Junk (The Brands That Raised Us, the Stuff That Shaped Us, and What We Leave Behind)

From the editor-in-chief of the cult-favorite literary magazine Taco Bell Quarterly comes a narrative history of the branded objects that have shaped our culture and identities—from Happy Meal Toys to POGs to Coca-Cola bottles.

Junk: We all have it. Branded collectibles we hoarded as kids, the kind of things Boomer parents beg their grown Millennial children to retrieve from their childhood bedrooms. At one point, we thought if we preserved this stuff—our Teenie Beanie Babies and Pokémon cards—we could someday sell them to fund our retirement. Eventually, we realized this was a delusion.

In Junk, pop culture writer and creator of Taco Bell Quarterly—the most prestigious literary magazine of all time—Mick Carrigan probes the symbiotic relationship between capitalism and nostalgia. Why are we so obsessed with the toys we grew up with? How did our identities become mixed up with brands and cereal box mascots? Why did it feel like Ronald McDonald was there for him more than his actual father? From the Reagan-era de-regulation of government oversight on advertising to the cross-branding that made beloved children’s shows themselves indistinguishable from the toy commercials that ran between them, Carrigan explicates the capitalist milieu to tell the human stories behind the iconic and the obscure: Cabbage Patch Kids, Gak, the Candwich, and more.

Junk is a dirge for days spent at the mall, a support group for former Chuck E. Cheese gambling addicts, and an oracle for anyone looking to divine what to do with all this sentimental shit before it buries us alive.