Labubus peaking and falling doesnt really say much about scarcity and trends. Labubu is made by a public company, who's stock skyrocketed, and essentially decided to go all in and mass produce to meet the popularity
thats one option. But other companies sometimes choose to keep the scarcity and secrecy for years, even decades, and if they play their cards right it keeps working
Labubus fall is more about its makers decision to increase sales numbers instead of keeping them flat and generating more and more and more hype
Hermes can sell a $15,000 Birkin to everyone, im sure they can figure out the supply chain aspects if they really wanted to. and within a month everyone that wanted one would have one and sales would drop. Hermes will have a spike in sales, followed by a drop
Instead they force you to play years long games with their sales staff to get an opportunity to spend $15,000. And decades later people still opt in to spending thousands of dollars on plates and scarves hoping one day they will be offered one
This is just as true about a $40 Supreme, or Aime Leon Dore T-shirt, than it is for a $15,000 handbag. If you keep the scarcity going just right, it lasts much longer
f33d5173 2 hours ago [-]
That might be true of handbags, I am doubtful it is true of dolls. A handbag is a necessary accessory and has been for decades. The popular brands grew their way there slowly over many years. A company that explodes into popularity suddenly for a product people never knew they needed is likely to only stay in the spotlight for a short while and is best served taking advantage as best they can.
takinola 1 hours ago [-]
I agree that cashing in quickly before the fad faded was probably the right move for Labubu. However, there’s no world where Birkins (or other designer handbags) are a “necessary accessory”.
Uehreka 1 hours ago [-]
> Hermes can sell a $15,000 Birkin to everyone
Wait hold on, what?
Like, I get that you were referring to the fact that they keep things scarce even for rich people, but you literally said “everyone”, so I just gotta check: Are you saying that everyday people would be willing and able to spend $15000 on a luxury handbag?
strken 17 minutes ago [-]
The sale of new Birkin bags is famously invite-only. In that context, to "sell" to "everyone" means making the bag available for sale to everyone. "Anyone" would have been a less ambiguous word choice, but it's a minor grammatical issue and the meaning is still clear.
RobRivera 59 minutes ago [-]
I didn't read anything about the everyperson beung able to do this.
ndespres 2 hours ago [-]
The article is too optimistic in its view of how short-form video allows everyone to partake in these trends. In an attention-driven culture where nothing cool can be kept a secret, as the very essence of coolness would be defined not by the thing itself but by how many people watched your tiktok about it, you end up with these nonsense low-quality “viral trends” that everyone is talking about because everyone is talking about it.
Very little of it is actually good. So what then, if it’s able to spread faster than ever before? It stinks!
danielodievich 3 hours ago [-]
This summer I walked main Newbury street (one of main shopping street in Boston) and parked on it was a sweet, sweet looking brand new McLaren (had to go on their web site to identify from my picture, I think it was an Artura Spider) in a very classy matte-black paint, with custom license plates saying LABUBU. A very incongruous combination between what that car is and the plates it was sporting. I did not observe a labubu hanging on the rear view mirror which I expected should have been present.
jacquesm 21 minutes ago [-]
I don't think that is incongruous at all.
Avicebron 3 hours ago [-]
First time running into a Chinese undergrad?
tofuahdude 7 hours ago [-]
> it’s clear that Labubus are on the downswing
On the other hand, they've only recently penetrated my greater social circle, so I'm not so certain as this author that the trend has ended.
tokioyoyo 7 hours ago [-]
The social commentary i’ve read is that some fast trends are made and followed by the “top trend makers”. Then they fade out in those circles, and dwindle to “common people”. But at that point, it’s not really cool or status symbol.
The way I understood is, if you’re hyper-online and very consumerist, you’ll want to onto the train fast, and get off it fast so you would be deemed as a “trend maker” rather than “trend follower”. I’m not sure if I’m making sense, but it’s a bit more visible within Tokyo/Shanghai subcultures. It was less visible to me in Vancouver, where there’s a single main culture (everything outdoor and outdoor related) and not participating is also “not cool”.
rjdj377dhabsn 6 hours ago [-]
Isn't that the whole idea of hipsters? They existed far before online culture. And not much different to how teenagers have always rebelled against the traditional culture.
