toys
By Liza Corsillo, a senior writer at the Strategist covering kids’ toys and men’s style. She joined the Strategist in 2019. She is a former writer for GQ and an accomplished illustrator.
Photo-Illustration: Strategist; Photo: Retailer
Before axolotls were everywhere, the “It” stuffed animal was a sloth, and before that it was a llama, and before that it was a narwhal. Now there’s a new kid in town: the capybara.
The South American rodents are furry, stout, and cartoonishly oversize — adults weigh more than 100 pounds — but also remarkably friendly and chill. They’ve been steadily rising in stature. Encanto featured a scene-stealing capybara, back in 2021, that still gets love online. There is a viral capybara song, hugely popular TikToks of capybaras soaking and eating giant yuzu in Japanese onsens, and countless memes and GIFs. (My husband is a fourth-grade teacher and says one of his students this year was so obsessed that they regularly used capybara GIFs in class presentations.) Taylor Moore, a social-media manager for the San Diego Zoo, told the newsletter Link in Bio that in addition to posts about elephants, the zoo’s posts about capybaras get the highest engagement. And now toymakers are obviously taking notice: Jellycat, known for its nontraditional stuffed animals and its influence in the toy world (the staff of the Strategist last year could not get enough of this jaunty stuffed shrimp), recently released Clyde Capybara. And a capybara from Pusheen that has a cat and a yuzu on its back was so popular it sold out two days after it launched on June 25. (You can sign up for back-in-stock notifications on the product page.)
The path from meme to mass market to status stuffie requires a very specific recipe. Like the axolotl, the animal must have a name that’s fun to say; bonus points if it’s also hard to spell. It has to be cute and funny and a little bit ugly — jolie laide, if you will. Capybaras check all these boxes, plus they are cuddly and have cute personalities in real life. They are smart, social herbivores that like to swim and are often kept as pets, like an irresistible mix between a corgi, a hippo, and a pony.
“The weirder it is, the more kids tend to gravitate toward it,” says Alexis Bobbitt, owner of the Park Slope toy store Little Green and parent of a 4-year-old son who is obsessed with capybaras. Bobbitt told me that when kids of all ages come into her shop, they seem to prefer the offbeat stuffed animals she carries over the traditional bunnies, dogs, and cats. And what’s weirder than a 100-pound rodent who loves a spa day? Below are my favorite capybara toys available to buy right now. And if you notice any other especially oddball stuffies, consider adding them to your cart too — based on insider intel, if I had to bet on what might show up in toy stores come 2026,theblobfishand a specific type of long-fingered lemur called anAye Ayeare solid contenders.
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The Strategistis designed to surfaceuseful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Every product is independently selected by our team of editors, whomyou can read abouthere. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.
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