When Sarah heard that Ms. Rachel was dropping a new Tonie, she knew she had to get one for her son’s 4th birthday. Her toddler loves Toniebox, the screen-free audio system that plays his favorite stories and songs when he puts figurines of his favorite characters, known as Tonies, on the box. Ms. Rachel also holds a special place in their hearts; Sarah’s son has moderate hearing loss and a speech delay, and she credits the hugely popular kiddie YouTuber with helping him learn how to talk.
But when she woke up on July 20, the release date, she saw the Tonies had all sold out in the middle of the night. “I was devastated,” she says. Sarah called all the Target stores she could find within a 200-mile radius to see if there was one that had any of the toys in stock, but none of them did. She checked the sub-Reddit r/tonies, where dozens of other moms were in the same boat. “Someone please lmk if the ms Rachel tonie becomes available 😭😭,” one posted. She refreshed the sub-Reddit over and over again to see when the Tonies website would get a new shipment. The moms eventually figured out a new batch would drop every three hours — but every time Sarah dropped one in her cart, it would sell out within 30 seconds. Five minutes later, she’d see them on Facebook Marketplace selling for $100 — five times the retail price of $20.
Sarah didn’t expect it to be so difficult. But she probably should have. Ms. Rachel has 16 million subscribers, and since she struck a licensing deal for toys and merchandise this past fall — she’s also released a talking doll, a spin-along learning wheel, stacking cups, and finger puppets — big-box retailers have struggled to keep pace, creating an opportunity for resellers on platforms like Facebook Marketplace, Mercari, and eBay to sell some of the more in-demand products at many times the original price.
When the Ms. Rachel talking doll hit shelves this past September, my own mother fell victim to the fervor and bought it for my son for $70, more than twice what it was supposed to cost. (She later canceled the order when she was able to find it on Amazon for $30.) After the doll came out, demand was apparently so high that people started selling fake ones, prompting Ms. Rachel to post a video on Instagram warning consumers not to buy bootleg versions.
Excitement over the Tonie, however, seems to have taken everyone by surprise, including Target employees themselves. “I have had SIX people call me about this damn toy today,” one wrote on Reddit. “The last guy who called me literally offered $100 if I went and personally got it for him!!! These people are insane.” On Facebook Marketplace, I saw resellers listing Ms. Rachel Tonies for $100. One woman who was selling it for $80 told me she had to travel to five different Targets to find one and ended up buying one out of state. (She stopped responding to my messages when I asked her why she was selling it for four times the retail price.)
Demand was fueled by social media, where procuring one became something of a trend in itself. On launch day, momfluencers posted unboxing and GRWM videos on Reels and TikTok while they waited in the Target parking lot, sipping iced coffee and preparing to storm the shelves. “Hit a new parent milestone today,” Paige Farrell, a North Carolina–based mom, said in an Instagram Reel. “I was looking for the infamous Ms. Rachel Tonie, and I’ve never understood parents more who were looking for Furbies in the ’90s and early 2000s and Beanie Babies.”
Click here to preview your posts with PRO themes ››
One of the moms who posted on Facebook frantically searching for the Tonie was Cassidy Briggs, a 24-year-old from Florida, who was trying to find one for her 16-month-old daughter. Her daughter hadn’t asked for one, but Briggs was desperate to find it anyway. “I just know my daughter will love it so much,” she said. (She finally managed to get her hands on one after a friend who works at Target was able to buy one for her while she was on break.)
Others weren’t so lucky. “I’m so sad we missed out on the Mrs Rachel tonie,” one mom wrote on Facebook. “Evermore has been obsessed with our tonie box and she adores her so much To those of you price gouging the crap out of it on Mercari I hope your pillow is never cold, you step on legos every day and you stub your pinky toe anytime you stand up.”
The rush to buy and resell the toys also seems to run counter to Ms. Rachel’s whole ethos. Despite an estimated net worth of $50 million, Rachel Accurso has positioned herself as an educator first and a brand second: “I’ll never be a billionaire because I don’t believe that’s right,” she recently said in an Instagram comment. “I love giving.” In an interview with the New York Times last year, she and her husband, Aron, who also stars on her channel, said they were reluctant to venture into the toy space for this reason: “We wanted them to be really thoughtful and really high quality and affordable,” she said. “We have the parents’ trust and we never want to take that lightly.”
The moms I spoke to didn’t fault Accurso for creating a toy with such high demand. If anything, they blamed the big-box retailers and Tonies for not being adequately prepared for its launch. “I was a little frustrated at Tonie,” Sarah told me. “It felt like they were trying to create a fake scarcity or FOMO. I felt if that’s what they are trying to do I don’t want to buy it.” (Tonies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Still, buy it she did. Thanks to the other moms on r/tonies (and her husband, who navigated the Tonies website using another shopping app on his phone), she managed to grab one shortly after a three-hour restock. She can’t wait to give it to her son next week.
“I’m kind of embarrassed thinking about it now,” she admits. “If it wasn’t Ms. Rachel, if it was any other Tonie, I would be like, ‘All right, I’m gonna wait for it.’ But we’re all mama bears who will do anything for our kids.”
