The Secret World of Slime
As a ten-year-old you most likely tried to make slime, failed drastically, made a huge mess all over your living room, got yelled at by your mom, and from then on slime was banned from the house. By the next day, maybe you had forgotten about it and moved onto the next thing. But unlike many of you, though it is embarrassing to admit, as a 15-year-old, I play with slime on the daily. Whenever I am doing homework or watching TV, you will probably see a slime or two by my side. But hey, my parents aren’t mad about it. Better for me to be addicted to slime than juuling. You may now be thinking I am extremely odd, which is true, but I am not the only one. Truthfully, I am far from it.
The slime industry is something you have most likely never heard of and may seem like a joke. Slime and industry in the same sentence may appear to be an oxymoron, but some slimers (people who make and sell slime), who are making thousands of dollars a week, might have to disagree with you. The slime experience is a roller coaster for almost all your senses: smell, sight, texture, and sound, everything except taste. Please do not eat slime! The basis of every slime business is an Instagram account. Slimers post daily videos of their slimes that they will later stock in their shops for people to buy. These accounts have up to 2.4 million followers and some sell THOUSANDS of slimes a week, each costing anywhere from $8-15 for an eight ounce container.
A major part of the slime “industry” are slime conventions. Just like a comic book nerd may go comic con or makeup and fashion lover may go to beauty con to meet their celebrities, slime conventions are that for slime lovers. Famous slimers from around the country gather in convention centers to sell slime. And as an attendee of America’s biggest slime convention, slime bash 3, it is safe to say that for a slime lover, it is pretty awesome. Thousands of kids and their parents line up in front of the convention center hours before the convention begins so they can be the first to buy. The minute the doors open, you sprint to your favorite slimer. Walking into the room is a similar sensation as is a kid walking into a candy store. Pure excitement. In front of you are rows upon rows of slime from all of your favorite businesses and Instagram accounts that you have been waiting to buy from for what feels like forever. To some people, not so much me, meeting the faces behind big slime companies such as Slime Obsidian or Parakeet slimes is equivalent to meeting a celebrity. People line up for up two-plus hours, waiting to buy slime from there favorites and take a quick picture. So maybe all of this is ridiculous. A whole industry entirely based on glue, but who cares. For me and many others, slime is a way to express your creativity, have fun, and relieve stress all at once.
By Ruby Kaufman