Gangster Shrinky Dinks

For an anime/manga club meeting I had the teens make "anime shrinky dinks." I ordered fifty sheets of the special shrinky dink paper and printed out as many well known anime characters as I could think of. The teens traced their favorite anime characters on the paper, popped them in the oven, watched them magically shrink, and made the coolest key chains out of them.

The activity was a big hit and it attracted teens from all around the library. My boss jokingly told me beforehand that some of our urban teens would want to make "gang sign" shrinky dinks. "Ha ha" I said "gang sign shrinky dinks? That's hilarious." Well soon enough we attracted the rough and tumble crowd of teens that are up and coming in gangs. I didn't expect to see them at an anime club activity but they thought the shrinky dinks were cool. And sure enough they created their own gang sign shrinky dinks, drawn with black sharpies.

So the 80s toy that was originally made for children was used today to make gang sign keychains. I'm just glad they're making gang sign shrinky dinks instead of spray painting their signs on buildings.