Jerika Ordonio, 26, is a child again as she recalls visiting Manila Ocean Park for the first time.  

The decade-old ticket to the theme park remains a keepsake, testament to how her two aunts worked hard to give her what she calls a fulfilling childhood. 

“I was raised by my two aunts, both unmarried,” she says. “Even at the time I got the ticket, it meant a lot. It still does until now.”  

The ticket is part of memorabilia that Ordonio has accumulated over the years—items including biscuit wrappers and coffee cup sleeves, all bearing memories from certain periods. 

“It’s physical evidence of a time in my life,” she explains. “I look at an item in hindsight, so I can find a piece of myself in it. For me, it’s really about sentiment more than aesthetics.”  

On the internet, Ordonio is called an “anik-anik girl,” or females given to collecting all sorts of items for various reasons, mostly aesthetics or the memories they evoke. 

Monica Fides Amada Santos, a professor of anthropology at the University of the Philippines, says the motivation for possessing items cannot be encapsulated in a simple explanation, but it is always tied to a historical element. 

Nostalgia and joy

For Ordonio, “the nostalgia and the joy that are around the item” are why she is hanging on to her keepsakes. Her interests might have changed over time, but the items remain remnants of those moments she chooses to remember for life. 

It all started with the small toys she collected from fast food joints when she was seven years old. She recalls that her aunts noted her inclination and supported it with a gift: a toy organizer. 

As Ordonio grew older, that inclination grew into an abiding interest that included magazines, receipts from eating places, as well as items from her first productive efforts. She says she still keeps an ice cream wrapper of a certain brand, from the first time she tasted it. 

Her trove also includes bus tickets, product stickers, clothes tags, candy wrappers, and figurines from a Japanese thrift store—all documented in a journal she can open anytime for a bit of reminiscence. She deems second-hand items more valuable than brand-new ones.  

Other anik-anik people prefer to buy items still sealed. Purchasing collectibles has become trendy, like Labubu dolls, a set of fur fairy characters designed by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung in 2015 and which attract mostly Gen Zs and millennials who spend much time on social media. 

Collecting Labubu dolls gained traction this year after Blackpink member Lisa posted a video of herself hugging one. The artist is known for her love for the doll in different forms, from keychains to plushies.

Some Filipino celebrities like Marian Rivera, Vice Ganda and Heart Evangelista have jumped on the global trend.

Motivations

According to anthropology professor Santos, the meaning of the items to the collectors varies depending on their personal history. She says other possible motivations are functionality and economic value. 

“It’s always a process why the interests of people persist, and how those … can be translated into these kinds of actions,” she points out. 

Moreover, Santos says, social, cultural and economic conditions play a part in shaping an individual’s collecting behavior. This, she says, is also an act of consumerism tied to the individual’s financial capability to spend extra money on collectibles. 

“If we can hypothesize, those who are poor may not even care to think about buying anik-anik items,” Santos says in Filipino. “They don’t have the money to do that. There could be a class factor.” 

Let’s take an example: A Labubu doll can cost from P450 to P11,000, depending on its kind, size, and design, according to the Pop Mart website. 

Santos observes that many factors affect individuals’ desire to purchase collectibles, including social media, which brings trends into people’s consciousness.

Value 

“Social media relays information. It also relays value—how we are supposed to value things,” she says, adding: “Social media prescribes what we must want, buy and do, and if we don’t, there will be social consequences, implications, for us.” 

These could be the traits associated with the trendy items, such as feelings of belonging to or exclusion from a certain group or generation, Santos says. Labubu dolls, for example, are associated with young people, especially the Gen Zs (born between 1997 and 2012).

Such connotations come from the implied meaning that social media attributes to an item, according to Santos: “Does that suggest that you occupy a particular social status?”

In the Philippines, the Labubu dolls gained popularity online after the mainstream media regarded their collectors as “anik-anik lovers.” This has sparked debate on whether the act of purchasing collectibles manifests anik-anik or plain consumerism. 

An X (formerly Twitter) user said: “We lost the heart and core of true anik-anik, which is having literally just spare stuff and trinkets. You know that one relative who probably has a hoarding problem? Yes, that’s THE anik-anik icon.”

Indeed, to understand a person’s motivation in collecting things is to holistically appreciate his or her self-development. 

“The collection of things, whatever kinds of things, connotes that even what may seem to us as common or ‘useless’ things have value,” Santos says.

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