With all the cottage-core girls, mushroom witches, and non-binary frog and fungus fans around, it isn’t surprising that Squishmallow has released a line of adorable cuddly shrooms. After all, mushrooms are already one of the cutest vegetables out there (although, their status as a vegetable is dubious depending on who you ask), and the variety of weird colors and shapes they appear in has nature doing half the work for them. But of course, ranking them by sheer cuteness factor would be too obvious, and actually a little too difficult on top of it—they’re all really cute!
Instead, I’ve decided to rank them by how likely they’d be to cause their unwitting snugglers to take a psychotropic journey if they made the mistake of licking, or even just inhaling a little too close by, their fungal friend.
But maybe you’re here because you don’t know what a Squishmallow actually is. Perhaps a Gen Z relative asked you for a mushroom Squishmallow for their birthday and you turned to google thinking what the heck is that exactly? Well, don’t worry, because here’s your crash course on the cutest, most highly coveted, collectible plush toys around. Squishmallows are the softest, squishiest stuffed toys you’ll ever come across. Available in hundreds of different designs they have adorable, friendly little faces and equally cute backstories, often coming in clusters of friends and family (so you have to buy the whole set of course, its very smart marketing). Now with that out of the way, here’s my list of the most psychogenic-looking mushrooms in the Squishmallow collection from most to least.
10. Malcom
Meet Malcom, a soccer playing mushroom with a white spotted red cap. He appears to be a classic fly agaric, the mushroom featured in all those charming watercolor paintings of fairies, ubiquitous in children’s books and nursery decor. He’s also quite toxic, (if indeed he is a fly agaric), which a lot of people mistakenly assume means is a death sentence if you eat it, but toxic doesn’t always mean (completely) deadly—sometimes it just means you’ll have a really bad trip featuring intense hallucinations, with just a small risk of death at the end. The fact that he seems to be a real, intensely psychotropic mushroom has Malcom coming in at the top spot on the list.
9. Sakina
Coming in just under Malcom is Sakina, who seems also seems to be a flu agaric but cutesified, with a pink tummy and a little yellow flower. I debated whether she needed to come above or below Malcolm because while the flower is cute and childlike, it’s also reminiscent of the ’60s and ’70s hippie artwork and we all know they had only the most magic of mushrooms. So is she a defanged fly agaric, rendered harmless via cuteness, or is she representing an extremely potent form of LSD, such as you might have found at Woodstock circa 1969? I’ve concluded it’s the former but feel free to disagree in the comments. After all her bio says she likes daydreaming and when she does fall asleep in the middle she has really trippy dreams, and if that doesn’t sound like an insinuation I don’t know what does!
8. Minya
Minya is obviously not a real mushroom but that doesn’t matter because just take a look at that galaxy print all over her cap! A more obvious candidate for a psychonaut I’ve never seen, Mina is what magic mushrooms should look like frankly – plus she’s purple, and I checked, that is the color of at least one variety of hallucinogenic mushroom (mycena pura, they’ll also make you pretty sick, so don’t). See how she’s winking at you? I’m pretty sure that’s because she knows she can make you see the face of the universe if you get to close to her. Minya apparently travels around in a camper van with her best friend Brindall (an equally trippy looking rainbow tie dye platypus), which has some 60’s hippie culture vibes to it, but they mostly seem to do nature stuff and photography so its less of an insinuation than Sakina’s is up there.
7. Xavier
Another clear psychonaut, Xavier comes with a blue cosmic-patterned cap. Though I’ve put him in under Minya on the basis that he just looks less trippy than her the research I’ve done for this article tells me that a lot of hallucinogenic mushrooms are in fact blue, and magic mushrooms themselves actually turn blue if you bruise them. So. A clear-cut case. With a bio that says he likes rock climbing, board games, and the desert he’s starting to sound like a certain kind of Californian herb aficionado, add in a tendency towards midnight munchies and that pushes it over the edge!
6. Kervena
With his rainbow tie-dye Kervena looks like he stepped out of the painted side of a classic freak bus (think the Scooby gang’s Mystery Machine), putting him in at a solid number six on this list. Rainbow tie dye and mushrooms are an iconic feature of the hallucinogen-inspired art of the ’60s and on after all. On the other hand, Kervena’s bio says he’s a big fan of retro aesthetics and likes to go thrifting to find things that match up to them, so it could be all style and no hallucinatory substance here. Am I calling him a poser? No, of course not! All Squishmallows are perfect baby angels, if indeed he is a non-hallucinogenic mushroom borrowing the aesthetic of one of his more adult brethren its clearly innocent—like a pre-teen delving through the button bin in a thrift store and not knowing what the brightly colored flying saucers and fly agarics really mean.
5. Molly the Mushroom
Molly is halfway down this list because while there are pink hallucinogenic mushroom varieties there are also quite a few edible ones too, so she could go either way. Her pink top is the paint spatter/galaxy effect we’ve seen with other varieties that points to yes, as does her cheeky little wink. However her bio is all about taking care of other people, cheering them up and being genuinely sweet and lovely, so if she is a psychoactive mushroom its probably the medical-grade therapeutic type rather than recreational. Still, you never know, so here she is, right in the liminal middle. Schroedinger’s mushroom if you will.
4. Rachel
Another pink mushroom, another hallucinogen adjacent colour scheme – tie dye in this case. However Rachel’s bio is all about being the most ordinary (not in a bad way), fun loving kind of mushroom next door. Keen on boating, a good tv show, and sleepovers with her friends, Rachel’s personality just doesn’t give off the vibes, even if her design does. She’s down in four, with a probably-not-but-you-never-know ranking.
3. Terell
At first Terell’s color scheme makes you think yes, of course—but then you realize, no, those are shamrocks, it’s the wrong kind of green (not that the other green is a hallucinogen anyway, but still, it’s adjacent). His bio is all about good luck, cheer, and optimism—which, if you were being cynical, could be taken as evidence that he’s definitely tripping on something given the state of the world today. But! We’re not being cynical here, Squishmallow-appropriate vibes only, so he’s down here in number three with only his bright, neon color scheme saving him from a lower rank.
2. Chappy the Mushroom
While Chappy’s another dear little blue guy he honestly looks too sweet and innocent to be hallucinogenic, though maybe that’s just what he wants us to think? His bio is also incredibly cute, as apparently he spends all his time drawing comics about a caterpillar called Terpi. I don’t know, his little love heart saying “smile” coupled with how pastel he is just screams benign to me. However he does look a lot like the new mushroom just discovered in Taipei, hallucinogenic status unknown. So he’s not dead last, because there are still possibilities.
1. Sydney
Sydney honestly looks like a Pokemon with that cute little leaf on her stomach, and while making her combatants hallucinate might be a viable power for a mushroom Pokemon I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. Her blue-green cap doesn’t particularly give off hallucinogen vibes, and her bio seems far too active, peppy and law-abiding for any of that. She’s too busy solving crimes and swimming with manatees to get anyone high.
(featured image: Squishmallow / Corri Seizinger/Getty Images)
