For my birthday my GF bought me a balloon animal/sculpting kit on a lark. I’ve been playing around with it and I’ve made a few basic animals/objects. I make a good saber, the classic dog, an elephant, a bunny, and I just made a little turtle.
I’m enjoying playing with it but I can’t help but think it may be more than a little dorky (not that I care). My GF is quite delighted at my little creations and I like making her happy.
What do you think about balloon animals?
I voted dorky because of my irrational dislike for balloon animals. I think it has something to do with the sound of making them–that squeaky noise is like fingernails on a blackboard to me.
I hate balloons because I’m always afraid they’ll pop. So my answer is terror inducing.
Dorky, and that’s the whole appeal of them.
I personally like them - got me a balloon octopus once. But they are kinda dorky. I voted in between.
I voted somewhere in between, because while balloon animals are dorky* per se*, they also have some chance of helping you get laid by women that like that sort of thing, and that can be kinda cool.
I voted “cool” and was reminded of the C.S. Lewis quote about how being a kid meant trying really hard to seem very grown up and being grown up means no longer giving a shit if people think your interests are “childish”.
There was guy who used to busk on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder CO who made a life sized balloon Jimi Hendrix, which I thought was pretty cool.
I voted dorky but if your GF is delighted with your little creations, pump it up, brother.
Cool in a dorky way and potentially profitable.
At a summer fair this year I made about 200 balloon dogs to hand out to kids. I did it for free, but at a buck or two each, there’s a tidy profit level there.
A few weeks later I made balloon animals for $1 each about 1.5 hours at the local farmers market and made something like $40. Not too much lower than my regular hourly wage at the day job.
I guess they are fun for children… especially at birthday parties.
But for adults, dorky.
Missing category: “Very Vaguely Creepy.”
I make a wicked eel.
Steve Martin made them the coolest (and funniest) thing in the world! Thirty-five years ago!
*
“Puppy-dog!”
“Venereal disease!”*
As a somtime clown, I say it depends on who makes them and how. They can be dorky or uber cool.
At a kid’s party or as a gag- cool. At a wedding or a get together for adults- dorky. So I voted in between.
A bit off point, but a friend of mine who used to be a clown at kid’s birthday parties learned quick that when doing balloon animals make the first one a sword. The reason: swords are easy to make (unlike poodles and octopi and birds) and once one kid has one most of the others are going to want a sword too.
Now is that a direct quote? 
Agreed.
I once saw someone make a balloon animal of a bunny, riding a Harley. Cool.
I want to learn to grind my own sausage so I can make them into balloon animals. I want to have a party with a balloon/sausage poodle on a rotisserie over a flame. I think that would also be cool.
I made a snake skin. 