SchemaLoad 5 hours ago [-]
It's just been accelerated by the internet since something goes from being fairly obscure to being known by your grandma in 2 months now.
dylan604 5 hours ago [-]
> I’m not sure if I’m making sense,
Not sure how you could make sense when the topic it self is nonsensical?? Trying to rationalize internet fads just seems as futile as getting involved with the fad itself.
tokioyoyo 4 hours ago [-]
It kinda makes sense if you talk to people who is "in the game". I know some people who do trend-chasing with their own friends, and find it fun. Not my thing, but who am I to judge some harmless consumeristic fun?
transcriptase 2 hours ago [-]
What is trend-chasing? I genuinely have no idea… is it getting onto something early and hoping it catches on so you were early? How could one even do that in an age where everything is being manipulated by algos and bot farms to make it appear that way?
tokioyoyo 2 hours ago [-]
Kinda. It's like like an in-group status signaling that "i discovered this before it became popular". As mentioned above, some sort of being a "hipster", but with fast-changing trends. To my understanding, it's done less consciously. Think of "oh, there's a new restaurant in town, we should check it out" idea, and people standing in a line waiting to be one of the first "to taste it".
eru 5 hours ago [-]
Not necessarily. Things that make look weird on the outside might make sense as status games on the inside. (Or other weird 'games'.)
It's no worse than the peacock's tail.
daseiner1 3 hours ago [-]
i’m confident that this phenomenon is accelerated in “internet culture” but this is how all trends function, whether flare-cut jeans or beanie babies
ronsor 3 hours ago [-]
I've genuinely never seen anyone outside with one; I haven't even seen anyone online mention them outside vague memes I do not understand.
I don't use TikTok or any of the hyperconsumerist social media platforms.
resonious 3 hours ago [-]
I see them outside. I live in a big city though which may explain it.
mpalmer 6 hours ago [-]
Feels like there's a contradiction in a piece that claims a fad is definitively over while simultaneously asserting the unknowability of our fragmented Internet culture.
Everything's decentralized, but at the same time, I have my finger on the pulse.
SchemaLoad 7 hours ago [-]
They have just started showing up in stores around me. I can believe they have fallen off social media feeds while still growing in sales silently as people get them to put on bags or gift rather than post on tiktok.
lmm 5 hours ago [-]
Most sales are made on the way down, that's the case for any trend.
conductr 3 hours ago [-]
My 7 year old son just recently got a few keychain ones as birthday party favors bag gifts. Basically one of the lowest form of toy for fashion, but very good for consistency in sales. He’s also rolling his eyes at anything “6 7” related after a month or two of leaning in hard on it, the parents ruined that one I think.
PunchyHamster 3 hours ago [-]
I only know of them from South Park episode, and thankfully I haven't seen any of those live, maybe they will fade completely before they reach my country coz they frankly are just ugly
thaumasiotes 7 hours ago [-]
Is your social circle also into Dimoo, or just Labubu?
elyobo 5 hours ago [-]
They're falling already? Excellent, I was hoping I could get to this point without ever having to figure out exactly what they were.
fijiaarone 3 hours ago [-]
Do they have real beans in them?
yanhangyhy 3 hours ago [-]
It feels like the article doesn’t really say anything. The popularity of Labubu is something worth analyzing, and many similar phenomena have existed in the past or will appear in the future. But Labubu also has its unique aspects; it’s just that the article’s author wasn’t capable of properly studying what makes Labubu distinctive.
I only have some vague ideas, not enough to write an article. But if you want to write an analysis, it’s best to come up with something new.
conductr 3 hours ago [-]
I think this speaks more to using the trending TikToks of the world as a gauge for what is popular. It’s not a great gauge. Just because the trend there is waning, IRL this toy/brand has a huge opportunity to stick around for awhile. It’s still selling plenty, has a platform to do more, etc. Just because people aren’t posting it, or because the algorithm isn’t surfacing those posts, doesn’t mean the trend is dead.
fijiaarone 3 hours ago [-]
When a trend only reaches mainstream awareness as a mockery, like labubu, it’s not destined to last long.
conductr 2 hours ago [-]
I think that’s how it reached mainstream awareness for adults. Kids still are into it to some degree. I’m not sure how much staying power it has, I just know it’s not really dead.
randerson 2 hours ago [-]
And yet, Sony Pictures is working on a Labubu movie. The meme-fuelled peak may be over, but the final death of the labubu is a long way in the future.
