Why Is Everyone Obsessed With Labubus?

Speaker 1 Hey everyone, it's Jess.

Speaker 3 I'm here to say that my colleague Michelle Hackman is here to guest host today's episode.

Speaker 2 Enjoy.

Speaker 1 Can we start with just having you introduce yourself?

Speaker 4 So hi, my name is Ebony Ebony Hall. I am 26 years old from Georgia.

Speaker 4 Yes, I'm a mommy, Mama Sita.

Speaker 1 Ebony Hall has one of those jobs that you probably didn't even know existed. She's a labuboo influencer.

Speaker 4 I'm your labooski loving bestie. That's how I kind of sum it up as far as my content creation.

Speaker 1 Labubus are the latest toys that have taken the world by storm. They're little furry monsters, kind of creepy, but also kind of cute.
They have pointy ears, big eyes, and wide, toothy grins.

Speaker 1 They look a little mischievous. It can be pretty hard to get your hands on one, but I actually managed to pick one up ahead of my call with Ebony.

Speaker 1 So I'm going to describe actually what's in my hand. So I'm holding this like pastel box.
It's maybe six inches tall.

Speaker 1 And on the side here, there are like six different options of what could be in this box. I don't actually know what's in here.
It doesn't say. And I'm going to open it, see what's inside.

Speaker 4 Yes, I'm so excited for you.

Speaker 1 Labubus are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.
That's because they come in what's called a blind box.

Speaker 1 And when you open one to reveal the laboo boo inside, it can feel like a whole event.

Speaker 4 So you kind of lift the tab up, you see that little tab right there, and you grab it and just

Speaker 1 and just feel like that.

Speaker 4 All right, that'll work.

Speaker 1 It's open. All right.
Let's see.

Speaker 2 Let's see, let's see.

Speaker 4 Oh, wow, you guys.

Speaker 4 Oh, was that Sesame?

Speaker 4 Hello.

Speaker 3 No, that's Toffia.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 Congratulations on your first laboo baby. Labooski baby.

Speaker 1 It is so cute.

Speaker 1 For the record, I got a little sandy colored monster. It's part of the exciting macaron of laboo boo collection.
It's a little neutral that I think is going to look great on my backpack.

Speaker 1 If you're a frequent TikTok user, you've probably seen these toys everywhere. This is

Speaker 1 a laboo boo.

Speaker 5 The girls who hate laboo boo, they're not for you, babe.

Speaker 3 This is so cute.

Speaker 1 And for PotMart, the Chinese toy company that makes laboo boos, business has been laboo booming.

Speaker 1 Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Michelle Hackman.
It's Thursday, August 7th.

Speaker 1 Coming up on the show, scarcity, scary cute monsters, and the laboo boo takeover.

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Speaker 1 When my colleague Caitlin Wang started reporting on Laboo Boos, she was a bit of a skeptic.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you know, when I first started looking into this, I was like, I don't know about these guys.

Speaker 2 You know, I wasn't really sure either. But as I really reported this out, spoke to people who like them, I myself started to gain a little bit of affection for them.

Speaker 2 They're really, honestly, kind of like cute. I think people have described them as ugly cute, which I think is maybe a little bit mean to them.

Speaker 1 People all over the internet have fallen in love with these ugly, cute little monsters. There are tons of videos of people unboxing unboxing them.

Speaker 6 Am I a grown-ass woman on the internet about to unbox a laboo boo? Yes.

Speaker 6 Was I originally a hater about the laboo boos, but then I remembered I was raised with furbies, teletubbies, and beaty babies and realized that it was really never that deep and live a little?

Speaker 1 Also, yes.

Speaker 1 They also dress up their laboo boos.

Speaker 7 Welcome to my series where I match my outfits to my labo-boos.

Speaker 8 I bought four different outfits for different occasions. First one is for my pickleball bag.

Speaker 7 And her little hat has a really pretty flower on it. You can see the details.

