he's thought to be a parody of sanrio mascots which is only partially true. he was made to be a satirical take on overly cutesy mascot characters.
gloomy bear is supposed to be a metaphor for chack's belief that humans and wild animals are fundamentally incompatible and we need to leave well enough alone (which is real and true and a good message)
gloomy's backstory is that he was abandoned as a bear cub and taken in by his owner pity-kun. he's often seen beating pity and if not that, then he's covered in his blood lol.
i got my very first piece of gloomy bear merch in the form of a t-shirt from hot topic back in 2022 (i believe) and then i got my first plushie later that christmas, it was one of the simple 8 inch sitting ones, but i loved that plush like it was a childhood toy (despite getting it at 16 years old...)
after that my obsession with gloomy furthered in the form of making gajinkas, scrolling ebay to find any listings of previous merch, watching the animated show in french class instead of doing homework all in the span of like a week after i had gotten my first plush. i was (and still consider myself) a gloomy bear super fan.
nowadays since im a big boy with big boy money my obsession has lead to a near ritual of sorts. everytime i hit up a mall, doesn't matter which one, doesnt matter how much money i have, i always get SOMETHING gloomy bear related. it's gotten so bad that the workers at my local spencer's let me know what new gloomy stuff they have in stock when i stop by!
although my collection is much smaller than i'd like... curse you unemployment.
i've even got two custom gloomy bear pete wentz keychains that reside on my very own gloomy bear wallet. cause yeah. i'm one of those people.
also i don't know where to put this but my ghost gloomy plush is named benson as like a REALLY fucked up the passenger joke... that's all lol