bcoates 2 hours ago [-]
Sony released an angry birds movie more than 5 years after peak interest, they're a trailing indicator
protocolture 2 hours ago [-]
Thats interesting if true, but my cause to doubt it is that I have seen shops catering to the labubu format, that is the expensive mystery box toy, popping up with heaps of varied stock. In fact they dont even seem to center the labubus. Labubu might go away but I think its cultural significance of tiktok 200 dollar toy unboxing is going the distance.
tracerbulletx 6 hours ago [-]
Maybe things go a little faster now, but doesn't seem too different from Pogs, or Beanie Babies or any other trend in a long line of them.
m0llusk 6 hours ago [-]
Labubus got extra kick from being gambling also. Many were sold in boxes without labels or with minimal labels that listed possible contents. That makes the actual product into more of a loot box kind of thing. That might have contributed to the speed of the trend passing.
somnic 5 hours ago [-]
I think I heard it was a bit more than that - you'd buy them online direct, blind, and be informed immediately after purchase what it was you'd actually bought, so bringing in the immediacy and "convenience" of online gambling/gacha/etc. too, compared to ordering a mystery box and opening it when it was delivered, or buying foil packs of trading cards where you need to actually be present at a particular location.
firecall 6 hours ago [-]
I recently learned that many collectables are sold this way!
Labubus just happened to get a wide appeal and had a moment in the US for some reason..
nsonha 3 hours ago [-]
are they regulated under gambling laws? Sounds like fraud to me.
tourmalinetaco 6 hours ago [-]
They are and I hate it. It‘s bad enough with trading cards, but now every single collectible is employing gacha mechanics and it’s frustrating.
parl_match 5 hours ago [-]
I don't get it. It's a "collectable". Your "hobby" is "collecting". You put your "collection" on a shelf and look at it.
That's not a hobby to me. It's just consuming for consumption's sake.
PunchyHamster 3 hours ago [-]
Well, they took that formula and made it worse because now you can't just buy it, you have to roll a dice or get a second hand.
Also nothing wrong with just having a shelf with things you like to look at.
megablast 3 hours ago [-]
Perfect then, don't buy it.
> Also nothing wrong with just having a shelf with things you like to look at.
I completely disagree.
eru 5 hours ago [-]
For eg Magic cards, a secondary market formed very quickly where you could buy exactly what you wanted.
throwaway48476 6 hours ago [-]
"Everything is gambling now"
wahnfrieden 6 hours ago [-]
So were pogs
yieldcrv 5 hours ago [-]
beanie babies were rational, there was a supply constriction that seemed permanent, the founder resolved it and flooded the market, leaving bagholders and decades of mockery
but I would content it was not an example of irrational exuberance
labubu’s are part of a flooded market as well, but there was never anything to suggest it wouldnt be flooded only an expectation for demand to keep up longer than just half of this year
bluefirebrand 5 hours ago [-]
Beanie Babies were irrational because it is irrational to go into a collector craze over stuffed animals
yieldcrv 4 hours ago [-]
unless more people want them than exist
miladyincontrol 6 hours ago [-]
Im not so sure, the big "fall" of labubus so far was for flippers and their profits, Popmart on the other hand has been selling more than ever with their restocks still selling out almost instantly.
Them being accessible and there being supply for much demand is having hit equilibrium. Give it another year or two before grave dancing. Many are still just only buying them now with them being accessible.
dluan 3 hours ago [-]
As a subculture dedicated to being in the know on certain things, HN commenters purposely showing theyre being out of touch on this specific subculture is pretty funny.
It's not that serious, I promise. When you were a kid you probably also had beany babies, furbies, crazy bones, magic cards, tamagotchis, tech decks, steel bearing yo-yos, or whatever else thing was a fad. Guess what, those were all made in China too.
mc32 3 hours ago [-]
The source of the story isn't HN commenters though and it expresses the same sentiment. So, you want to lay blame blame the non-HN publication.
mikepurvis 6 hours ago [-]
Adam Conover argued that the craze is an indicator of economic nihilism, that people who can’t afford these things buy them anyways as an expression of hopelessness that they’ll ever have a pathway to legitimately changing their station: https://youtu.be/l1O6bN2zWSM?si=QGd51tfmh8lOjezk
ginko 7 hours ago [-]
> The reality is that the internet has become decentralized; rather than people staying in one gigantic, unified group with shared trends and moments like they used to, users go their separate ways, with social media algorithms providing hyper-curated content that pushes users toward smaller groups with niche shared interests.
