Moomin Mugs: Compulsive bying, Hoarding, Love, and Hate

ARTICLE Auður Helgadóttir

TRANSLATION Julie Summers

PHOTOS Sædís Harpa Stefánsdóttir

You have some Moomin mugs, don’t you? There are two or three of them hiding among all the glasses and mugs in your cupboard. And you have a favorite. Is it Little My? Or the Groke? Maybe you collect the spring and winter mugs. Perhaps you got one or two as gifts on special occasions, or maybe you’ve even had a special shelf installed spanning the entire length of your kitchen in order to store your collection of 40 Moomin mugs. Some people are more inclined to collecting than others, but it seems that for many people, Moomin mugs are here to stay. You can’t possibly go through life in Iceland without encountering the marvel of Moomin. These simple, delicate (and most of all, cute) mugs have captured a part of the Icelandic soul. They can spark feelings of joy and warmth, incite outrage and scandal, and even bring out the worst in people. We’ve seen just how much they’re capable of, these mugs. People fight over the rarest mugs on Moomin sales sites, shop around for the best prices, and try their utmost never to sell their mugs for less than they paid for them.

The basic purpose of the mugs is practically irrelevant. They’re not mere vessels for drinking coffee, tea, or some other sort of beverage; they’re a status symbol, a lifestyle. Moomin mugs serve a strange and obsessive purpose for people who are prepared to do anything for them: go to extremes to find the one unique design missing from their collection, even let themselves be tricked into buying a new mug that turns out to not exist. What is this phenomenon in everyone’s kitchen? Why are they simultaneously so popular and unpopular? Why do some people see Moomin mugs as a status symbol and others don’t?

We Icelanders love stuff, and we also love drama. We’re herd animals. The more popular something is, the more we want it. We want to go with the flow and fit in with everyone else. Consumerism combines with herd mentality, and we buy and buy, convincing ourselves that we need these things, that we must have the latest version of the summer mug. But we can also convince ourselves that we do not need things. Some people do not want to follow the Moomin craze. Some people decide all of a sudden that having Moomin mugs isn’t cool. Herd mentality and mass production can actually end up turning people off to something. Seen as an exciting novelty when they first became available, the mugs are now considered mainstream. Still, they live on and continue to be seen as a reliable choice when you need a gift for a special occasion.

I didn’t know Moomin mugs were tacky. It took me a long time to realize that; I always just thought they were cute and clever. I bought one mug for myself, but to assure myself and others that I wasn’t succumbing to this embarrassing herd mentality (or so I thought), I said I had bought it in Finland (which is totally true). I convinced myself that the mug I bought was more special since the Moomin trolls are from Finland. I could be proud of having not bought my mug in Iceland, but rather in a Finnish department store.

There’s something about these mugs that just grabs people. They’re shiny and full of character, and the ones you have can tell people something about your personality. They reflect our inherent national obsession with the weather. We choose the spring mug when the world starts coming back to life, the Groke when it’s dark and the howling wind is blowing snow past the window, and the winter mug when the world is hushed and snowflakes are falling beautifully to the earth.

I believe that Icelanders’ love of Moomin mugs runs deep. Perhaps it’s only the consumer culture that surrounds them that’s so off-putting, because I think we can all identify with at least one Moomin character. We are all Little My, the Groke, Moominmamma, Moominpapa, Sniff, Snufkin, the Hattifatteners, the Snorkmaiden, the Invisible Child, and so on. We can relate to their different personalities. Forgive my sentimentality, but I think these characters have a place in our hearts and souls. We all love Moomin mugs, whether we collect 40 different designs or just get them “accidentally” as gifts every once in a while.