Disney was notoriously slow to produce Baby Yoda merchandise so as to avoid spoiling The Mandalorian premiere episode. As a result of the immediate popularity of the Child, artists on Etsy, eBay and other websites unleashed a slew of bootleg toys and apparel in order to fill the void in the Star Wars market. Now that Disney has finally decided to move forward with releasing official products, however, it has also cracked down on these sellers and started to erase their creations from existence.
Baby Yoda has proved a highly successful marketing strategy, racking up attention for The Mandalorian and turning into a viral sensation that breached all corners of the internet, virtually overnight. Part of the success of the character probably has something to do with how shocking that reveal is at the end of Chapter one -- when the Mandalorian discovers the target he is assigned to recover is, in fact, the Child. In this sense, Disney wisely handled its property with care, making sure to avoid the slip-ups that Marvel has made with early toy releases.
The obsession with Baby Yoda may have proved too strong for Disney to handle, though, as creative fans took it upon themselves to sell their own homemade merchandise in lieu of official releases. The result was a bustling black market that Disney is now setting its own targets on. As reported by The Verge, the company has started to issue notice and takedown procedures against individual sellers on Etsy and pressured the site to remove listings related to Baby Yoda.
The aggressive move, unsurprisingly, coincides with the announcement of a new Baby Yoda plush toy released by Build-A-Bear, as well as other items available for preorder. This is no doubt to ensure that bootleggers do not overcrowd the Baby Yoda market and steer buyers away from non-licensed goods. The only way to ensure that demand for The Mandalorian merchandise rises is to stamp out the competition and thus limit consumers' access to a single source satisfying their cravings for a Baby Yoda hug.
Unofficial merchandise has also taken a hit on eBay, Redbubble and Teepublic, where shoppers could previously find a host of custom printed shirts and sweaters plastered with images related to The Mandalorian. It seems as if, much like Star Wars' Empire stamping out rebellion across the galaxy, Disney is scouring the entire Internet to make certain that no ounce of Baby Yoda merch has escaped its reach.
Still, there remains a way to allow homemade crafts to escape Disney's eye, although the strategy is difficult to enact without suffering heavy losses in profits. Etsy sellers have begun to write more generic tags and descriptors for their Baby Yoda items, opting to instead call the creature "the Baby Child," or even just "the Child." (How that moniker will survive when that is exactly what the characters in the show call the Force-sensitive toddler remains to be seen.)
The problem with this is that without the ability to add popular and widely searched tags such as "Baby Yoda," "Star Wars" and "The Mandalorian," the surviving Etsy items have significantly less chance of getting discovered. As a result, page views will no doubt decline and sellers will struggle to reach the same number of orders they were likely serving at the beginning of the Baby Yoda boom. One listing has attempted to broaden its scope with the addition of keywords like "star plushie," "star battle," "galaxy wars" and even "yodoll" in a clear attempt to avoid getting buried in broad searches.
Disney's response to the bootleg market isn't surprising. The fact that the company didn't immediately release licensed products as soon as the first episode of The Mandalorian came out is more unexpected. It's still sad, though, to see so many artists' works disappear, even if that means people will soon have access to more realistic-looking dolls. There's something kind of sweet about holding someone else's handmade creation, like the love for Baby Yoda is being passed on from person to the next.