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RTÉ News
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
What are Labubus and why are they trending online?
A shy, snaggletoothed smile, curly coat, and long ears are the hallmarks of the "ugly cute" little monsters that have taken over TikTok. Inspired by Nordic folklore and mythology, Labubus are collectable furry companions, and it's likely you have already spotted some dangling from keychains and bags while on your commute or being removed from their packaging while scrolling on social media. Created by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung, Labubu is just one character in The Monster series, a collection of blind-box toys sold by Chinese toy company PopMart. Although they have been around for a decade, they have enjoyed a tidal wave of TikTok popularity and celebrity approval in the last year or two. The toothy, fleecy toys boast 1.3 million TikTok posts under their hashtag, and celebrities from pop divas Rihanna, Lisa, and Dua Lipa to Love Island alumni Olivia Attwood are among fans. PopMart is not the only company getting in on the blind box action. Dreams Inc., a Japanese company, makes blind box toys Sonny Angels and Smiskis, which have found a new audience outside of the capital of kawaii culture. Puzzled? That is all part of the experience, as when it comes to these collectables, mystery is half the fun. Blind boxes never reveal the exact style of character you will get inside. Instead, they illustrate the possible options, adding to the sense of urgency to tear away the cardboard and foil. It's the same impulse behind the popularity of lucky bags in decades gone by, with newsagents selling them at perfect child eye-level to trigger premium pester power. Securing a lucky bag and delving into its bright, plastic chasm is a core childhood memory, one that I undoubtedly share with anyone who grew up in Ireland with ready access to a local corner shop. Now, the titillating slice of surprise from lucky bags has been translated into adulthood consumption through these covert blind box characters, and they are big business: the global market value is estimated to reach $391.62 billion by 2030. Alongside the traditional six to 10 characters in any given blind box series - of which there are many, from Molly to SkullPanda - there is always a chance of securing the "secret." The secret in any series is a rare additional potential character design. In the new Big into Energy Series, the probability of drawing the secret Labubu, a grey monster with rainbow coloured teeth, is one in 72. This taps into the feeling of completionism, or the desire to complete every aspect of something. Usually used in the context of video games, it also relates to collecting and the urge to pursue every piece of a set. After all, the potential for rare and valuable items is always going to have appeal. In fact, desire for these ultra-collectible figurines has reached such fever pitch that reports started to emerge of shoppers fighting over the toys, leading to Pop Mart pulling stock from all 16 of its UK stores to "prevent any potential safety issues". Along with the rarity, fans of the collectables cite tapping into childhood joy as an appeal factor. "People have always loved collectables, from McDonald's toys to football cards. They were simpler times!" says Dublin-based Davie Jordan Andrews, an avid collector of the Monster series that Labubu's reign from, Smiski, Sonny Angels and Crybaby characters. "Saving up your pocket money to buy stuff to trade with your friends, this is the same concept but in adult form. These new collectables are so hard to get your hands on, and it's definitely a 'want what you can't have' situation." For Davie, the love for collecting started with "collecting trinkets, Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards", he says. "I think I got my love for them from my Nanny, as she loved collecting porcelain dolls and vintage ceramics." The idea of parting with your hard-earned cash for a mystery item isn't exactly new, but the surge in popularity of blind boxes has a social incentive, too. Praised for working with artists to create collections, the giants of the blind-box industry have the gloss of creativity on their side, with the little characters making for the ideal accessories or decor. Online communities of blind box collectors have sprung up on social media, with influencers unboxing entire sets live or in dedicated unboxing videos. Davie discovered these collectables on social media, where he has accumulated his own community of Labubu lovers, creating unboxing videos, sharing his stash of the cute creatures and helping one another secure their blind boxes. "When I posted my video, I got over 100 messages asking where I got mine, and I have been trying to help people find one. A lovely girl that follows me texted me recently on TikTok letting me know that the Labubu I wanted was back in stock, and I got it. When you see someone opening a Labubu for the first time or getting what they really wanted, you can't help but feel really happy for them." The call to collect can stem from childhood, but these toys are not just for kids. Research has shown that the main consumer group of blind boxes is between the ages of 18 and 35. "The only misconception about the community is that we are wasting our money on toys that are for 'children'... I completely disagree; these are collectables for everyone. I will be keeping mine forever, and one day will be handing them down to my children! They are like Marmite, you either love them or hate them, and I love them!" While collecting is an inherent part of human nature, nature itself might be feeling the detriments. PopMart encourages its customers to recycle the layers of packaging that conceal their mystery characters, using CPP film-based bags, a material that can be made biodegradable, as well as boxes and cartons made of recyclable cardboard. However, overconsumption for the sake of it, particularly of plastic and synthetic goods, is not good news for the environment. As the demand for blind box figures continues to rise, pushback on the environmental impacts has already begun, and manufacturers may soon face stronger pressure to utilise renewable and recycled materials in their products. In the meantime, notice how many you spot on your next traipse through town as the blind box boom continues.
