Labubu not the first toy craze, and certainly won't be the last
Cabbage Patch Kids began as chubby-faced dolls with yarn hair that came with adoption papers. During the 1980s the dolls were so popular that parents waited in long lines at stores trying to get a hold of them. More than 90 million Cabbage Patch Kids were sold worldwide during their heyday.
Cabbage Patch Kids, which were created by Xavier Roberts and initially sold by Coleco, were relaunched in 2004, looking to take part in the successful return of other popular 1980s toys including Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears ,and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
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A Cabbage Patch Kid museum named BabyLand General Hospital still exists in Cleveland, Ga. The dolls entered the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2023.
Beanie Baby
Beanie Babies captivated consumers in the mid-1990s. The cuddly $5 toys were under-stuffed for maximum hug-ability, stamped with cute names on their Ty Inc. tags, and given limited edition runs.
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Many people collected, traded, and sold the toys with the hopes that their value would just keep going up at the dawn of the e-commerce age. It made some people money, and the founder, Ty Warner, a billionaire in three years.
In 2014 Warner learned that he would not go to prison for hiding at least $25 million from US tax authorities and instead received two years' probation. Warner, one of the highest profile figures snared in a federal investigation of Americans using Swiss bank accounts to avoid US taxes, had pleaded guilty to a single count of tax evasion.
Tamagotchi
Looking for a pet without the real-life responsibilities? Well then the Tamagotchi electronic pet from Bandai was for you. Consumers were hooked on the egg-shaped plastic toy that first launched in Japan in 1996 and became a craze worldwide in the late 1990s and 2000s.
Users were tasked with taking care of their virtual pet by pressing buttons that simulate feeding, disciplining, and playing with the critter on screen. If a Tamagotchi is neglected, it dies.
In 2013 Tamagotchi was reborn as a mobile app, duplicating the experience of the plastic handheld toy. The toy was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame in May.
Fidget spinner
Fidget spinners — the 3-inch twirling gadgets that took over classrooms and cubicles — were all the rage in 2017. The toy was considered somewhat of an outlier at the time, given that it wasn't made by a major company, timed for the holiday season, or promoted in TV commercials. Fidget spinners were more easily found at gas stations or 7-Eleven than at big toy chains.
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Fidget spinners had been around for years, mostly used by kids with autism or attention disorders to help them concentrate, but they became more popular after being featured on social media.
While hot toys are often made by one company, fidget spinners were made by numerous manufacturers, mostly in China. The toys were marketed as a concentration aid but became so popular among children that many schools started banning them, saying that they were a distraction.
Labubu
The
In 2019 Lung struck a deal with Pop Mart, a company that caters to toy connoisseurs and influencers, to sell Labubu figurines. But it wasn't until Pop Mart started selling Labubu plush toys on key rings in 2023 that the toothy monsters suddenly seemed to be everywhere, including in the hands of Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, and NBA star Dillon Brooks. K-pop singer Lisa of Blackpink began posting images of hers for her more than 100 million followers on Instagram and on TikTok, where Labubu pandemonium has broken out.
Labubu has been a bonanza for Pop Mart. Its revenue more than doubled in 2024 to $1.81 billion, thanks in part to its elvish monster. Revenue from Pop Mart's plush toys soared more than 1,200 percent in 2024, nearly 22 percent of its overall revenue, according to the company's annual report.
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It was tiny, sleek, and internet-capable (but for the love of all things holy, don't go on the internet, think of the bill)." —tiktokism "The hype of the BlackBerry Curve phone." —jadewright "Having to watch the news to see if your school is canceled for a snow day." —myneishac "Phones with cords! Why, I ask, why?!" —penguinlover720 "Calling collect and yelling your message to the person you're calling at the point you were supposed to say your name, then hanging up before anyone was charged." —slickninja "Netflix being a DVD-mailing service." —sleepingbubble74 "Watching High School Musical, not on DVD. It was never really about the movie; it was all in the lead-up. The premiere of those movies was a social event and a cultural phenomenon for us growing up. I didn't have cable TV, so I had to arrange watching at my neighbor's house, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. There was a bunch of buildup in the programming beforehand, and a countdown clock, and you'd be sitting with your eyes plastered to the TV sometimes days ahead of time so you wouldn't miss any of the exclusive trailers or bonus crossovers or promotional materials. Back then, there was still a lot of sprinting to use the bathroom between short commercial breaks. The hype didn't die down just because the movie had aired, oh no. There were High School Musical-themed birthday parties, posters, t-shirts, etc.. It was everywhere, and everyone loved it. I still do!" —tacobaco "I was talking to my dad today about this. I'm pretty sure kids today have probably never seen snowy/bad reception on a TV or static from the radio." —kevinhicks77 "The Tinkerbell Pixie Hollow computer game." —Anonymous "Junk food vending machines at school." —almanmark720 "We were watching regular TV the other day, and my kid asked us to pause the show. I had to explain that it doesn't work that way when you're not streaming." —francesjoys "Hit Clips… I miss Hit Clips." —morgandemkey "There was a great show on the WB network called Grosse Pointe that was a satire of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Dawson's Creek. It was only something like 12 episodes before it was cancelled. Supposedly, it hit Aaron Spelling too close to home." —janes4c411b247 "The 2002 limited edition wild berry Spider-Man Pop-Tarts. To this day, I have not found a Pop-Tart that even comes close to how yummy (and exciting, because Spider-Man had just come out) those Pop-Tarts were. SMH, good things never last." —haleeraeevans "The scene era." —smartgoose16 "Not having a computer in the home, and if you did have