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Business Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Business Times
Therapy in a box? ‘Kidults' turn to Pop Mart and Labubu for comfort
[SINGAPORE] If you thought Pop Mart's viral toy empire was powered solely by Gen Z and TikTokers, think again. In Singapore, it's the 40-somethings – middle-aged professionals juggling careers, kids and caregiving – who are also driving the collectibles boom. Based on a recent poll by online marketplace Carousell, 42 per cent of users in its Hobbies and Toys category are aged 41 and above. Even more striking: 40 per cent of these older collectors report spending more than S$1,000 annually on collectibles, just behind the 26-30 age group at 56 per cent. Their favorite collectibles? Labubu, followed by Mofusand, Prismatic Evolutions, Crybaby, Pokemon, Lego and Jellycat. For these midlifers, collecting is more than a hobby – it's a much-needed coping mechanism. With names such as Happiness and Serenity, Labubu's latest plushies series is all about making people feel good. PHOTO: POP MART Just ask Valerie Koh, deputy director of Arts House Limited and mother of four, who owns more than a hundred Pop Mart toys. 'After a stressful day, you buy one and you feel better. It's that simple,' she says. She admits to buying at least one blind box a week, sometimes more, since her kids also enjoy the toys. Her current obsession? Crybaby, which she hangs on her designer bags. 'They're just cute little things that make me happy. They're little mood boosters for adults with disposable cash.' Pop Mart certainly knows this: Its latest Labubu plushies series has characters called Happiness, Serenity and Hope, while its latest Space Molly series is inspired by emojis. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 2 pm Lifestyle Our picks of the latest dining, travel and leisure options to treat yourself. Sign Up Sign Up Both men and women of a certain age are seeking solace in Labubus. PHOTO: AFP Emotional benefits galore Dr Hannah H Chang, associate professor of marketing at Singapore Management University, is not surprised by Carousell's findings. 'People in their 40s are among the most stressed,' she explains. 'They often have young kids and ageing parents. They're at the age where they have a lot of responsibilities at work – but at the same time, they also have a stable salary with which they can easily afford a toy that typically costs between S$15.90 and S$24.90.' These toys offer emotional benefits for the buyers – relief from daily burdens, as well as reminders of simpler times when they were kids and had less to worry about. 'So they buy these toys to find some semblance of control and joy in a small object – and that can be a surprisingly powerful emotion,' says Dr Chang. The phenomenon of 'kidults' has certainly been gaining ground. 'The pandemic was tough on everyone, but now there's the tariff wars that may likely impact economies and jobs. People in their 40s are among the most worried about the future right now – so it's no surprise they're turning to toys for escapism,' she adds. Mega Space Molly's latest Emoji series focuses on capturing people's moods. PHOTO: POP MART Pop Mart's financials reflect this trend. In 2024, the Chinese company's net income rose 188 per cent to 3.1 billion yuan (S$555 million), with full-year sales more than doubling to 13 billion yuan. Sales of The Monsters dolls, including Labubu, rose to three billion yuan in 2024 compared with 368 million yuan before. Crybaby, another fast-growing intellectual property product, had a more than 1,500 per cent increase in related revenue. Pop Mart's marketing genius Pyron Tan, another married 40-something, has been collecting Labubu long before the craze. He had early models, including the Labubu X Sml figurines, which he sold for five times their original price. 'I think I bought them for around S$40 and sold for about S$200 – though I recently saw a similar piece on Carousell with an asking price of S$1,699,' he says. An early collector of Labubus, 44-year-old Pyron Tan has been able to sell some discontinued figurines at four or five times the retail price. PHOTO: PYRON TAN But the creative professional insists he isn't in it for the money. 'I buy what I like. But if the price goes up, I might choose to let it go.' He then uses the profits to pay for his next toy. 'For me, buying toys helps me destress. It is self-care – part retail therapy, and part making up for the fact that I didn't have a lot of toys when I was growing up.' Like Tan, 76 per cent of Carousell respondents aged 41 and above in the survey have been collecting for more than five years – well before the global Labubu craze took off in 2024, sparked by a spontaneous endorsement from Thai pop star Lisa. Interestingly, 14 per cent of these midlifers started collecting only within the past year, suggesting that the Lisa effect has spread to a minority of 40-somethings who previously didn't even collect toys. Dr. Chang believes none of this is accidental. 'Pop Mart is very smart about identifying and responding to emerging demographics,' she says. 'They've ramped up production of their small plushies that double as fashion accessories – popular not just with teenagers but with adult women. They're cute, collectible and wearable, so you can feel you're part of a community when you carry it around.' Carousell's recent poll shows that people aged 41 to 50 are the biggest users of its Hobbies and Toys category. GRAPHIC: CAROUSELL At the same time, the brand caters to serious collectors with premium figurines that sometimes increase in value, while also reimagining the online shopping experience. Its digital feature, Pop Now, lets users shake their phones to partially reveal what's inside a blind box – bringing the tactile thrill of in-store shopping into the digital realm. 'I've never seen anyone replicate that experience so successfully,' says Dr Chang. Add free delivery for orders above just S$47.70 – eliminating the common gripe of shipping costs – and it's no surprise that sales have soared. 'They hold my feelings' Jasline Ng, another working mother in her 40s, doesn't just buy blind boxes – she sometimes purchases entire collections at one go. With more disposable income than younger collectors, she sources for rare models on Carousell and TikTok, gifts blind boxes to her friends and relatives, and dresses up her Labubus in pretty outfits. Midlifer Jasline Ng and her daughter bond over Labubu and Crybaby. PHOTO: JASLINE NG 'These toys make me feel young,' she says. 'They connect me with different age groups and conversations. Whenever I see someone else carrying a Labubu or Crybaby, I feel connected to them – like we're part of the same community.' Some have called her childish. But she doesn't care. 'My daughter loves the Crybaby cherry magnets. She says it represents the two of us sticking together... Overall, these toys give me emotional support. It's like Crybaby is holding my emotions for me. If I feel sad, it reminds me it's okay to cry.' For Ng, Koh and Tan, Pop Mart toys aren't just playthings – they're therapy sessions in a box.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Pokémon Company Yet Again Promises It Will Print More TCG Cards, But...