Speaker 1 And people also wear their laboo boos. They often come on a keychain.

Speaker 7 Here's my laboo boo with its prada outfit.

Speaker 8 And here's my prada bag.

Speaker 5 Cute.

Speaker 7 So I got my laboo boo matching my prada bag.

Speaker 1 Labubus were introduced by the Chinese toy company Pop Mart in 2019. But it wasn't until last year that they started to take off globally after some celebrities were seen wearing them.

Speaker 2 We've seen laboobus dangle off.

Speaker 2 You know, Madonna, Rihanna, Lisa from Blackpink has said she loves Potmart. Dylan Brooks, the NBA player, was seen walking into a game with a laboo boo dangling from his hip.

Speaker 2 So there's just so much hype around these characters, and that kind of makes you want one.

Speaker 1 That's when Ebony, the influencer you heard from earlier, started to get into laboo boos.

Speaker 4 I saw Rihanna and she had the Lychiberry laboo boo in her photo and I said, you know what, that's kind of cute. So once I saw that lycheberry exciting macaron on Rihanna's back, I said, you know what?

Speaker 4 Let's just see.

Speaker 1 So Ebony decided to document on TikTok her attempt at snagging her first laboo boo.

Speaker 9 I am determined to get a laboo boo tonight. Like I don't care what I have to do.

Speaker 3 I am getting a labooski.

Speaker 1 Ebony's quest to get a laboo boo, or as she lovingly calls them, labuskis, went viral. Her post got more than 300,000 views and her follower count doubled.

Speaker 1 Since then, she's leaned into laboo boo content. Ebony says she's bought hundreds of labuboo blind boxes, which at the moment retail for $27.99 a piece in the U.S.

Speaker 4 As far as how much I've spent, I have spent thousands on laboo boos.

Speaker 1 Many of them she ends up reselling. Her personal collection of just over a dozen labubus sits on a shelf, a labuboo altar framed with neon lights along with other figurines.

Speaker 1 Are you like guarding these things with your life? Are you actually wearing them?

Speaker 4 Yes, I am guarding them with my, well, I won't say that. I do, my labubus go out into the world.
They are well traveled. Okay.
They go to McDonald's with me. We go to Walmart together.

Speaker 4 Yes, my favorite labuboo that I wear down, I wear it outside the world, everywhere I go. It's going to be my fall and wild labooboo.
It's the plush pendant.

Speaker 1 Why do you like them so much?

Speaker 1 What's the appeal?

Speaker 4 It's the fight more so than the product, I feel like. I will always say that.

Speaker 4 I think the appeal is not so much in the product, but in the ways or methods that we have to go through, the trials and tribulations that we have to go through in the partner battlefields to get the products.

Speaker 1 Put me in that moment. What happens when there's about to be a drop? What do you do?

Speaker 4 So initially, we would get a countdown and you would just have to prepare yourself.

Speaker 4 like kind of mentally prepare yourself and your tick tock to go through this process of fighting over 20 000 people for potentially 200 items maybe maybe 100 sometimes sometimes.

Speaker 4 They'll even drop five. So you really don't know until after the drop.

Speaker 1 How can you put yourself in position to beat 20,000 people?

Speaker 4 Click fast and pray hard.

Speaker 4 Click fast and pray hard.

Speaker 1 This is like me trying to get concert tickets on Ticketmaster. Yes.

Speaker 4 Yes, that is a perfect example. Okay.
If you want to be, if you want to see Yancei front row, you're going to make sure that LTE is up to date. You're going to make sure that your Wi-Fi is paid up.

Speaker 1 For Ebony, she waits with bated breath to buy laboo boos online. Other people may have a PotMart store nearby.
Most are in Asia, but the company is expanding quickly in the U.S.

Speaker 1 And those stores can get pretty crowded. Our colleague Caitlin was in LA and saw the frenzy firsthand when PotMart announced its latest drop of laboo boos.