Huh, this feels exactly backwards. The web used to be WAY more decentralized.
paxys 6 hours ago [-]
Internet services have become centralized. Internet culture has fragmented, or really just disappeared entirely.
Being chronically online doesn't make you part of a special group anymore. It's just how everyone lives their lives. There are no inside jokes, no nerd lingo. Even memes are basically dead now.
SchemaLoad 5 hours ago [-]
I don't think this is true. There has been an explosive growth in cultures which are interest based rather than location based. Board games, furries, car people, kpop, etc. These groups all have their own inside jokes, terminology, events, etc.
What has been lost is gathering a random sample of people in the same city and them all being on roughly the same page about culture.
lmm 5 hours ago [-]
> There has been an explosive growth in cultures which are interest based rather than location based. Board games, furries, car people, kpop, etc. These groups all have their own inside jokes, terminology, events, etc.
Sure, but those aren't internet culture. The internet is barely a hobby/interest any more, it's just part of the infrastructure of every hobby/interest.
Animats 2 hours ago [-]
> There has been an explosive growth in cultures which are interest based rather than location based.
That was a surprise to the architects of Facebook's original infrastructure. Facebook started in 2004 as a service for college students. Most traffic was expected to be with people at the same college, or at least in the same region. So the servers were regional, with relatively weak long-distance connections.
As Facebook grew, the load was nothing like that. They had to redesign the system completely.
fijiaarone 3 hours ago [-]
The reality is that every middle aged loser knows more than they ever wanted about kpop, labubu, and furries just goes to show it’s all a centralized homogenized monoculture being forced on everyone.
aspenmayer 2 hours ago [-]
Perhaps that says more about how much free time certain people have than it does about the breadth and depth of subcultures. Too-online folks have been bemoaning reaching the end of the internet for decades now.
5 hours ago [-]
parpfish 5 hours ago [-]
doesnt the existence of a widespread fad like labubu imply a degree of homogeneity and centralization?
if things were decentralized there'd be tons of ongoing fads that tiny groups would get excited about but they'd never get to the scale that would cause shortages and price spikes
mcmoor 5 hours ago [-]
Feels like culture in general has become fragmented, or in other words, more personalized. It was said that Top 10 Hit Songs or Movies would be recognized by everyone because it'd be the only thing playing in radio. Now that everyone can have their own preferences, no more shared experiences.
dylan604 5 hours ago [-]
If not a nerd lingo, there's absolutely inside jokes and new lingo. Skibidi, 6 7, blah blah. Even people saying things like "bet" are all part of new lingo that kids think is cool because the olds don't know what they are talking about. Only the words/phrases change, but the desire of kids doing something different than olds is never going to change.
parpfish 4 hours ago [-]
i've noticed an uptick in the last couple years of new outlets doings stories about the slang -- "kids are saying {skibidi, rizz, 67} now, here's what it means."
kids have always had slang, but i don't remember there being news reports about it in the past.
and i think the difference now is that parents get freaked out when some new slang takes over seemingly out of nowhere.
in the past, adults were aware of the media their kids were consuming. they overheard them talking on the phone with their friends. they saw kids hanging out together in real world physical spaces.
but now? kids an entire social life and media ecosystem is private and inside their phone. parents don't have visibility into "kid world" the way they used and it freaks them out.
they worry about bad things happening, but mostly they just worry that their kid has a whole private life that they don't know anything about and they're not part of it.
egypturnash 2 hours ago [-]
"Here's what the kids are saying and what it means" is a staple of slow news days.
Are you sure you haven't just gotten old enough that you're now in the target demographic for "here's what the kids are saying" stories? :)
dylan604 4 hours ago [-]
> they worry about bad things happening, but mostly they just worry that their kid has a whole private life that they don't know anything about and they're not part of it.
i had a whole other life my parents knew nothing about, and this was way before unsocial media. the fact that we're willing to call "friends" online a social life is yet another example of modern times. so again, having "secret" lives from parents isn't new to being online. it's teens looking to push the boundaries, explore, and just do things different from the parental units. nothing about "kids today" is really different. Boomers had that damn rock-n-roll and hippies as an example. It's more of the same in a different shape.
pessimizer 5 hours ago [-]
> Even people saying things like "bet" are all part of new lingo
Maybe I'm just black, but there's absolutely nothing new about "bet." Unless you mean last 50 years new maybe (I can only vouch for 50 years.)
