoh squishies, manufactured by Schylling, have experienced massive, rapid growth, with over 100 million units sold as of early 2026. The brand has expanded from a single stress ball into a product line of over 50 different items.”
The money Schylling is making from these toys is astronomical. While a single Needoh costs range from $2 to $15, their small price makes it easier for Needoh lovers to purchase more and more of them.
“I think I have spent over $80 for about 17-20 squishies. I somewhat regret buying some of the bad squishies, but the good ones are worth the money,” sophomore Camille Luegger said.
Squishies come in all shapes, sizes, and textures. It is up to the user on what they define as a good squishy. But on the internet, the most popular NeeDohs are ones like the Blue Nice Cube, the Dream Drop, and the Fuzzball.
“I got my best squishy from Amazon. It was about 8ish dollars, and it was a Blue Nice Cube. I was so excited because I had been using my sister’s NeeDohs and I loved them,” Freshman Kelley Stricker said.
One of the trends that made NeeDohs so popular were “squishy haul” videos. In these videos people show off how many squishies they have been able to find, and talk about the satisfying consistency of their squishes.
A lot of people on TikTok also like to cut open different squishies just to see what they are made of.
According to Amazon, squishies are “made up of a durable, non-toxic, latex-free silicone outer shell filled with a thick, moldable, and sticky, gel-like substance. This inner, slow-rising, and heat-sensitive filling is typically described as a PVA (polyvinyl alcohol) glue compound or a sugar-based syrup (maltose/malt extract).”
But the squishies’ satisfying consistency isn’t the only factor that has played into their extreme rise in popularity.
“I go to Walmart about twice a week to try and find one. I don’t even think it’s the product that I want so bad, I just really want the victory of finding one,” senior Avery Godwin stated.
While there is a variety of trends around squishies online right now, the trend of squishy hunting is by far the most popular one. People of all ages spend hours going store to store in the hopes of just finding anything squishy-related.
“I got super into squishies a month or two ago when my friend asked me to go squishy hunting with her. Now I am obsessed with the excitement of looking for them,” Stricker said.
However, students like Horstmann are finding out that squishies have become so popular they are hard to find in stores.
“Right now I feel like finding a ruby in Brazil would be easier than finding a NeeDoh,” Horstmann said.
Nowadays squishies are very normalized in schools, mainly middle school and high school. In fact, the South High library has a Word of the Day competition, and whoever guesses the Word of the Day correctly gets a mini squishy as a prize.
“Kids are always coming to the library trying to get a squishy. Unfortunately, we never have enough for everyone. The positive is that we are improving kids’ vocabulary, and we can make students happy by giving them a squishy,” library aide Kelly Grant said.
However, at Southwest Middle the squishie madness has become a distraction for a lot of students.
“My twelve-year-old sister told me that the squishy obsession has gotten so out of control at Southwest that kids are now banned from bringing them to school,” Godwin said.
While it is too soon to guess when this trend will end, it sure is interesting to see squishy fanatics come together and bond over their love for these toys.
“My friend NeeDoh got stolen and popped. It was heartbreaking,” senior Denny Jakovljevic said.
![“All-Suburban [choir] was really fun because I got to work with a lot of people from other schools that I didn't know and I got to make friends. We got to learn fun but challenging music and perform for my parents so that was really fun. But the audition process was really stressful, because over 600 people auditioned but only around 150 actually made it into the choir so that was really intimidating for me. I was one out of three girls in my class who made it so that made me feel really special and I was really grateful to have this opportunity.”](https://psouthtreaty.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Image_20260523_140845_694.jpeg)
