South Korean ‘kidults’ aren’t shy about ordering the Happy Meal

McDonald's Happy Meals are for kids, typically. So are the toys that come inside.

But in South Korea, men in their 30s and 40s are, um, lovin' it.

Dubbed “kidults,” these Peter Pans aren’t shy about their love for mini cars, legos and robot figurines.

“My friends envy me because I already have two toys,” a 32-year-old man told Korea’s Joongang Daily, referencing his latest happy meal treats. He said he planned to collect six more toys from the McDonald’s Super Mario collection. 

A McDonald's official said he found it "interesting" that many of the stores which ran out of the happy meal toys were located in business districts rather than residential ones.

(Vincent Benedict Castro/Flickr Commons)

It's not just McDonald's. Other toy stores in Korea are finding it easy to attract more and more customers among grown men. A dad bought a remote-control mini car. To make new memories with his son. His son. Yeah, that's it.

According to a survey on Saramin, a Korean website about employment, 80.4 percent of respondents think the kidult trend is a good thing. Why? Well, they may be young at heart, but luckily their bank accounts have matured.

Kidults are into plastic models or “plamodels” (27 percent), remote-control vehicles (19 percent), and figures and miniatures (17 percent), according to the survey.

(Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images)

And it's not just Korea.

German adults make up an estimated 20 percent of the toy market there, and the US — not to mention the world — has plenty of adult lego fans. David Beckham said he built a lego Taj Mahal while he was in Italy, which skyrocketed the product’s status to “highly collectible.”

Hong Kong had its 40th Toys and Games Fair this past January and the place was packed with kidults: