The true story of the best-selling toy of the year

Where did the fidget spinner come from?

The cities around the world are beasts that bite you with no mercy. Concrete jungle, pollution, from street vendors and makeshift stalls, to pitched battles in the demonic entrails of mass transit, to stinking stenches for broken drains, ubiquitous traffic, and overcrowded offices. Stress is the favorite dish of city diners, that we complain much more lately of the labor situation, than the passionate or romantic defeats.

The game.

Under these situations of deep stress, all need obsessing with something that takes them out of the hustle and leave them in a kind of less depraved trance. A therapeutic distraction. This is how they look for a sedative for their anxiety (anxiety to get the phone, check the mailboxes, uncontrollably scrolling social networks). Tobacco only reassures the building planters, but upon re-entering the maelstrom, what to do?

Some will opt for metal balls, for balls to squeeze like the muscle of the beloved, for multicolored cubes that will never complete. And now, from the most outgoing to the most withdrawn, passing the geeks and the dummies, all definitely choose the fidget spinner.

The gadget, consisting of three circular points that rotate on a central axis that is held with the fingers of the hand, is absolutely fulfilling its original purpose: to appease.

Catherine Hettinger.

Although the boom of revolving toys happened earlier this year, is an invention dating back to the 1990s. Catherine Hettinger, the creator of the spinner model (although her “authorship” is not assumed for all the thousands of models and versions that have emerged in recent years), said in an interview for The Guardian that in the early 1990s, she was stung by a disease called myasthenia gravis, a disorder that causes a weakening of muscles.

That prevented her from properly caring for her daughter Sara, who is now 30 years old. Catherine says she could not carry her toys or entertain her much, so she began to design an object that would entertain her, to help her distract her. Finally, after several redesigns, a plastic version of the object was created: one that she could turn at the same time as her daughter. Nonstop.

History of spinner

But nothing compares with the sales that today has the gadget, considered as the best-selling toy of the year. It is true, it meets us in all its presentations, in all its forms, in all possible colors, with lights or without them, in all corners. The controversy generated is due to the fact that many of their sales to children are justified by the false premise that it helps them for hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder and in the case of adults as an anti-stress device.