Ashley Mo

Senior Tiffany Zhu gazes at a Pop Mart blind box as other customers around her glance at nearby products. Pop Mart’s revenue rose to $1.9 billion in 2024, thanks to the popularity of the Labubu toy in the “Monsters” line.

Pop Mart’s strangely endearing creations push teenagers and adults alike to spend thousands on everything from miniature figurines to phone cases in the past year and a half. Between resellers and passionate fans, consumerism has resurged as a core part of another trend.

The current most popular of these creations is Kasing Lung’s Labubu, a furry rabbit-like creature with a toothy grin created in 2015 and turned into a Pop Mart product in 2019. Though people on the internet disagree over whether the Labubu’s quirky, cute appeal wins out over its perhaps unnerving appearance, celebrities and civilians alike have clamored to buy the plush toys and other featured characters, a craze manifesting as long lines and out of stock Labubus.

Fear of missing out, a characteristic of consumerism, often fuels these spending sprees. Additionally, customers derive happiness from spending. Senior Helen Gu pointed out that buying the trendiest item often serves as an entrance ticket into social groups in person and online. 

“It’s more like purchasing a feeling,” Helen said. “When you buy something that everyone else has, you immediately become part of that group, and it’s a replacement for social interaction. People tend to turn to these ‘small luxuries,’ little things that don’t actually cost an arm and a leg but still bring the same amount of happiness and fulfillment as something like buying a house.”

This phenomenon has contributed to Pop Mart’s immense financial success. The company’s market value, at $34 billion, already exceeded that of longstanding brands including Mattel, the company behind Barbie dolls, and Hello Kitty’s parent company Sanrio. Though no single reason led to this boom, Pop Mart’s strong presence in its home country China, along with the presence of resellers worldwide, who buy massive amounts of merchandise to sell on platforms like Facebook Marketplace, may contribute to its success.

Social media has also accelerated the consumption craze. Pop Mart surged in popularity after BLACKPINK’s Lisa appeared in public with a Labubu attached to her bag, leading to hordes of fans and collectors buying out stores. Similarly, when Kylie Jenner posted a picture of her seven-year-old daughter Stormi with Labubus in hand as she descended the steps of a private jet, she fed into this indirect endorsement and spurred the public . Harker parent Grace Wen commented on how Labubus made their way to her RedNote feed via these celebrities.

“I had already enjoyed BLACKPINK’s songs, and I knew who Lisa was, so I was curious when I saw this clip of an interview with her for a magazine,” Wen said. “She introduced characters in THE MONSTERS like Labubu and Zimomo, and afterwards I began to get more and more ads about them. That was one of the reasons I began researching Pop Mart.”

Pop Mart’s success also hinges on its distinct blind box system, meaning that customers could buy upwards of hundreds of boxes to find a single limited edition item. The random element of the blind box differentiates it from other stuffed toy companies such as Jellycat, motivating more purchases, which also may explain Pop Mart’s dramatic rise in profit.

“A similarity between Jellycat and Pop Mart is how they both play on the human urge to collect, but Pop Mart takes it to another level by offering blind box systems—almost a gambling system,” junior Abby Wang said. “I hope that blind boxing is just a trend that comes to pass because I really see how it could lead to rabbit holes of destructive tendencies.” 

Finally, the childlike aesthetic of some designs has turned adults into another target market. Often, adults find themselves missing the freedom and joy of childhood. Helen connects this phenomenon to the rising popularity of Labubus among this demographic.

“I’ve noticed people are losing their childhoods earlier, and there’s definitely a pressure to be more grown up earlier,” Helen said. “They’re missing the whimsy that they could have had as a kid, which is why they’re turning to toys and things as collectibles.”

Even as a parent and a mother of two, Wen enjoys collecting Pop Mart items. She notes that people in their thirties and forties also enjoy characters from lines such as the Crybaby line, which could be perceived as childish.

Wen’s enjoyment of Pop Mart ultimately stems from a personal attachment to the characters, not a desire to resell or to join a particular trend.

“At heart, we’re all children. We can find the same kind of joy in these figures,” Wen said. “[Pop Mart products] are both cute and resellable, but when I take my figures and plushes out of their boxes and just look over them, it fills me with a sense of happiness.”