Economic bubbles have long been a unique point of interest for me. There’s the classic examples—dot-com—the obscure ones—Uranium—or the currently developing situations that may trigger a major recession—generative A.I.–all of which are strangely similar culminations of very unique economic and cultural factors. The same pattern plays out on a variety of stages to a singular, disastrous end.
I promise this article is still about Labubus.
In case you have managed to artfully evade contact with the internet cultural milieu of the past year or so, Labubus are a type of collectible decorative doll, usually attached to a bag. They have a distinct appearance, and have gained massive online popularity that started when a handful of celebrities were seen touting them. However, that popularity has since ballooned to cartoonish proportions—with the characters even making an appearance in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade—that has served to both feed the trend further and inspire a measure of backlash. Critics of Labubus focus not on the dolls themselves—which, when considered in the context of their concept art, are actually rather charming—but the culture around them, with many citing them as a symbol of consumerist culture and blaming their recent popularity for it.
The thing is, Labubus have always had a measure of fame. Their initial commercial release through Pop Mart—occuring in 2019, long before the craze would hit—was incredibly successful, breaking company sales records and generating loads of profit. But that fame existed within relatively contained communities. I would highly doubt that those outside of very specific online circles in the U.S.A. had ever heard of Labubus in 2023, even though they were an established presence in the Chinese collectible market, and I would pay actual money for proof of anyone discussing the ethical implications of Labubus prior to the height of their fame. There wasn’t a problem until they—not to sound like a total hipster—hit the mainstream. Everything that there is to criticize spiraled from there.
I’ve found that much like a strong current, the cultural mainstream has a tendency to erode anything that enters it into a smooth, featureless, and inoffensive version of itself. In order to have mass appeal, an object of public perception must cut off anything that could invoke even mild negative opinions, and in doing so remove the majority of its truly unique features. While the design of the Labubu remains as mischievous and contradictory as those first sketches, it is undeniable that the identity behind it has been scraped out, leaving a hollow that can be filled with whatever brand collaboration is most profitable. The spirit behind it doesn’t matter so much as the name recognition. Labubu has hit a point of critical mass—it is Popular, capital P, so what it actually is and what they actually do with it no longer matters. It’s famous because it’s famous. People wear it because it’s something you wear. It just is. It perpetuates itself, coasting along on a wake of consumerism, brand loyalty, and buy-now sentiments rather than genuine interest.
Remember when I was yapping about economic bubbles earlier? We’re coming back to that now.
I’m not arguing that Labubus are some kind of commodity bubble. But I do think that investigating them—and a variety of other trends—as a sort of cultural bubble can help us understand what feels so off about the craze without resorting to vague statements on the moral purity of liking stuff before it gets big.
We generally understand popularity as a lot of people liking the object of that popularity. However, as more and more people like something, the act of liking it is assigned a sort of identity—and, especially in online spaces, a sense of community. On the internet superhighway, most have settled down in towns built on their interests. Active communities full of thriving relationships form around specific activities, media, and, in this case, items.
Of course, this is only an intensification of real-world phenomena. How many times have you started a conversation with someone because you noticed they were wearing a shirt from a band you like? Or noticed a pin from a game you enjoyed? Maybe you were a little friendlier to a classmate because you saw them reading your favorite book series the other day? When someone likes the same things as you, you assume that they’re like you. You have common ground, shared interests, a communal identity that is conferred by a bit of plastic you’ve both taken a shine to. I think that’s beautiful.
What’s less beautiful is the bubble.
As more and more people outwardly like a thing, more and more people become aware that the thing is liked. And since people are always searching for community, more and more people will start to act as if they like the thing to gain the psychological benefits, regardless of their actual opinion on it. The pace and magnitude at which people do this increases as the size of the community does, resulting in practically exponential growth that only intensifies when celebrities enter the ring—becuase people want to align themselves with their idols, they mimic their interests. Eventually, this reaches a critical mass of popularity. The object becomes semi-ubiquitous, the identity is entirely eroded, and the community lyses, bursting as it expands. People still interact with the thing, but personal opinions on it have become meaningless and so the identity disintegrates.
I believe that this also encourages a level of overconsumption, or hoarding of Labubus, beyond the regular collectible mindsets. Late-stage community around Labubus is conferred not by a shared enjoyment of design aesthetics or an enthusiasm for gambling (blind boxes), but by doll ownership and doll ownership alone. When combined with the popularity of the item—and therefore, a greater level of societal acceptance of obsession—this creates the conditions of somewhat meaningless overconsumption. People buy enormous numbers of Labubus, because buying and owning Labubus is, at this point, the only thing holding the community together. It has grown to the point where there are no shared traits amongst its entirety beyond that, and so the community is wholly centered on the Labubu trade while the dolls themselves become tokens rather than treasures.
This, I theorize, is how we end up with people who think Nirvana is a clothing brand. This is how we get 24 karat gold Labubu. This is how we buy our way into hell.