Still goes to your point, though. The kids are just imitating black people like their parents, their parents parents, and their parents parents parents, and their parents parents parents parents, and their parents parents parents parents parents. The desire of the kids to repeat things that they heard black people say is at least 150 years old at this point if the cakewalk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cakewalk) is a good spot to date it from.
egypturnash 2 hours ago [-]
Why are you being downvoted, the black-slang-to-white-suburban-kid-slang pipeline is a very very real thing.
sfRattan 6 hours ago [-]
I think "balkanized" is a better way to describe communities and users online. As in sorted and separated into non-overlapping algorithmic cul-de-sacs which mostly do not interact with each other and which are (often) hostile when members of one algorithmically isolated community happen upon members of another.
SchemaLoad 7 hours ago [-]
OP is talking about culture rather than technology. Two people both on youtube see entirely different content. Both people will have their own set of big famous creators in their bubble and have never heard of the other persons famous youtubers.
thrdbndndn 6 hours ago [-]
I can see that, but to me it's more about the fact that there just didn't used to be that much content.
zeroonetwothree 3 hours ago [-]
True but that’s how the web always was. I don’t see it as a change. In the 90s if you found some niche community most likely no one else knew about it.
SchemaLoad 2 hours ago [-]
Previously there was way more monoculture I feel. Everyone knew the big youtubers, Smosh, Pewdiepie. Everyone was playing the same flash games. I guess there is still a monoculture in online gaming with everyone centralising on a few top games. But youtube is completely individualised now.
Two users on TikTok are seeing entirely different trends and creators.
flooq 6 hours ago [-]
If you swap decentralized for personalized then the point about hyper-curated media bubbles do make sense. It feels backwards because it’s not how we use decentralized in the industry, it’s probably the same reason you correctly said web instead of internet.
venturecruelty 4 hours ago [-]
What do you mean? We have us-east-1, us-east-2, us-west-1, us-west-2... The options are endless!
bluefirebrand 7 hours ago [-]
> Huh, this feels exactly backwards. The web used to be WAY more decentralized
I think you're referring to something different than the article
I agree with you the web used to be more decentralized in terms of unique websites, blogs, communities, etc. It is much more homogenous now, with majority of traffic and community forming on a few social networks instead of across hundreds of sites and forums
However, within the social media sites users have become much more siloed than they used to be. Algorithms are trying to isolate us into our own personal echo chambers rather than just giving us the raw feed and letting us navigate it
SchemaLoad 7 hours ago [-]
To be fair, the raw feed is absolute slop. If you ever look at youtube without an account or cookies, there's almost nothing worth watching. Youtube has become the biggest social media on the planet by showing people stuff they actually like rather than whats hot.
Youtube will show me an in depth technical video from 3 years ago over the latest MrBeast slop even if the MrBeast video is getting far better numbers.
I do feel like _something_ has been lost by the lack of monoculture though. It's been most evident in music where there almost is no pop music anymore. There is nothing everyone knows and generally likes. DJs either have to play highly targeted events or pop music from 2012.
hn_acc1 6 hours ago [-]
Agreed on the last paragraph. When I grew up (long time ago), almost everyone saw the most recent <kids show> because there were only 3 or 4 on after school, and generally only one targeted towards each major peer group.
Sure, you can now choose from 27 different shows in each genre (comedy, drama, romance, business, cops, medical dramas, etc), each with many seasons to watch/stream/binge, but odds that your friend saw the same episode last night? Approximately zero. Whereas, "must see tv", as trite as it was, almost always gave you something to talk about the next day.. "No soup for you!" was huge in my circles for quite some time, for example.
And the less someone shares with you in terms of background, the easier it is to withdraw into your own bubble, and watch more shows alone, and become more isolated..
bas 4 hours ago [-]
Extending on that era’s TV programming (born in the late 70s), even if it wasn’t “your show”, there was only one screen in play. Secondary devices came much later.
morkalork 4 hours ago [-]
Didn't even make it to the holiday season boxing day shopping rush, talk about lack of stamina smh
hustwindmaple 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
sho_hn 4 hours ago [-]
Why does it matter that it's Chinese?
