The Wildest Controversies and Scandals Surrounding the Viral Labubu Dolls
And no, Labubu isn't some off-brand kombucha or a Goop-approved fertility crystal. It's the name of those fuzzy toys with bunny ears and toothy grins that Gen Z and millenials seem to be losing their collective minds over.
The buzz for Bubus has grown so loud that it even made its way to the Jenna Bush Hager-led fourth hour of the Today show this week.
The Labubu was first introduced in a 2015 children's picture book created by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung called The Monster Trilogy. Inspired by Nordic mythology, the Bubu are tiny elvish creatures with nine serrated teeth and pointy ears. They're also canonically female.
Following the success of his book, Lung signed a deal in 2019 with Pop Mart, a Chinese-based toy company known for 'blind box' collectibles—a figurine sold in sealed packaging so that the item is unknown until opening—to create the first line of Labubu plushie charms.
Since then, the toy has gone from a niche collectible item to a global sensation.
While the Bubus come in many forms, from vinyl figures to pendant charms, the most popular iteration is the keychain. You can find them dangling from TikTokers luxury handbags, high schoolers backpacks, and proudly flaunted by celebrities like Rihanna, Lisa from Blackpink, and Dua Lipa.
The Labubu collections are so popular that in 2024, Pop Mart generated $410 million in revenue, with its total revenue clocking in at a jaw-dropping $1.81 billion. It's so popular that some are even calling the toy 'tariff proof,' as President Donald Trump's trade war has done nothing to slow down the Bubu consumer demand.
But like so many cultural obsessions that came before it, the Labubu craze hasn't been without scandal (or chaos). From full-on brawls to counterfeits to a thriving criminal underground, here are some of the wildest controversies surrounding the viral plushie that we could find.
Why are people getting into fistfights over the Labubus?
Well, it's thanks to a little phenomenon known as manufactured scarcity—a term for when companies create a false perception of limited availability, even when they could theoretically manufacture more products.
You see, Pop Mart restocks their Labubu collections every week, from the immensely popular 'Exciting Macaron' series to the 'Fall in Wild' series. The restocks happen online on Thursdays and in stores on Fridays. But despite these weekly product drops, the Bubus often sells out in a matter of seconds. And no, that's not an over-exaggeration.
Due to Bubu scarcity, people have taken to camping outside Pop Mart stores hours and sometimes days before the Friday restock. Don't believe me? Take a look at this recent video published by NBC Chicago, which shows hoards of people camping outside the Pop Mart store in anticipation of its opening.
People are so desperate to get their hands on a Bubu that full on brawls have been happening at Pop Mart stores across the world.
In the UK, the fights got so out of hand that the company decided, for the moment, to stop selling the toys in the region's stores. Pop Mart said they made this decision to figure out a solution to 'prevent any potential safety issues.'
Typically, a single 'blind box' Labubu cost anywhere from $21 to $27, with a whole box coming in at around $167.
However, thanks to the Labubu craze, resellers are jacking up the prices to an eye-boggling amount. On eBay, a limited edition Bubu is currently on the market for $9,500. On StockX, another popular online marketplace, a Labubu x Vans limited edition doll is going for almost $3,500.
With the rise of Labubus came the Lafufus—fake Labubus.
Although it can be hard to tell the difference between the 'real' and 'counterfeit' versions, most people find that the Lafufus have slightly off coloring, sometimes lopsided smiles, and an incorrect number of teeth.
The Labubu criminal underground is thriving.
Just last month, a Pop Mart shipment of Labubus in the UK containing the figure Hirono got intercepted by a group of thieves, who stole over $202,000 of product. A month before that, thieves stole around $27,000 worth of Labubu products from a store in Somerset, England.
People are also getting their Bubu toys stolen right off their bags.
For some, the fear of getting robbed has gotten so intense that they are now taking out insurance for their Bubus when they travel abroad.
'It might seem ridiculous to insure a toy, but it speaks volumes about how emotionally invested people are in what they pack,' Peter Klemt, chief of Australia's division of Passport Card, a travel insurance company, said to the New York Post.
'When you consider some Labubus are now selling for nearly $652 (1,000 AUD) on resale sites, it makes sense why they want to protect them,' he added.
Maybe it's because the Labubu creatures look a little mischievous, but some people (religious people) are starting to believe Labubus are demonic.
'They. Are. So. Creepy,' a Bubu hater wrote on Reddit.
Others in the thread agreed, with one Redditor even claiming that the doll was straight up 'evil.'
On TikTok, a user posted a video talking about how they bought a Labubu at a thrift store, and immediately after, they almost got into a car accident. Then, they started experiencing health issues, which apparently only got better when they threw their Labubu out.
After the demonic conspiracy theories became popular, Pop Mart uploaded a post for 'April Fools,' announcing they are recalling the Bubu toys for suspicious 'supernatural' behavior.
Maybe the demon Bubus cast a spell on everyone and that's why people are so obsessed? Just some food for thought.