Speaker 2 Michelle, when I tell you it was the craziest experience I've ever had, I've really never seen anything like it.

Speaker 1 What was it like?

Speaker 2 Yeah, there were over 2,000 people there before 10 a.m., which is when the store opens. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 2 They were all lining up trying to get their hands on this new Lapoo-poo.

Speaker 2 There were people who I'd met who were there since 8 p.m. the night before.
There were people in line. There were people still streaming in.
And keep in mind, I was there at 6 a.m.

Speaker 2 The store wasn't going to open for another four hours.

Speaker 1 And what happened when the store opened?

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, they had planned for this in-person shopping drop, right? That they had a certain amount of labo-boo sets and they were going to sell them to people who shopped in-store.

Speaker 2 There were so many people there and the crowd got rowdy enough that they actually canceled in-store shopping for the laboo boos.

Speaker 1 Things got so out of hand that the store decided to sell the laboo boos online.

Speaker 1 What do you make of all the commotion? Like, what is driving this devotion that's getting people to line up 12 hours before the store opens?

Speaker 2 I think it's a really interesting exercise in collectibles and in scarcity. And they're just so hard to get.

Speaker 2 They're sold out all the time, except for when Pop Mart does a drop and they do do a drop every week, but they sell out within minutes.

Speaker 2 And so this kind of all just drives this sort of crazy, crazy hype.

Speaker 2 And that's why you have people lining up for hours and hours trying to be the first in line to make sure they can buy one.

Speaker 1 The hype behind Laboo Boos has been a major break for the toys maker, PopMart.

Speaker 1 The company has been around since 2010 and makes all kinds of blind box collectibles. They've enjoyed relative success, especially in Asia.

Speaker 2 They were doing really well before LaboBoos. They were growing really, really steadily.
In 2017, they had about 21 million USD in revenue, and by 2022, they were looking at 642 million.

Speaker 1 PopMart likes to collaborate with popular artists. That's where Labuboo came from.
The character was created by a Hong Kong artist named Kai Sing Lung and they consider these toys high-end.

Speaker 1 So even though Potmart's toys are popular with kids, the company says they actually aim for a different demographic.

Speaker 2 They're aiming for this sort of what they call a kidult customer, someone who is an adult, someone who has their own spending money,

Speaker 2 but really loves nostalgia, wants to collect these items. They're collectibles more than they are toys.

Speaker 1 What has the Labuboo done to PopMart's business overall?

Speaker 2 It has made it go crazy, is the short answer of that.

Speaker 2 I mean, PopMart was a big company, especially in Asia beforehand, but Lububu and the growth of Lububus have really turbocharged PopMart's sort of status, especially here in the States.

Speaker 1 PopMart's revenue has doubled in just the last year, reaching $1.8 billion,

Speaker 1 and turning the Chinese toy maker into a global phenomenon.

Speaker 1 That their rise has faced some bumps. That's next.

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Speaker 1 After my very first laboo boo unboxing with Ebony, I called another laboo boo expert,

Speaker 1 my eight-year-old niece, Olivia.

Speaker 1 Hi, Liv.

Speaker 4 Hi.

Speaker 1 Look what I got.

Speaker 10 It's so cute.

Speaker 1 Olivia is a proud labooboo owner.

Speaker 10 I have the yellow one with like a blue

Speaker 10 pink heart and

Speaker 10 it's tied to its belly and the like the string is like blue and it there's like a bow in the front.

Speaker 1 But I'm also calling Olivia because I need her help with something. She happens to be an avid labooboo authenticator.

Speaker 10 If it has 10 teeth, then it's definitely fake.

Speaker 1 Okay, but how many teeth does it have to have?

Speaker 10 It has to have nine. Okay.
And some, even some fake ones have nine.

Speaker 1 Louis, let's count. Let's count.

Speaker 10 Hold on. I think.

Speaker 1 One, two, three. Luckily for me, it looks like this labuboo is the real deal.
But I had to double check. And that's because since they're now so hard to get, there's been an explosion of counterfeits.

