It’s a Baby Yoda takeover
Who would’ve thought a 50-year-old toddler could take over social media? Certainly not me. The diminutive, doe-eyed, big-eared creature with an uncanny resemblance to the Jedi Master has taken the internet by storm since being introduced Nov. 12 in the Star Wars spin-off series on Disney+. After the release of the new Star Wars movie, The Mandalorian, Jon Favreau and his crew created the most adorable monster society has seen in years. Yoda has created enough cuteness to completely take the internet by storm. The little green guy is even out-trending political candidates on Twitter.
After the movie’s release, his popularity instantly grew an immense amount. Currently, Baby Yoda merchandise is covering anything from the basic tee to cooking aprons and bed sheets. With that said, none of these creations are made by Disney themselves; a mistake estimated by many to cost the company millions.
“It was important to us that the reveal of the new character, the Child, be a special moment for fans, and we could not be more thrilled with the response,” Paul Southern, senior vice president for licensing at Disney’s Lucasfilm unit, said in a statement. More products, including Lego ones, will be coming next year, the company said. Disney looks to license out the design to major toy companies like Mattell and Funko Inc. The toy industry has yet to see a big-hit for this year’s holiday season, and Baby Yoda seems to have been the perfect fit.
Furthermore, Baby Yoda is getting themselves in between an intense debate on Twitter between the two latecomers in the Democratic election, Mike Bloomberg and Deval Patrick. With that said, Baby Yoda has roughly one million interactions each day on Twitter, over ten times the interactions of both candidates. This number puts the alien among the top ten most popular searches on the internet each day. Memes being the most popular, Baby Yoda has been the face of videos and jokes all over social media.
With all those important facts out the window, it’s time to enjoy some of the lighter facts on Baby Yoda. For starters, Baby Yoda is not actually Yoda. Most Star Wars enthusiasts would be happy to tell you Yoda, the Grandmaster Jedi, actually died prior to this episode. Simply put, the Baby Yoda is just one of the same species. With that said, Baby Yoda himself is hitting 50 and with time comes a progressing Baby Yoda set to not only be a force on the galaxy, but also consumers nationwide.
Will Engstrom, Contributor, studies economics at The University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. Born in Florida, but raised in the suburbs of Minneapolis,...