Winnipeg Free Press
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Earth angels
In 2017, while visiting New York City, Winnipeg retailer Lauren Wittmann spotted a teensy-tiny baby in a gift shop window and asked, 'How much?' 'I had no idea what a Sonny Angel was,' says Wittmann, who, with her mother Trish, co-owns Riley Grae, one of the city's leading purveyors of cuteness and kitsch since opening on Corydon Avenue in 2019. 'I just thought it was so adorable and so I got one.' Riley Grae co-owner Lauren Wittmann has a personal collection of Sonny Angels Then another, and another, and another: the figurines, mostly naked, usually pantsless cherubic-looking boys wearing different kinds of headgear, about eight centimetres tall, quickly became a personal obsession for Wittmann. Ever since the shop began carrying the figurines in October 2022, the rate of adoption across Winnipeg has skyrocketed. In under three years, Riley Grae has sold more than 14,000 of the collectibles produced by Japan's Dreams Inc., retailing at a price range from $19 to $24. For the business, which opened on the eve of the pandemic, the seraphic babies, which, like hockey cards, are distributed in 'blind boxes,' have been an economic godsend. Every time a new shipment of Sonny Angels or associated products 'drops,' a horde of eager collectors assembles on Corydon, with the queue often exceeding 200 customers, each in pursuit of a trinket's worth of joy and moral support. 'They're so cute, they're so tiny and they bring me happiness,' says accounting student Eliza Param, who lined up at 9 a.m. last month to get her hands on a Sonny Angel Hipper, which sticks to the top of a cellphone and stares outward across the back. 'Mine are all on a shelf in my bedroom. They sit there and watch me study,' says 21-year-old university student Gabby Serek, who has as many figurines as she has years lived. The Sonny Angel product line has existed since 2004, but Dreams Inc.'s fortunes have risen with the advent of TikTok, where millions of posts highlight the figurines' charms and the thrill that comes with opening their hexagonal containers. 'A lot of the appeal is the adrenaline,' says Wittmann, who repurposed a shelf intended for an antique spoon collection as a display for her own array. While this form of babified trinkets is still relatively novel, Wittmann believes the current trend is the latest stage of a century-spanning tradition of comforting, infant-based art. 'As weird as it is, people have always liked cute, naked baby decor,' Wittmann says with a laugh. 'Think about bathrooms filled with cherubs and those prints you'd find at grandma's house of a baby sitting in a pile of vegetables or sitting in a pasta pot at an Italian restaurant in a movie.' According to the product's lore, Sonny is a 'little angel boy … who will always be by your side, watching over you and making you smile.' Since his birthday — May 15, 2004 — the Japanese manufacturer has introduced more than 650 variations to the market, contributing to the product's collectible appeal. While some customers were early adopters, Wittmann says Sonny Angels didn't exactly fly off the shelves until they achieved more ubiquity on TikTok and other social media. 'Now people come in on a mission,' she says. Last year, the figurines were the focus of a Saturday Night Live sketch starring pop star Dua Lipa. 'I think I've seen those on shy teenagers' phone cases. What are they?' asked cast member Marcello Hernandez. 'They're huge. They're companions for lonely 25-year-old working women,' Lipa replied. But the customer base is wider than that, says Wittmann, who estimates that her store regularly welcomes collectors who span expected gender and age demographics. Brothers King and Prince Camia — 15 and 24, respectively — are avid Sonny Angel fans. There have been more than 650 variations of Sonny Angels released since 2004, with most figurines only wearing different headgear and tops. 'It makes me happy to waste my money on stupid collectibles like this,' says King, a student at Tec-Voc. Fleeting joy, or the pursuit of it, is key to the Sonny Angel brand, perhaps best exemplified by the product's will-he-or-won't-he motto: 'He may bring you happiness.' 'I think specifically this past year there's been a trinket trend online, a trend about allowing yourself to treat and heal your inner child by buying anything playful and unnecessary, and I understand the hype: if we didn't sell them here, I'd be in line to buy them elsewhere,' Wittmann says. Six British Columbia retailers carry the products, along with one in Alberta and 13 in Ontario, but Riley Grae is the only Manitoba shop with angels in stock. With the ongoing volatility to international supply chains owing to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threats, Trish Wittmann anticipates that Sonny Angels, along with other shop staples, such as Baggu products, could be arriving with less frequency, at a higher price tag, or both, in the coming months. Between product-specific surcharges, tariffs and counter-tariffs, the independent retailer has had to carefully assess the viability of most international vendor relationships, she says. 'It's quite sad for us because there are so many awesome, small independent artists in the States that we support. The short and tall of this is that (the tariffs) are affecting our business greatly,' Trish Wittmann says. While Sonny Angel enthusiasts are keen on continuing to amass their personal collections, the figurines, which arrive at Riley Grae through an American distribution centre, have already seen their prices increase. 'It's not fun, but it's what's happening with everything,' says Lauren Wittmann. Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. 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