Speaker 1 There's a name for these fake labooboos.

Speaker 5 I think we got Lefufus.

Speaker 5 We got played.

Speaker 1 Lefofus.

Speaker 1 My colleague Caitlin says that even these fake Lefufus have garnered a dedicated fan base.

Speaker 2 Something really interesting that I don't think I've seen with something so popular is that people are proud to own dupes.

Speaker 2 So people are showing off their Lefofus and their La Boo Boos, and it's sort of just become this like inside joke.

Speaker 8 It's a Lefufu, but I don't care.

Speaker 6 I wanted one so bad.

Speaker 11 So I went to my local dollar store and found Lefu Fus honey and they were only $15.

Speaker 9 So I bought laboo boos at a pawn shop in Vegas or are they lafoofus?

Speaker 1 One thing is clear. The labuboo industrial complex is in full swing.
Not only are counterfeit sellers making a killing off Lefufus,

Speaker 1 there's also an entire secondary market for the real thing.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's the scarcity model, right? There are more people who want laboo boos than they are able to sell them for and if you really want one

Speaker 2 they're on eBay they're on Facebook Marketplace they're on StockX

Speaker 2 often selling for double the price

Speaker 12 for some really rare labubus resales have had them going for hundreds of thousands of dollars a global collectible craze these labuboo figurines have gone viral one rare edition selling for two hundred and thirty thousand dollars in 18

Speaker 1 So what happens when labuboo boo shopping gets out of hand? In Asia, some countries have looked to rein in labubus and similar toys.

Speaker 1 For example, the Chinese government has banned sales of blind box toys to children under the age of eight. And in Singapore, they've proposed capping the retail price of blind boxes.

Speaker 2 I mean, a lot of people have made the comparison that a blind box, pulling a blind box, opening it, is kind of a form of gambling because you're investing in this anticipation you really want this big payoff and you just don't know what you're going to get.

Speaker 1 So what has Potmart said about that?

Speaker 2 Yeah, Potmart's response to the regulations has really been that they have never intended themselves to be marketed towards children.

Speaker 2 On their boxes and their website and everything, they say the product is for 15 plus.

Speaker 1 The company says they're also looking to expand beyond blind boxes.

Speaker 2 They're offering tech accessories. they're offering other kind of stuffed toys, plush toys, all in the hopes that people are connecting with their IP.

Speaker 2 And that sort of connection will drive sales beyond the blind box model.

Speaker 1 In China, PopMart has even opened a theme park called Popland where you can go and mingle with life-size Laboo Boo characters.

Speaker 8 If you love PopMart as much as I do, you've come to the right place.

Speaker 1 Outside of China, PopMart's sales have more than tripled in the last year, and overseas revenue now makes up nearly 40% of the company's sales.

Speaker 1 Do you think labubus are almost like another passing fad? Like, you and I probably grew up with beanie babies, you know, but more recent generations have had squishmallows and Tamagotchis.

Speaker 1 You know, is this like going to be a passing fad, or do you think lububus are here to stay?

Speaker 2 I think that's the big question for Potmart. I mean, obviously they've taken advantage of this moment and taken advantage of it well, but how do they create this lasting

Speaker 2 empire off of this viral moment? I think that that kind of remains to be seen, but what they are trying to do, like I mentioned, is connect their customers with that IP.

Speaker 2 And so it sort of breeds some sort of loyalty.

Speaker 2 I spoke to an analyst while I was working on this piece and he told me that we should probably start looking at Potmart as something more similar to Disney. I mean, look at the theme park, right?

Speaker 2 They're really banking on their own intellectual property, their own characters, the stories and the narratives that they create to build this empire.

Speaker 1 Wow. So do you think we're going to end up with like a laboo-boo movie, almost like the Barbie movie?

Speaker 2 Never say never.

Speaker 1 That's all for today, Thursday, August 7th. The journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal.
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