If you've tried to buy a pack of Pokémon TCG cards in recent times, you'll already know what a shitshow it's all become. As we've been reporting, the last six months has seen the trading card game's explosion in popularity lead to an epidemic of scalping, leaving new cards all but unavailable to the regular players and collectors. Now, but not for the first time, The Pokémon Company has promised it will be addressing these shortages. It's just that their words don't really match reality. In a new statement issued on the eve of the release of the next set Journey Together, and posted to socials by Serebii's Joe Merrick, The Pokémon Company International (TPCi) explains that it's aware of the difficulty people are having buying the cards, but promises that it is 'actively working to print more of the impacted Pokémon TCG products as quickly as possible.' The thing is, that's exactly the same thing they said when we contacted them back in January about the same issue. Here's a quote from the new statement: We're aware that some fans are experiencing difficulties purchasing certain Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) products due to very high demand impacting availability. We understand this inconvenience can be disappointing for fans, and we are actively working to print more of the impacted Pokémon TCG products as quickly as possible and at maximum capacity to acknowledge this. And here's a quote from the statement in January: We're aware that some fans may experience difficulties purchasing certain Pokémon Trading Card Game: Scarlet & Violet—Prismatic Evolutions products at launch due to high demand impacting availability. We understand this inconvenience can be disappointing for fans, and we are actively working to print more of the impacted Pokémon TCG products as quickly as possible and at maximum capacity to acknowledge this. Which, given there has been no noticeable increase in availability of any affected sets in the two months since, makes this repeated promise a little harder to take seriously. It's almost word-for-word the same! Those who've been able to buy a pack of Prismatic Evolutions without paying scalped prices are the very lucky few. The new statement goes on to say that, 'For Pokémon TCG product releases at Pokémon Center, we are committed to providing a smooth purchasing experience and employ technology that helps get products into the hands of fans first and foremost.' As anyone who's tried to use the Pokémon Center on days when new cards are made available for pre-order will tell you, this simply isn't true. The statement continues, 'Currently, Pokémon Center implements a virtual queue for certain products to help provide a more seamless purchasing process during periods of increased site traffic.' But TPCi has to know this isn't working. When pre-orders for May's set, Destined Rivals, went live this week, the site was just broken for hours. Sometimes, if you were lucky, you'd see the 'queue' screen, but in my experience it never resolved to the site, and more often there was simply a message saying the site was down for repairs. To describe this as 'seamless' is quite something. By the time I was able to access the site, everything was of course sold out. In the past, even when the site hasn't gone down, product has been marked as sold out within moments of being added. And limiting purchase numbers does almost nothing against an army of bots that can make multiple purchases to multiple accounts. It just all sucks. Tomorrow, people will line up outside stores in desperate hope of being able to find some Journey Together product, and many will miss out. Scalpers will do all they can to scoop the majority of the cards, and kids and collectors will be disappointed. What we need at this point is not a copypasta of a statement issued two-and-a-half months ago, re-promising the same things that clearly haven't happened. We need The Pokémon Company to get on top of this, to actually start printing and delivering product to retailers (I've spoken to specialist shop owners who say they cannot get answers, let alone cards to sell), and more than anything else, to drop the disingenuous statements and offer a bit more honesty and clarity. We've reached out to TPCi to ask for that, to get some specifics on how much more product it intends to print and how, and what practical plans it has for its websites given things clearly aren't 'seamless.' . For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
