Huggy Wuggy is a character from the horror game Poppy Playtime, intended for children over the age of twelve. In it, the figure undergoes all kinds of experiments that make it a murderous beast.
terrifying
Huggy Wuggy is very popular on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. It is also sold as a stuffed animal in toy stores. According to several primary schools and the Youth & Media Bureau, young children get to see the monster as a result, while it would actually be too scary for them.
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Pedagogue Herald Hofmeijer indeed thinks that young children should not come into contact with the monster. “Children can only distinguish the real world from fiction from the age of seven. Smurfs are therefore lifelike for them,” he tells EditieNL.
Traumatiserend
The impact of Huggy Wuggy can therefore be considerable. “Imagine lying in bed at night and thinking a scary monster might come in. That’s terrifying. Seeing scary characters in a series or video game can even be traumatic.”
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Because children are sensitive to ‘scary’ characters, it is always a challenge to find a suitable villain, says Annemarie Mooren, director of children’s films and series. “Kids are always looking for a bad character in a movie, so you need someone who’s a little — but not too — scary.”
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Humor is often a good way to find the balance between them. “If they come across as a bit clumsy, stupid or crazy, that can take away the scaryness. It also helps to show emotions and weaknesses.”
teasing spirit
As for the villain’s appearance: “If you make him look like the rest, it takes a lot of effort to make him scary. But a character like the teasing ghost from Bassie and Adriaan is already scary because of his looks,” explains Mooren .
Actually, that character was too scary for children, agrees actor Aad van Toor, who played the role of Adriaan. “We noticed during our shows that children hated it when the teasing spirit came up,” he tells EditieNL. “Sometimes we were even woken up at night because children couldn’t sleep because of it.”
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According to Van Toor, this is mainly due to the fact that the teasing spirit really wanted to destroy everything, had no humor and wore a scary mask.
Different per child
But not all children get shivers from that. It depends on the personality of the child how scary they find something. “One child is simply less anxious than the other,” says educationalist Hofmeijer.
He does advise parents to determine what a child can and cannot see to prevent them from having nightmares at night. If they do see something scary, discuss it or look at it again later together. “Then you bring it back to the ‘normal’ world.”
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