The rise of Funko Pops has brought with it a brand new era of collectible figures, giving fans of popular series tons of cool little miniatures to hunt for. This sudden resurgence has led to collectibles of just about everything, from classic movies and games to beloved musicians. However, it appears that streamers will also be getting figures, as a new line has been leaked by retailer Target.
Twitter user Tayriva, who is also a Target employee, spotted five of the figures out in the wild, confirming that at least some major internet personalities will be immortalized in cartoonish plastic. Among them are Dr. Disrespect, Ninja, Lirik, Summit1g, and TimTheTatman, five of the biggest streamers currently on the internet. The leak came just hours after Ninja, TimTheTatman, and Lirik teased the upcoming release on their respective Twitter accounts, though it doesn't appear that the figures were meant to go out so early as there was never any official announcement. According to Tayriva, the figures will have a price of $19.99.
It's not clear if these will be the only streamers in the initial line of figures. There are plenty of others out there that could also be added to the set, making the possibilities pretty much endless. Plus, the figures are numbered, which means there will almost certainly be variations of the collectibles at some point in the future. It's hard imaging these not being popular, either, as they'll make great gifts for fans of the personalities during the holiday season.
Streamers have been in the news a lot lately, especially with Ninja now streaming exclusively on Mixer. Their popularity means that the figures make sense, but it does seem somewhat risky to produce them given some of their tendencies to stir up controversy, Dr. Disrespect in particular. It'll be interesting to see if any of the figures get pulled the next time one of them has a major slip up.
Ninja has been pushing quite a bit of merch recently. The streamer also has a series of books releasing later this year, and it seems that his brand is starting to explode even more than it did when he first got popular for his skill in Fortnite. Soon, he'll likely be a common sighting at retail stores, much like Fortnite and Minecraft merch is already.
As for the other streamers, they all carry their own major popularity. Each one seems like a prime target for Mixer to try and get an exclusivity contract with, and one of them could even be the top 5 streamer considering switching to Mixer that was recently referenced by H3H3. However, only time will tell.
Source: Dexerto