As Kotaku (opens in new tab) reports, Funko's recent earnings call revealed that the vinyl goods maker has so much inventory sitting in its warehouse that it plans to "write off," or dump in the trash, $30 million to $36 million worth It is now clear that the company is in the process of "writing off," or dumping into the trash. Fanco appears to be feeling the burn from market saturation and declining demand after several years of bumper crops, including an early pandemic

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This dangerous burial needs some warning. When the inhabitants of Earth in the distant future come across this treasure trove of vinyl, they must understand what they are getting themselves into. 'We considered ourselves a powerful culture. The message to future civilizations will begin, "This place is not a place of honor. 'Highly valued deeds are not commemorated here: ...... Nothing is valued here," the inscription on the massive cemetery of more than 2.7 million Funko Pops ($30 million divided by about $11 each) would continue." What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us."

This is part of a message proposed by Sandia National Laboratories (open in new tab) warning us to stay away from nuclear waste sites in the distant future, when archaeologists in the far future will find among the waste our society has left behind a vast hoard of vinyl bobblehead gellerts, grogas, green I am amused to imagine them discovering a vast hoard of goblins.

And maybe they're not so bad. FunkoPop is not for me, but my self-conscious and pronounced distaste for collectors' items everywhere has become one of standard, lazy signifiers. FunkoPop is the core of pre-pandemic 2018: Instagram Live, "popcorn lungs," the legal weed CBD craze before it spread, and hope for the future.

We reached out to Funko to confirm the grim fate of millions of little people, and it doesn't look good. A 2020 post by Funko fan account MayTheFunkoBWY (opens in new tab) documents the company's disposal of excess inventory in a prior write-off. This post by Reddit user edelwiess20 (opens in new tab) from a few days earlier purports to show Funko shares in a landfill ready to be disposed of.

So many silly toys will be buried in the desert (presumably, we don't know where Funko's treasures will be hidden or if they will be distributed in multiple locations), polluting Mother Earth with 2.7 million little plastic men. If ever I have seen it, it is a cry for help from a mentally ill society.

However, this has not always been the case. Just last week, a Redditor found $100,000 worth of magic cards (opens in new tab) in a landfill, and Atari buried a large number of E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (opens in new tab) cartridges until they were discovered by a documentary crew, remained unbelievable to many.

Still, if only we could learn a lesson from all this for once. We seem to continue to play out such simplistic and absurd morality plays about pride, excess, and manic pursuit of profit. If archaeologists in the far future determine that the buried funko were our gods, we will deserve the humiliation.