The fall of Labubus and the mush of modern internet trends

Summary

Labubu. The word alone is enough to make some people break out in a cold sweat, and it’s hard to blame them. These fuzzy, diminutive creatures, complete with a stare some have described as demonic, became truly inescapable over this past summer. Everywhere I turned, from the airport to the mall to the bathroom at my below-minimum-wage job, Labubus followed, staring at me ominously from backpacks and keychains. Labubus began innocently enough, originating in 2015 from a picture book series by Kasing Lung before they were made into toys. However, after slowly gaining traction throughout 2024 and early 2025, Labubus exploded in popularity over the summer, flying off store shelves around the world. Resale prices skyrocketed as demand rose and they became harder to come across, to the point where some people instead opted to knowingly shell out money to buy fake Labubus, affectionately referred to as “Lafufus.” This traction, however, was short-lived. While in the summer you might have had to spend $200 on a Labubu if you could get your hands on one, today I scroll my feed and find microinfluencers promoting genuine Labubus for $30 on TikTok Shop. They’re just not hard to find anymore. Combined with the fact that the stock price of Pop Mart — the company behind Labubus — is down nearly 35% (at the time of writing) since its peak in August 2025, it’s clear that Labubus are on the downswing. Of course, Labubus are not alone in this fall from grace; fads have always come and gone. However, for as prominent as Labubus became, they seem to have faded from popular culture abnormally fast — even for a fad. Although it might seem anomalous, a clear pattern emerges when analyzing Labubus and the other massive trends that have appeared out of nowhere as of late. In an era when people are more connected with each other via the internet and social media, trends can gain greater prevalence than ever, faster than ever. Simultaneously, in the era when most internet users consume more s...