We’ve all seen it. The frenzy. The lines. The resale prices. Labubu, that already adorable, already creepy little elf-like freak, has made himself a huge and pretty well-deserved success. Are we seeing a true moment in culture, or a strategic bait and switch doomsday device ready to self-destruct? Labubu’s trajectory provides important lessons. It does shine a little light on the broader, and much more opaque, world of speculative art and collectibles.
Is This Just Tulip Mania 2.0?
Let’s face it though, the siren calls of previous bubbles are still strong. I’m not just referring to Tulip Mania, Beanie Babies, hell, even the dot-com boom. Remember the frenzy? The "this time it's different" mantra? The tales of fortunes created and disappeared in an instant?
The similarities are striking. Labubu has turned into a status symbol, thanks in part to Pop Mart’s brilliant blind box strategy that provides for artificial scarcity. Celebrity endorsements have exacerbated this phenomenon on a massive scale. Consumers are not just purchasing a toy, they’re buying into a narrative, a community, a perceived investment. First-generation mint-colored Labubus are just about as valuable as rare Beanie Babies kept in plastic encasement. On auction, they’re drawing extraordinary prices, some going for as high as 1.08 million yuan. Think about that for a second.
Hype is a fickle mistress. Pop Mart’s stock more than doubled, and in the process, Pop Mart’s young founder became Henan Province’s richest person. Never forget that history teaches us all that what goes up eventually comes down. As a correction, the NFT market has already faced a mighty downturn. It has too many of the same drivers as the Labubu craze including celebrity influence, social media-driven FOMO and the temptation of overnight wealth. Are we seeing Labubu’s fate played out in the tea leaves of the NFT crash?
Social Media's Role - Hype or Harm?
The role of social media in all of this shouldn’t be overlooked either. Now, platforms such as Xiaohongshu and TikTok have evolved into hype-driven echo chambers. Currently, users are flaunting their Labubu collections, fueling the “fear of missing out” and sending demand through the roof.
Consumerism meets social validation and you have a perfect storm. We're constantly bombarded with images of other people's "perfect" lives, their "must-have" possessions. In this climate, Labubu becomes something deeper than a collectible. It then turns into a badge of belonging, and a very potent status signal. The algorithm turbocharges the hype, stoking our fears and hopes. It’s the digital arms race for attention and Labubu is the weapon of choice.
What happens when the algorithm shifts? When the next "it" item arrives? Or will Labubu join the ranks of the dusty shelves of forgotten trends? Or is it fated to join the growing ranks of social media’s attention economy’s tragic casualties?
Labubu Goes NFT - Salvation or Suicide?
The obvious question is: will Pop Mart try to revitalize Labubu by turning it into an NFT? At face value, that sounds like a natural evolution. NFTs promise verifiable scarcity, a digital provenance that would theoretically allow Labubu collectibles to retain—and even increase—their value.
As it stands, the NFT market is arguably already saturated. More than three years later, people continue to fear the environmental impact of some blockchains. Just attaching some sort of digital proof of ownership to a Labubu photo won’t be enough to bring back all the buzz. Or worse, it might have the opposite effect, watering down the brand and creating additional market saturation.
On top of that, the rampant regulation-free zone and opacity in both the art world and NFT world is no small matter. The opportunity for manipulation, wash trading and insider dealing is enormous. Should Labubu join the NFT zeitgeist, it won’t just make speculative art trends look cool — it’ll show you the other side of the coin. This decision will show just how often hype and manipulation displace real artistic merit and intrinsic value in these markets. Here is where opportunity for a reckoning rests.
Maybe the change Labubu’s future will bring would be positive, maybe it would be negative. However, one thing's for sure. Labubu’s saga should serve as a cautionary tale to the perils of speculative excess and the eye-glazing trumpet call of hype. In the world of art and collectibles, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Too often, value is dispersed among those who wield it. Proceed with caution.