one, not having the internet. I didn't have a computer until I was in college, and in the summers when I was home, I was without internet unless I wanted to pay by the minute for it. We also didn't use computers much in school unless it was a business class, like typing or programming. We would write research papers by hand, and then we'd have a few days before they were due when the whole English class would go to the computer lab to type them up for submission. Even those computers didn't have internet, so much of our research was done at the library." —matchwolf "Having to wait until Saturday mornings to watch cartoons all morning, and you didn't have a way to custom choose the schedule for which cartoons to watch. You watched what was available on broadcast TV or cable." —jealouskitten151 "If you lived in a small town, you had to go to the restaurant to get your food. There was no food delivery service, not even from Chinese restaurants, just the occasional pizza joint." —jealouskitten151 "I recently found out TV Guide is still a thing when I got an actual mailer for it a couple of weeks ago." —jgcromwell "Walt Disney World used to send out VHS tapes with little features on the parks as a way to encourage people to visit. My sister and I used to watch them over and over again because we lived in PA, and we weren't a vacation-style family. Eventually, though, my parents did feel guilty and took us to Disney World. I do feel bad because one of my only memories of that trip is me being such a small child that when I sat on the toilet, I folded in half and fell in." —monikap6 "Don't even get me started on having to memorize your friends' phone numbers because there were no smartphones to store them. Simpler times!" —trendycake45 "Disney Channel used to play movies every night at 8 p.m. I still sometimes hear, 'Let's watch a Disney Channel movie.' It's not like streaming was around, so you had to be ready with a VHS tape if you wanted to ever rewatch it. The Thirteenth Year was a favorite at our household." —monikap6 "Burning a CD. I asked my daughter what she thought it meant, and she guessed I was destroying something. Quite the opposite. Those custom CDs were romantic gifts, the soundtrack to rolling through town/backroads, and even a way to celebrate without a DJ. Now, the idea of a playlist capped at 16 songs sounds foreign." —acidictooth778 "Trying to burn the perfect mix CD from LimeWire without crashing your computer or downloading a virus… now that was a skill." —trendycake45 "Salsa Fries from Andy Capp." —Anonymous, 36, MN "Senior from 1994 here. Someone born after 2005 would never understand why, in the '90s, if you were in a hurry or had a set time to be somewhere, you did not drive the main street of your town on a Friday or Saturday night. You drove on the outskirts of town to get through faster. (Because all the teens were driving in circles or drag racing.)" —abourque "Waiting until after 8 pm to call long distance. Or, getting your first cellphone and having only 60 minutes of 'talk time' per month. If you went over, you had to pay per minute. Same with texting when it became more common." —laurachytka "Being told to come home when the street lights turn on." —slickninja "'Playing' the demo version of arcade games in the laundromat." —smartgoose16 "Writing a text using only numbers. I was trying to explain this to my daughter the other day — to write out 'hey,' you had to press 4 twice, 3 twice, and 9 three times." —hovingkaitlin "Having to buy film for your camera. Having to be selective over what photos you take because you only get 24-36 frames. Forgetting to get the film developed for months or years." —lesliepl0310 "Plug-in CD players. You would put a tape into the 'tape player' and the plug into the cigarette lighter, and you would be able to listen to CDs." —jgcromwell "On Nickelodeon, that chimp with three eyes that used to say, 'Hi, I'm Paul!' during commercial breaks and wave!" —Anonymous, 30, Niagara Falls, NY "Waiting for the radio station to play your new favorite pop song by Britney or *NSYNC so you can record it with a cassette tape!" "Making plans with friends to meet at the mall with no guarantee that they would show up and no way to contact them to see if they were on the way." —myneishac "Having a large cellular phone that came in a black leather-like bag for only your car. One of the early cell phones was hooked to your vehicle's battery." —marvelousfan911 "Having to stop a random person to ask what time it is." —slickninja "Riding your bike to a friend's house and knocking on their door to see if they could come out. Or calling someone's house phone and having to interact with their family member before getting them on the phone." —slickninja "Being on the Internet, probably playing a flash game, and your mom telling you to get off the internet because she has to make a phone call, and then waiting around for her to finish." —hobbitgirl96 "Buying disposable cameras for big events, and then the anticipation of getting them all developed." —bravechinchilla277 "Pagers and payphones being the only means of communication. In fact, in high school, you were considered cool if you had a pager." —angelamastin82 "There was a show on Disney Channel called Naturally, Sadie about a girl who loved nature. I remembered its existence, but I swear I thought it lasted a season, maybe, because I can only somewhat recall one episode (she notices that there are no baby pictures of her older brother but tons of her, and at the end, her mom reveals that they had a housefire before she was born or something), but according to Wikipedia, there were three seasons!?!" —rachelo4ef37e40d "Phone companies charging PER text message." —amandav4218e9747 "Kissing Fruit lip gloss." —Anonymous, 18, Houston, TX "Buying a 'phone card' so you could make long-distance calls home from camp on a landline or payphone and have the cost covered in advance. There was always a stupidly long string of numbers to punch in, and you had to do it at the right time in the right order, or you would have to hang up and start all over. You bought the cards in increments of time (20 min, 45 min, 1 hr, etc). I remember having thoughts like, 'There's a dance on Friday, and I know I'll want to talk about it for a long time, so I should probably keep Monday's convo under five minutes!' Different times, man." —melc40e454224 "The electronic pocket dictionary things. They were about the size of a calculator, and they can't have been expensive because I think I had one." —gettysburgdressmaker And finally: "'You have died of dysentery.'" —kimmiethiel What's something you miss from the '90s or early '00s? Tell us all about it in the comments or in the anonymous comments box below!
