Sad Beige Toys for Sad Beige Babies

Welcome to the Beige Apocalypse! Are you a small child with an upper-middle class mother, who happens to be obsessed with a certain minimalist aesthetic? Well then congratulations, you may be entitled to a future of ocular medical issues! (Fun and colorful childhood sold separately). 

“Neutral Girls”, Are “Rich Girls”

In recent years, apps such as Tiktok have allowed people to learn about all kinds of aesthetics. There was a rise of a few specific ones in the white woman community, aesthetics such as “clean girl aesthetic”, “neutral aesthetic”, and “vanilla girl aesthetic” and a reflection of these would even be seen in pop culture. Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian is famous for her all-white house, and Emma Chamberlain known to show up to events in neutral browns. Combined with wooden home decor popularity on the rise and magazines making soft, minimalist suggestions on how to decorate, it’s no wonder the “beige aesthetic” was born. 

Following Kim Kardashians example, rich to upper-middle class mothers began redecorating their homes and mansions in tones of white or neutral browns. And naturally, because non-rich people like to copy actually rich people, middle-class moms quickly got to work on making sure their houses looked as similar to artist Piet Mondrian’s “Composition in Brown and Gray” as possible. 

Sad Beige Babies 

However, these beige women found that their children became a strong disruption when it came to their beige homes. Their children and their brightly colored toys and colorful clothing. To combat this, soon  a craze of parents dressing their babies and toddlers in muted colors and creating nurseries lacking color took the internet by storm. To keep up with current trends, a few toy companies came out with their neutral-colored wooden toys for children. 

People on the outside of the beige-craze began questioning if it was okay to take fun and colorful toys away from kids just to match an aesthetic. One such video on Tiktok became popular in which a beige mother’s toddler son wanted a dinosaur birthday party. She edited the video to make it seem like instead of the usual dinosaur birthday party most children would want, her toddler son explicitly stated he wanted a beige party. The decorations were all light brown and the balloons were white. The only signs of dinosaurs in this party were the 2 brown ones on top of the cream-colored cake, and the little brown paper goodie bags were sealed with tiny dinosaur stickers. 

A Tiktoker known as Deroche (@sadbiege) has been making videos reviewing pictures and advertisements of the beige aesthetic, acting as if she were making a documentary pretending to be German filmmaker Weerner Herzog, who is known for his nihilist worldview.

Deroche described how beige mothers crossed the line of “what is real and what is just for consumption”, and this combined with many videos similar to the beige dino party, has caused the internet to look in pity towards the children of this new era of neutral parents. Thus the phrase “sad beige toys for sad beige babies” was born. 

Dangerously Aesthetic 

Plenty of people dislike the idea of forcing your child to adhere to your aesthetic, but some have come to wonder if the lack of color has been affecting kids negatively. 

According to the American Optometric Association, a baby’s vision is relatively blurry at birth and they can’t distinguish colors as well. Contrasting patterns and colors are easier for a newborn to see, meanwhile muted or neutral colors tend to blend into the world. Brighter colors like red or a high contrast like black vs. white are less unchallenging for a baby’s developing eyes to focus on. And when a baby is able to focus on something, their brain does a lot of learning. 

So beige toys and nurseries, while not very stimulating for infants, are not necessarily harmful. But if you want to do the most to promote development for your child’s eyes and brain, for the love of the gods, give them colors!

This is your Beige Apocalypse travel guide, signing out!