In 2015, Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung created a demon. A demon so indescribably ugly and horrible that it plagues modern pop culture: the Labubu doll. The Labubu Doll is a disgusting looking stuffed animal with eyes that are trying too hard to be “cute’ and pointy teeth that I’m convinced would chomp through human skin and bone. Recently Labubus have become the new “hip trend,” and I’m going to ask one question: Why?
Look, I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade here, and I am all for getting involved in ironically liking something. For example I was one of those people that watched “Morbius” (2022) and ironically enjoyed how awful it was; but this recent craze over labubus feels like the exact opposite of ironic.
These dolls look awful and people are still dropping massive amounts of money on them. The Labubu dolls are technically classified as “Collectibles,” which means that some ‘‘rare’’ dolls (such as the “Golden Labubu”) can go for upwards of $2000 USD which, and I shouldn’t feel like I have to say this, is insanity of the highest order.
And to circle back to the question of “why?,” Why in the world are we wasting our time paying attention to these dolls? What’s the point? By not participating in this trend you aren’t missing out on much of anything, you’re just saving your money which is a net positive that can help you pay for future things like college, food, vacations and other much more fun things to look forward to. There’s also the criticism that as a society we become very obsessed and distracted with things that don’t matter when we should be focusing on things that do matter, like the economy is getting worse, world hunger, and the homelessness crisis; all things that take MONEY to solve, and if we waste all of that money on this stupid little Labubu fad that’s gonna disappear in a year, then we’re gonna be in a worse spot than we already are.
But not all is completely lost. A poll was made asking students of Rockbridge County High School two simple questions:
“Do you like Labubus?” and “do you own a Labubu?” Students were then asked to write a short explanation as to why they feel that way. The results were actually much more surprising to me and not at all what I expected. There were 99 responses in total, and when asked if students owned Labubus 87 percent said no and 13 percent said yes. When students were asked if they like Labubus, 21 percent of students were indifferent, 26 percent said yes and an astonishing 52 percent said no. Finally, with these responses we were also given short explanations from the students about their opinions with responses like; “They’re cute and I love blind boxes,” “they’re not that cute and expensive for just a keychain,” “I don’t mind them in general even though they’re not really my thing, but all the attention surrounding them is really annoying,” and “They are super cute and fun. However, there is no need for them to be so expensive. Like it is literally just a doll.”
So with that, I can only hope that the end of Labubus is near, and we can be done with this trend once and for all, because Labubus truly are a plague on society.