At some point during Brighton Pride, a new friend heading to get us a round of drinks asked me to look after his bag – and his Labubu. It was August, half way through a hot, trashy, putrid green BuzzBallz-flavoured British summer, where everyone seemed to be getting hitched in town halls or breaking up with their long term boyfriends. And bopping about on handbags and bumbags at the Zillenial parties I was attending were furry, candy-floss coloured, monstrous TikTok toys. Somehow, in the sweltering heatwaves of an increasingly surreal state world, it had become socially acceptable for grown adults to fuss over their furry, rainbow elves.
In Brighton, staring into the adoring, dilated pupils of the 30-something’s fluffy toy, I wondered how on earth this had become normal. Are Labubus just a zany micro-trend for dopamine-addicted Dubai-chocolate-munching, iced-matcha-gulping idiots? Or does the mass popularity of soft and plush toys reveal something deeper about ourselves and our social worlds?
Labubu fever was meant to have ended – or at the least, be simmering down. The creatures were dreamed up about a decade ago by Kasing Lung, a Hong Kong-born illustrator who grew up in the Netherlands, where he was inspired by the fairies and elves of Nordic folklore. Chinese toy company Pop Mart began selling the dolls in 2016, and in 2019, introduced a “mystery box” element. That customers did not know which toy they were buying instilled Labubus with a nostalgic, Wonka-esque glow and a blue-light gambling app thrill.
Unboxing videos flooded TikTok. Myths of a 24-carat gold Labubu emerged. Celebrities caught onto the delirium: Rhianna and Dua Lipa were snapped with sorbet-coloured Labubus dangling from their handbags. Towie star Gemma Collins confessed to a Labubu addiction. Madonna enjoyed a Labubu-themed 67th birthday cake. In 2024, Pop Mart, where Labubus are sold in the UK, reported an increase in profit close to 400 per cent in the first half of the year.
Economists have even dubbed Labubus as a recession indicator. Sold by their retailer for as little as £14, they are a relatively affordable way to buy into a fashionable accessory. The “Lipstick Index” theorises that people treat themselves to small luxuries like lipstick in times of financial hardship. Labubus are quick fixes of colourful joy – cost-efficient ways of signifying quirky, celebrity-approved style. “They’re pocket-sized serotonin,” says Alex Kessler, a deputy editor at i-D who bought his first Labubu in a food court in Chiang Mai earlier this year, “A goblin you can flex with. And a plot twist to any outfit.”
But a year after Labubus went viral on TikTok, it looked like the garish dolls had crashed and burned. Some content-creators coyly mocked the frenzy around the dolls by insinuating that they were cringe and the ultimate symbol of late-stage capitalism. Others went in full swing – literally. In May, sales of the toy were halted in the UK, following manic queues and fights in Pop Mart, which posed a safety risk to customers.
As the supply of new Labubus dried up, second-hand dolls were listed online at extortionate prices. One 32-year-old collector, Ashley Bushey, described the online resale market as “battlefield”. Toys were resold for as much as £600 on Vinted and Ebay.
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A backstreet Labubu market was emerging. Real Labubus can be distinguished by a QR code on the bottom of the box, but the mystery box element means that crafty cowboy sellers are able to put counterfeit dolls in original boxes without instigating alarm. In August, the Chartered Trading Standard Institute (CTSI) issued an “urgent warning” about the boom in poorly-made counterfeit Labubus. It warned that the fakes – known as “Lafufus” – contained dangerous chemicals that could “cause lifetime damage to a child’s organs”. The trading standards organisation said it had seized thousands of dolls from retailers across England and Scotland. And that it was investigating fakes in connection with organised crime groups. Meanwhile, in LA, masked robbers broke into a store in La Puente and stole thousands of dollars worth of the dolls.
A new line of dolls hit UK stores on 29 August. It’s unclear whether Labubu mania has reached its climax. All this for a doe-eyed rainbow elf? What’s driving us Labubu-crazy, and will the frenzy last?
Cuteness is thought to be an evolutionary trait – features like large heads and big eyes trigger a caregiving instinct, prompting us to nurture babies. But according to cultural theorist Sianne Ngai, the “cute” has evolved to become a “commodity aesthetic”, a quality recreated by manufacturers to induce a particular feeling in their consumers. “The formal properties associated with cuteness – smallness, compactness, softness, simplicity, and pliancy – call forth specific affects: helplessness, pitifulness, and even despondency,” she writes in The Cuteness of The Avant Garde. Cute things overwhelm us with their weakness (and our comparative power) – and we squish and squeeze them in response.
Earlier this year, Naomi Pike, commissioning editor at Elle, wrote an article about her relationship with her beloved teddy bear and the “kidult” industry at large. “I think it’s just a craving for playfulness,” she told me on the adult toy buzz, “and innocence, in a way that is very contradictory to what is going on around us.” Data published by market research company Circana last year revealed that “kidults” – adults whose interests align with those associated with children – now accounts for close to £1 of every £3 spent on toys. In some markets, more money is spent on toys for adults that for toddlers.
One of my coolest friends, who lives in Berlin and writes about music, now frequently has her stuffed dog Ziggy draped over her shoulder and takes her bear Connie to music festivals. “It calms my nervous system,” she told me. She’s not alone. One 2022 study found that nearly a third of British adults have a cuddly toy and 7 per cent sleep with it. Soft toys like Squishmallows and Jellycats have boomed in popularity among adults in recent years, with 65 per cent of Squishmallow purchases aged made by 18-24-year-old adults.
It is interesting that soft, squishy, pocket-sized toys have soared in popularity at a time when the world feels particularly overwhelming. With anxiety disorders rising among children and adults, and the average Brit spending nearly 7.5 hours looking at screens every day, Labubus give us something to touch in an increasingly scary, discombobulating, AI-generated world. Kessler, who now owns seven Labubus, describes the sensation as “like having a tiny feral hype-beast guarding your aura… And honestly, I just feel cute, OK?”
[See also: Why don’t British politicians know how to eat?]