Thoughts on the Monster High Reboot

When I first heard the news that Monster High was going to completely rebrand themselves, I was very concerned. I’ve always loved their message of embracing your flaws and doing what you love. For the last few years, they’ve had the slogan “Be Yourself. Be Unique. Be a Monster.” With the recent reveals of the redesigns at Toy Fair and Play Fair, it seems that even they have forgotten what their brand means to people.

The core five dolls –Frankie, Draculaura, Clawdeen, Cleo, and Lagoona have all received new faces and different fashions. They have claimed that this ‘new face of Monster High’ is due to the fact that the dolls are too scary. I know that the target demographic for these dolls is very young girls, but I’ve seen plenty of young girls who love these dolls and aren’t scared by them at all. It’s unfortunate to see this brand conform. The whole reason these dolls became so popular is because they were different. A lot of people were attracted to them solely because they were perfectly imperfect.

They’re monsters. Monsters shouldn’t be cutesy. I don’t mind that the dolls are dressed in colorful fashions, in fact I love that they are. What I don’t like is that these new dolls are going to both colorful and extremely cutesy. I feel like Mattel has lost their direction and is running out of ideas. They didn’t need to rebrand at all, their sales are actually doing very well. It’s just really upsetting to me to see them do this. I wish they would see what their consumers want first instead of just making these decisions. A petition to recall these changes was created and received a huge amount of signatures, but I don’t think that Mattel is going to change a thing.

I started collecting these dolls back when they first came out. There was a period of time when I lost interest in the dolls, so I kept the two that I had and didn’t get any more. After a while, I started collecting again and I still am. I have so many of these dolls now and I don’t intend to stop collecting. I’ve never looked at them and thought they were scary. I think they are gorgeous and I share this opinion with thousands of other people. If parents think that they’re too scary, they should just give Barbies to their kids.