About

Clackers are a toy consisting of two plastic balls tied together with a string that can be swung up and down so that the balls "clack" when hitting each other. Although this toy has been banned in the U.S due to it being deemed a safety hazard, it remains popular globally, and was the subject of memes in Indonesia in late 2022.

History

Clackers grew popular in the 1960s. Unfortunately, the plastic balls easily broke off and injured the children playing with it, and in 1966, the FDA decided to ban the toy around the U.S.^[1]

Popularity

Though banned in the United States, Clackers have appeared in several media franchises. For example on January 19th, 2013, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure episode "A Hero's Proof" featured Joseph using clackers as his weapon.^[2] The clip was uploaded by YouTube^[3] user ultimaT on November 4th, 2014 that received more than 624,000 views in 8 years (shown below).

2022 Revival In Indonesia

Despite the ban in the U.S., Clackers saw several spikes in popularity around the globe over the following decades. In late 2022, Clackers grew popular in Indonesia under the name latto-latto. On December 4th, 2022, TikTok^[4] user @kharismanurrr uploaded a video of a clackers grand final competition in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, in which two of the contestants were playing it more than 4 hours to become a champion. The video received more than 6 million views in one month (shown below).

Starting that day, the clackers gained popularity in memes and fan art. For example on December 23rd, 2022, Facebook^[5] user Surya Senja uploaded video of someone playing clackers using 3 kilograms of liquid petroleum gas. The video received 759 reactions and more than 2,500 shares (shown below).

On December 29th, 2022, YouTube^[6] user Vale XD Official uploaded a meme using the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure clip that received more than 162,000 views in 11 days (shown below, left). On January 3rd, 2023, Indonesian content creator Vernalta uploaded a video skit about clackers that received more than 298,000 views in five days (shown below, right).

On January 4th, 2023, Indonesian artist Komik Faktap uploaded an image of character Andy from Toy Story playing clackers via his Facebook^[8] page. The image received more than 1,000 reactions and 261 shares (shown below, left). The next day, Indonesian webcomic Pandaclip^[9] uploaded a comic about the character named Chiwa playing clackers using 3 kilograms of liquid petroleum gas. The image received more than 39,000 reactions and 4,200 shares in one week (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References