The designer, BTW, was born in Hong Kong long before it was handed back to the CCP, spent his childhood from age 6 onward in the Netherlands, and now lives in Belgium. It was originally sold by a Hong Kong company in Taiwan before the product line moved to China's Pop Mart. The character is inspired by Northern mythology illustration books he read as a kid.
I'm not into Labubu and don't buy stuff like that, but that a global fad has thoroughly blended West/East origins seems rather appropriate and very fine.
rvz 7 hours ago [-]
Labubus were always a cringeworthy fad, equivalent to the modern day beanie babies.
Zero value, fuelled and pushed by celebrities far and wide and they are not even rare to begin with.
SchemaLoad 7 hours ago [-]
Maybe I wasn't in the circle enough, but I felt like there was never even the pretence of resell value or "investing". But that they were more like wealth flex fashion items.
MengerSponge 7 hours ago [-]
But what if a beanie baby was also a random drop? Then they'd be faddish and addictive!
Terr_ 7 hours ago [-]
I hope some future society is almost unanimously appalled at what we today treat as "normal" for advertising and gambling dark-patterns.
erulabs 21 minutes ago [-]
"Look how slowly they take from the weak to give to the powerful. Amateurs!"
Terr_ 11 minutes ago [-]
"This is ancient Earth's most foolish program. Why does Ross, the largest Friend, not simply eat the other five?"
-- Lurr, Ruler of planet Omicron Perseii 8
Rendered at 06:34:14 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
thats one option. But other companies sometimes choose to keep the scarcity and secrecy for years, even decades, and if they play their cards right it keeps working
Labubus fall is more about its makers decision to increase sales numbers instead of keeping them flat and generating more and more and more hype
Hermes can sell a $15,000 Birkin to everyone, im sure they can figure out the supply chain aspects if they really wanted to. and within a month everyone that wanted one would have one and sales would drop. Hermes will have a spike in sales, followed by a drop
Instead they force you to play years long games with their sales staff to get an opportunity to spend $15,000. And decades later people still opt in to spending thousands of dollars on plates and scarves hoping one day they will be offered one
This is just as true about a $40 Supreme, or Aime Leon Dore T-shirt, than it is for a $15,000 handbag. If you keep the scarcity going just right, it lasts much longer
Wait hold on, what?
Like, I get that you were referring to the fact that they keep things scarce even for rich people, but you literally said “everyone”, so I just gotta check: Are you saying that everyday people would be willing and able to spend $15000 on a luxury handbag?
Very little of it is actually good. So what then, if it’s able to spread faster than ever before? It stinks!
On the other hand, they've only recently penetrated my greater social circle, so I'm not so certain as this author that the trend has ended.
The way I understood is, if you’re hyper-online and very consumerist, you’ll want to onto the train fast, and get off it fast so you would be deemed as a “trend maker” rather than “trend follower”. I’m not sure if I’m making sense, but it’s a bit more visible within Tokyo/Shanghai subcultures. It was less visible to me in Vancouver, where there’s a single main culture (everything outdoor and outdoor related) and not participating is also “not cool”.
Not sure how you could make sense when the topic it self is nonsensical?? Trying to rationalize internet fads just seems as futile as getting involved with the fad itself.
It's no worse than the peacock's tail.
I don't use TikTok or any of the hyperconsumerist social media platforms.
Everything's decentralized, but at the same time, I have my finger on the pulse.
I only have some vague ideas, not enough to write an article. But if you want to write an analysis, it’s best to come up with something new.
Labubus just happened to get a wide appeal and had a moment in the US for some reason..
That's not a hobby to me. It's just consuming for consumption's sake.
Also nothing wrong with just having a shelf with things you like to look at.
> Also nothing wrong with just having a shelf with things you like to look at.
I completely disagree.
but I would content it was not an example of irrational exuberance
labubu’s are part of a flooded market as well, but there was never anything to suggest it wouldnt be flooded only an expectation for demand to keep up longer than just half of this year
Them being accessible and there being supply for much demand is having hit equilibrium. Give it another year or two before grave dancing. Many are still just only buying them now with them being accessible.
It's not that serious, I promise. When you were a kid you probably also had beany babies, furbies, crazy bones, magic cards, tamagotchis, tech decks, steel bearing yo-yos, or whatever else thing was a fad. Guess what, those were all made in China too.
