WHY IS EVERYONE TRYING TO HEAL THEIR INNER CHILD?

With every new Internet fad, weekend pop-up market and accessory craze, it's almost like the general zeitgeist is falling into something ironic: older twenty-somethings are subscribing to youthful, girly trends, and younger girls are acting older and older online.

- By ISABELLE LOPERA

On TikTok you will find 10-year-olds reposting videos about situationships or repping a 10-step skincare routine with anti-aging products. On the same app, everyone who's anyone seems to be procuring a collection of Sonny Angels, inches-sized cherubs resembling dolls for children. Curiously, the brand markets itself precisely to women in their 20s, and in the Philippines, this seems to be their number one audience—most of whom seem to share similar rhetoric when making an otherwise meaningless expense: "I'm healing my inner child!"

In an economy where trends are changing more quickly and there is always something new to buy, is this popular narrative of healing the inner child just another way to indulge in retail therapy? And among Gen Z in particular, why is the narrative so popular at all? I spoke to Beatrix Aileen Sison, registered psychologist and play therapist, to help dissect the issue.

The uptick in the popularity of Sonny Angels and similar ventures may be, to the regular eye, a bit out of place. Online threads have netizens expressing bizarre reactions and doubts about the product's credibility, with some claiming the doll's trademark half-nakedness is at best odd, and at worst creepy.

Regardless, it's difficult to deny the longevity of the Sonny; one will find it clipped to bags, held gingerly between fingers, and sticky-tacked onto a phone case. "I'm looking at (the Sonny Angels) online. So you have a collection of this?" asks Sison on the phone. Sheepishly, I laugh. "I have one," I say, looking at the four on my desk.