As cultural tourism reigns supreme this National Day holiday and museums remain a popular destination for guochao merch, museum fridge magnets have become one of the hottest collectibles. In fact, the craze started when HeyTea released over 50 magnets hyper-localised for cities in late 2022 and early 2023 and created a resale market that charges up to 100 RMB (14.18 USD) for a single magnet.
Museums rushed to create their own versions of magnets based on artefacts in their collections. Magnets were one of the earlier formats of museum merch that have not been as desirable for some time, especially compared to the more innovative plushies and jewellery. However, as innovation reaches the “conventional” magnets, especially the three-dimensional ones modelled after exhibits from the museums such as clear pink ones based on a crystal incense burner have become a viral sensation. The newer the design, the more realistic they are. Some museum fridge magnets are simply miniatures of the actual displays with minute details.
It is only natural that the collectors, on the other hand, are also innovating. One influencer, Konoe on Xiaohongshu (RED), has created their own museum with all the exhibits being magnets from museums. The displays are mostly ancient artefacts, curated according to time periods and location. Stuck onto blackboards, the exhibition also includes handwritten chalk text of a brief introduction to each display. Konoe has over 90,000 views from a single post. Meanwhile, the topic “sharing pics of my fridge magnets” (#晒晒我的冰箱贴#) has nearly 300 million views on Xiaohongshu.
However, the unstoppable force of these magnets has now met its immovable object, which is the trend of non-magnetic fridges. Many manufacturers today make the outer board of fridge doors out of glass, causing them to be non-magnetic. In response, people are already buying adaptors for these fridges to hang the magnets. But as one netizen says about the magnets: “I’ll buy them even if I don’t have a fridge”.
