Lifelong Quests! Lawsuits! Feuds! A Super-Serious Story About Cereal.

The world’s most obsessive breakfast-food fans demonstrate just how far humans will go for the sweet taste of nostalgia.

Photos by Salvador Ochoa | Edited by Dave Odegard

Whenever Gabe Fonseca invites someone over to his Los Angeles apartment for the first time, he worries what they’ll think of his cereal box collection. He has over 200 on display in one small room, affixed by magnets to sheet metal on the wall. “It’s admittedly weird,” says Fonseca, a 39-year-old TV writer who has worked on shows like Jessica Jones and Private Practice. He cringes imagining negative reactions to the collection: “They’re gonna be like, ‘This dude is weird.’” But despite Fonseca’s anxiety, most visitors dive right into the nostalgia. “People go in and they [say], ‘Oh, you collect cereal boxes?’ And then they’ll be like, ‘Oh, I remember that one,’ or ‘Do you have that one?’”

Fonseca’s collection spans the past four decades of cereal, showcasing the creativity of graphic design and cereal engineering, while telling a history of American popular culture. Many are named for hit TV shows, music or films of the day. There’s a bo…