What I like about my Brownie Hawkeyes is specifically that it does not have the aura of a toy camera: no exotic third world manufacturing in a crappy factory, no light leaks, no magical randomness, in other words, NO IRONY. I like it for what it is. I'm not even mocking secretly the manufacturer.
It gives me beautifully soft and color-aberratted (what's the opposite of color-corrected?) results on slide film, the kind that arrests the eye because it's not common anymore. It frees me from the Tyranny of Correct Exposure just like a Holga but did so for chump change, and I can use flashbulbs with it.
It's a classic design, it works as a self-defense tool, has a waist-level finder for that classic Brownie Pose, or for carrying it at waist level in my lowered hand, aimed and operated from a glance into the viewfinder.
And it has a handle! How many cameras have an integrated handle beside box cameras? Polaroid cameras, and that's about it.