Huh, this feels exactly backwards. The web used to be WAY more decentralized.
Being chronically online doesn't make you part of a special group anymore. It's just how everyone lives their lives. There are no inside jokes, no nerd lingo. Even memes are basically dead now.
What has been lost is gathering a random sample of people in the same city and them all being on roughly the same page about culture.
Sure, but those aren't internet culture. The internet is barely a hobby/interest any more, it's just part of the infrastructure of every hobby/interest.
That was a surprise to the architects of Facebook's original infrastructure. Facebook started in 2004 as a service for college students. Most traffic was expected to be with people at the same college, or at least in the same region. So the servers were regional, with relatively weak long-distance connections. As Facebook grew, the load was nothing like that. They had to redesign the system completely.
if things were decentralized there'd be tons of ongoing fads that tiny groups would get excited about but they'd never get to the scale that would cause shortages and price spikes
kids have always had slang, but i don't remember there being news reports about it in the past.
and i think the difference now is that parents get freaked out when some new slang takes over seemingly out of nowhere.
in the past, adults were aware of the media their kids were consuming. they overheard them talking on the phone with their friends. they saw kids hanging out together in real world physical spaces.
but now? kids an entire social life and media ecosystem is private and inside their phone. parents don't have visibility into "kid world" the way they used and it freaks them out.
they worry about bad things happening, but mostly they just worry that their kid has a whole private life that they don't know anything about and they're not part of it.
Here's a fun example from the early nineties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge_speak
Are you sure you haven't just gotten old enough that you're now in the target demographic for "here's what the kids are saying" stories? :)
i had a whole other life my parents knew nothing about, and this was way before unsocial media. the fact that we're willing to call "friends" online a social life is yet another example of modern times. so again, having "secret" lives from parents isn't new to being online. it's teens looking to push the boundaries, explore, and just do things different from the parental units. nothing about "kids today" is really different. Boomers had that damn rock-n-roll and hippies as an example. It's more of the same in a different shape.
Maybe I'm just black, but there's absolutely nothing new about "bet." Unless you mean last 50 years new maybe (I can only vouch for 50 years.)
Still goes to your point, though. The kids are just imitating black people like their parents, their parents parents, and their parents parents parents, and their parents parents parents parents, and their parents parents parents parents parents. The desire of the kids to repeat things that they heard black people say is at least 150 years old at this point if the cakewalk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cakewalk) is a good spot to date it from.
Two users on TikTok are seeing entirely different trends and creators.
I think you're referring to something different than the article
I agree with you the web used to be more decentralized in terms of unique websites, blogs, communities, etc. It is much more homogenous now, with majority of traffic and community forming on a few social networks instead of across hundreds of sites and forums
However, within the social media sites users have become much more siloed than they used to be. Algorithms are trying to isolate us into our own personal echo chambers rather than just giving us the raw feed and letting us navigate it
Youtube will show me an in depth technical video from 3 years ago over the latest MrBeast slop even if the MrBeast video is getting far better numbers.
I do feel like _something_ has been lost by the lack of monoculture though. It's been most evident in music where there almost is no pop music anymore. There is nothing everyone knows and generally likes. DJs either have to play highly targeted events or pop music from 2012.
Sure, you can now choose from 27 different shows in each genre (comedy, drama, romance, business, cops, medical dramas, etc), each with many seasons to watch/stream/binge, but odds that your friend saw the same episode last night? Approximately zero. Whereas, "must see tv", as trite as it was, almost always gave you something to talk about the next day.. "No soup for you!" was huge in my circles for quite some time, for example.
And the less someone shares with you in terms of background, the easier it is to withdraw into your own bubble, and watch more shows alone, and become more isolated..
The designer, BTW, was born in Hong Kong long before it was handed back to the CCP, spent his childhood from age 6 onward in the Netherlands, and now lives in Belgium. It was originally sold by a Hong Kong company in Taiwan before the product line moved to China's Pop Mart. The character is inspired by Northern mythology illustration books he read as a kid.
I'm not into Labubu and don't buy stuff like that, but that a global fad has thoroughly blended West/East origins seems rather appropriate and very fine.
Zero value, fuelled and pushed by celebrities far and wide and they are not even rare to begin with.
-- Lurr, Ruler of planet Omicron Perseii 8