Labubu, the ugly luxury toy of Chinese company Pop Mart, is turning into a massive business. Earning $1 billion this year is well underway, surpassing Barbie and Hot Wheels sales.
And while Lovebus is not a digital object, it is a physical object, it symbolizes the over-the-top online aesthetic invasion into the offline world, which has been described as “IRL brain corruption” in recent New Yorker essays.
In Friday's episode of the Equity Podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff and Anthony HA try to understand why Labubu has become so popular, and what it says about the disparity in the collapse between the internet and the real world. Is Lovebus more than the latest iteration of Beanie Baby from the 90s?
Listen to the entire episode and hear the following:
As always, Equity will be back for you next week, so don't miss it!
Equity is TechCrunch's flagship podcast produced by Teresa Loconsolo, posted every Wednesday and Friday.
Subscribe to us with Apple Podcasts, Cloudy, Spotify, and all casts. You can also follow Equity x and threads, @equityPod. Credit: Equity is compiled by Teresa Loconsolo, edited by Kell. We would also like to thank TechCrunch's Audience Development Team. Thank you for listening. I'll talk about it next time.
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