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As tsunami waves swept the Pacific, some in Asia saw signs of a manga prophecy come true
Earthquakes Japan Asia FacebookTweetLink As powerful waves surged across the vast Pacific on Wednesday, people around the world remained glued to their phones, tracking the tsunami's fast progress. But in China, more than a million people were searching for an unusual term: 'Prophecy.' That's because, for some, the natural disaster had seemingly been foretold four years earlier, in a Japanese manga comic book. Published by manga artist Ryo Tatsuki in 1999, 'The Future I Saw' warned of a major disaster in March 2011, a date which turned out to coincide with the cataclysmic quake that struck Japan's northern Tohoku region that month. Her 'complete version' released in 2021 claimed that the next big earthquake would hit in July 2025 sparking a flurry of viral internet memes and debates across much of Asia in recent months as that date neared. 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Though the tsunami has now passed, she still doesn't plan to travel to Japan for the rest of 2025, she told CNN on Friday. It is impossible to accurately project in advance when an earthquake might strike, and seismologists have strongly cautioned against believing the rising number of so-called predictions. Even Tatsuki herself urged people not to be 'overly swayed' by her dreams, in an interview with Japanese media in May. But the prevalence of the debate proves the manga's tight grip on the popular imagination – amplified by both soothsayers across Asia and social media – especially in seismically active Japan, where the constant threat of an earthquake or tsunami looms large in the popular imagination. Many still bear the scars of the 2011 Tohoku disaster, when an earthquake triggered devastating tsunami waves that caused the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. The disaster left more than 22,000 dead or missing – and has since become embedded in the national psyche, with Japanese toddlers doing earthquake drills from the time they can walk, and the government regularly warning of an impending, once-in-a-century earthquake. Tatsuki's manga depicts a cartoon version of herself gleaning visions from her slumbers, some of which turn out to bear close resemblance to real-life events. Some fans believe she predicted the deaths of Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury, though skeptics say her visions are too vague to be taken seriously. It was the 2011 quake that boosted belief in Tatsuki's supposed prescience. Her 1999 manga 'The Future I Saw' has the words 'massive disaster in March, 2011' on the cover – leading many to believe that she predicted the 9.0 magnitude earthquake more than a decade before it hit Tohoku. In her 2021 follow-up, Tatsuki warned that an earthquake in the Philippine Sea on July 5 this year would cause tsunami waves three times as tall as those from the Tohoku earthquake – leading many to fear disaster sometime last month. In the end, Wednesday's quake struck thousands of kilometers from the predicted epicenter, and the highest waves recorded in Japan measured only 4.3 feet – far below the 30-foot waves seen in 2011. But many travelers, like Wang, decided not to take the chance and canceled their trips to Japan in the last few months, pointing to similar warnings from psychics in Japan and Hong Kong. CN Yuen, managing director of Hong Kong-based travel agency WWPKG, said the number of bookings for Japan tours fell about 70% in June and July, compared with the same time last year. Oscar Chu, a 36-year-old traveler from Hong Kong, also decided not to go earlier this summer, despite usually visiting Japan multiple times a year. 'I wouldn't say I was 100% certain (about the prediction), but I wouldn't write off the possibility,' he told CNN on Friday. When July 5 passed with no incident, some of his friends booked flights to Japan the very next day, he said. He'll head there himself in a few weeks, having coincidentally bought tickets on Wednesday morning – just before receiving news of the tsunami. But he still plans to go; 'You can't avoid going for a lifetime,' he said. Not everybody is reassured, however. Some of Chu's friends, who love visiting Japan as much as he does, are taking precautions like avoiding coastal areas or skipping the beach. They're not the only ones wary of a 'big one' on the horizon. Wednesday's tsunami highlighted the vulnerability for millions living on coastlines all around the Pacific, where the seismically active 'Ring of Fire' has produced many of the world's strongest earthquake. Fears in Japan have been mounting since the government's recent warnings that a massive quake could hit the southern Nankai Trough within the next 30 years – though the science remains disputed. The Nankai Trough is a 700-kilometer-long (435-mile) subduction zone, where one tectonic plate slips beneath another. Along this fault, severe earthquakes have been recorded every 100 to 200 years, according to the Japanese government's Earthquake Research Committee. The last such quakes took place in 1944 and 1946, killing at least 2,500 people and destroying tens of thousands of homes. The Japanese government has repeatedly warned there is a 70-80% chance that Japan will be rocked by another Nankai Trough earthquake within 30 years – leading many scientists to questioning the accuracy of that probability. Regardless of the prediction's reliability, the nation is on high alert and kicks into gear whenever a quake hits. This highly-effective advanced warning system was on full display this week, when local authorities issued evacuations warnings, urging more than two million residents in high risk areas along the coastline to seek higher ground. skip past newsletter promotion When a magnitude 7.1 quake hit southern Japan last August, authorities were similarly quick to respond, slowing trains and warning of potential tsunamis – though in the end there was no major damage. Whether or not Wednesday's quake was the one envisioned in Tatsuki's manga, public vigilance against potential disaster will likely linger in Japan long after this week's waves recede. 'It is because of (Tatsuki's) warning that more people started to pay attention to earthquake risks in advance, improve disaster prevention awareness, and also prompted everyone to learn relevant knowledge and prepare emergency supplies,' a user wrote on the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote. 'People's alertness has increased, which in itself is of great significance.' CNN's Soyon Nishioka and Chris Lau contributed to this report.
