There were a huge number of people gathered there. And I imagine it's not very much different from Pokemon or baseball cards or what have you. My wife and I have a daughter who enjoys the Mojo Carrot and we plan on having another daughter within the next year. We've got fulfilling social lives at home in San Francisco, and when we stayed in Taiwan and Canada for months we had a wonderful time since walking down the street we'd run into a relative or friend. I only say this because the loneliness function doesn't ring true for me.

The whole article has a flavour of the adults saying "When you're kids talk about X they're using a code word for ecstasy and they're on drugs! Which the dealers hide in Halloween candy" or whatever. It's dressed up, but really that's all it is.

I think it's much simpler. It's just that humans are pretty good at assigning meaning to inanimate objects. The $30 microfiber fleece I bought at Big Lots in 2012 is just a $30 microfiber fleece I bought at Big Lots in 2012. But in 2026, it's the same $30 microfiber fleece that my daughter sleeps on. And now the fact that it's been with me those 14 years from when I came to America to when my daughter came to America means it represents a constant in my life and for that it's nice: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-11-29/Things_Do_La...

I’m not immune either. They sell Pokemon cards at 7/11 here - typically a store will put out one or two boxes a day - and usually they sell out very quickly. When I see them in stock, I feel an urge to buy them even when I’m not with my kids. Just because I know they will sell out soon.

I agree that reality and fiction unfortunately merges for a subset of the population. The gaming addicted are also most likely to develop an AI addiction, because LLMs and agent setups are basically a computer game.

But, the nature of what makes something viral, like how the article mentions pandemic, seems agnostic to what actually becomes viral. Why did labubus go viral and not something else[1]? It’s luck and timing, and we can try to reverse-engineer it, but it’s just being prepared & luck. We’re seeing a survivor bias and thinking the survivor is special inherently.

So what enabled Pop Mart to be prepared?

[1]Actually, there’s also sneaker hype, meme stocks, etc.

It's amazing seeing grown adults who would scoff at their peers buying lotto tickets and scratchers enthusiastically burn cash on TCG without the slightest sense of hypocrisy.

The secret is "social head canon".

"Head canon" is when you fill in the plot holes to make sense of your favorite narratives.

"Social head canon" is the same but for our understanding of society.

When the algorithm feeds children videos of adults opening TCG packs what they see is grown adults, the people who are appear to, and are supposed to, have it all figured out, losing their shit over cardboard and the child fills in the "why" on their own.

But they are wholly ignorant of "gambler's high" so they concoct elaborate narratives for why the adults "love the cards". That "social head canon" is so sticky because it can be anything, infinitely complex, wholly private, and different for every person.

Once that child grows up they learn about "gambler's high" and so seek the same thing, but now for the intended reasons.

Rinse and repeat across generations.

To me, it sounds Filipino. As for the appearance, I think it's a strange mix between cute and grotesque, like a combination of Japanese and Western styles, which might explain its popularity.

who cares about this?

If some people feel happy playing with Labubus, mechanical keyboards, or <insert_product_here> why do you care? It's their life and not yours.

Additionally, this article also clearly fails to deep dive into how Pop Mart basically exported Asian style marketing strategies to the West. Back in Asia, conspicuous consumption and quick commerce is not viewed negatively the same way it is amongst Western HN/Redditors, and the "cute marketing" that Pop Mart leveraged is the norm back in Asia.

In that sense, I'd argue Labubu and TikTok are both significant milestones in Chinese IP and cultural exports, as it gave them a Weeabo or Hallyu moment.

Additionally, using Reddit to make qualified judgements on "society at large" is fundamentally flawed.

while missing the way more obvious fact that being trendy attracted women of the same age range

this was also the tail end of the fashion trend based on muting masculinity in favor of catering to the female gaze, an adaptation once again for women’s comfort until women realized they hate feminine men more than they thought they briefly hated masculinity.

You saw the juxtaposition and instead of simply ask, you draw all these completely unrelated lines from what you best understood and are completely wrong about what fuels the adaptations

correlations that have nothing to do with the actual guiding decisions, the simple timeless tale of adults attracting adults. You touch on it briefly though before wondering if the man plays with his labubu at home, which I’m not sure was sarcasm or not, I hope it was because the answer is no he doesn't play with the labubu, its a charm

makes me wonder what my blind spots are, what I’m out of touch about

My daughter owns one. It's not cute. It's terrifying. It has a monster's grin. It looks like something out of "Child's Play". You know it will murder you in your sleep.

Thankfully, she got bored of it pretty fast, as I suppose do most children (and adults).

Labubu is a child substitute. It's a caricature of a mischievous young toddler.

Historically, most people in their mid 20s would have already had at least one child. As parenthood gets pushed further back, people struggle to fill that biological yearning.

Scroll through the photos and mentally substituite a child for the doll and it will all make sense. Labubu on a keychain? The toddler is with you everywhere you go. Taking your kid to work. Dressing them up for a wedding. Taking fun selifes, visiting the gym, etc etc.

No need to pull in COVID19 or the Baudrillard wankery.