Our Fads, Ourselves

Summary

Podcast Summary: Critics at Large | The New Yorker

Episode: Our Fads, Ourselves

Release Date: September 4, 2025
Hosts: Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, Alexandra Schwartz

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Episode Overview

In this episode, the Critics at Large team—Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz—delve into the cultural meaning of fads, both past and present. Using the current craze for Labubu collectible dolls as a jumping off point, they explore how obsessions take hold, what they reveal about society, and how our relationship to trends has evolved in an era dominated by TikTok, commerce, nostalgia, and algorithm-driven desire. The trio connects dots from Beanie Babies to Dutch tulips to NFTs, unpacking the allure, absurdity, and anxiety that fads stoke in individuals and the culture at large.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Unboxing and Anatomy of the Labubu Craze

• Labubu Introduction (01:05–03:00):
  The hosts begin by literally unboxing a Labubu doll, exemplifying the current online 'unboxing' phenomenon. The toy, originating from Ka Sing Leung’s children’s book The Monsters and turned collectible by Chinese company Popmart, has become a viral object of desire through celebrity endorsements (notably, Lisa from BLACKPINK).
  • Alex Schwartz: "These little Labubus, you can't find them just anywhere. These are scarce." (01:31)
  • Description: The toy is described as "cute, demonic, toothy...like a wild thing from 'Where the Wild Things Are'," suggesting its appeal lies partly in its unsettling character (07:36–08:08).

2. Fads Through Time: Nostalgia and Repetition

• Childhood Fads (03:32–04:56):
  The conversation turns toward childhood obsessions—Tamagotchis, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figures, etc.—highlighting the universality of longing for the object of the moment.

  • Alex Schwartz: "In every photo, my Tamagotchi is hanging from a large chain around my neck because I truly thought I would be tending to it until I, not it, died..." (04:33)

• Fads Mechanism (06:38–07:30):
  Vincent Cunningham details how Labubu leveraged manufactured scarcity and celebrity to stoke demand, comparing to earlier crazes.

3. The Virality and Mechanics of Modern Fads

• TikTok and Online Shopping (12:19–16:16):
  The hosts discuss TikTok's crucial role in catapulting the Labubu craze via viral unboxing videos. The act of unboxing is framed as a performative, communal ritual feeding group desire and surprise.

  • Vincent Cunningham: "You experience vicariously the pleasure of opening a gift." (16:09)

• Polarizing Appeal (13:53–14:08):
  The doll's popularity is divisive—some find it horrifying, others are obsessed. At a school in Stockholm, Labubus are banned due to distraction (14:08).

4. Historical Echoes: Beanie Babies, Tulips, Cabbage Patch Kids, and NFTs

• Beanie Babies and Commerce (21:45–25:38):
  Alexandra draws parallels between Labubu and the '90s Beanie Baby boom. Both rely on scarcity, speculation, and, in Labubu’s case, the new direct-to-consumer commerce facilitated by TikTok.

  • "Labubus, when you get down to it, are something to be bought and sold..." (22:18)

• Fashion and Irony (25:50–30:48):
  Adults today can display Labubus as ironic or authentic accessories—unlike the earlier view of adults into Beanie Babies as either hoarders or profiteers.

• Tulip Mania Comparison (26:24–28:10):
  The Dutch tulip craze of the 17th century is invoked to highlight how trends often blend statements of identity, status, and pure speculative mania.

  • "The Labubu is about...conspicuous consumption, status, individuation...but it also has irony..." (28:10)

• Earnestness Amid Irony (28:58–30:30):
  Naomi and Alex reflect on the genuine, sometimes desperate desire to secure trendy objects, with or without irony.

5. The Role of Objects and Anticipation

• The Allure of Anticipation (35:27–35:57):
  The anticipation and chase are often central to the pleasure of fads—the "gotta catch 'em all" impulse as much as the object itself.
  • “So much of the pleasure of these things is the anticipation…you eat the chocolate and it’s…okay.” (35:27–35:49, after unboxing Dubai chocolate)

6. What’s New (and Not) About Modern Fads

• Acceleration and Algorithms (38:54–39:35):
  Social media accelerates and algorithmically targets fads—unlike the slow, uncertain churn of trends in earlier eras.

  • “They had like a lady’s guidebook, but it was like 2 years old. And I was thinking about that in comparison to the insane acceleration, the hyper immediacy of this moment.” (38:02–38:54)

• Collecting Junk, Environmental Anxiety, and Nihilism (39:35–41:45):
  Today’s fads are tinged with anxiety about environmental waste and a sense of indulgent, sometimes nihilistic rebellion against eco-driven guilt.

  • “Many, many more Labubus are going into a landfill...there is a maybe nihilistic...pleasure in that.” (39:35–41:05)

• Childhood, Escape, and Play-acting (41:45–44:07):
  Collecting serves as a form of childlike escape and, paradoxically, a way to simulate adult economic behavior.

  • “To be a child is to be left alone in a lot of ways...the desire to just suck your thumb and hold in your other hand like a little furry monster and shut out the world is very much connected.” (41:45–43:02)
  • Vincent: “There was a kid...to enter this room you have to pay me...$1,000 million dollars. He has already heard of capital and scarcity and commerce. And he’s playing with the concept.” (43:02–44:07)

7. Fads, Speculation, and NFTs

• NFTs Parallel (44:07–44:57):
  The NFT boom is linked as another speculative fad—driven by artificial scarcity and internet hype, but lacking the tactile, emotional component of physical collectibles.

• Self-Infantilization and the Digital Divide (44:57–46:56):
  Adult participation in fads is doubled-edged, allowing for comforting nostalgia but also a retreat from reality and current events—especially when platforms showing Labubu unboxings also serve global news and, starkly, images of suffering.

8. Final Reflections: How to Live With Fads

• Labubu Condition as Human Condition (47:34–49:56):
  The hosts ultimately oscillate between wry detachment and vulnerable fondness for the objects of the moment.
  • Alex: “Enjoy ‘em. Don’t go crazy…it’s not the end of culture. It is culture.” (48:45–48:48)
  • Nomi: “There is a difference between holding a friend in your hand and speculating on many friends online.” (49:23)
  • Alex: “So I think what you’re saying, Nomi, is that the Labubu condition is the human condition.” (49:50)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the weird evil/cuteness of Labubu:
  Alex Schwartz (08:08): "The salient characteristic is it has a touch of evil. The Labubu would not be as popular as it was in this day and age, without a little touch of evil."

• On the universal allure of anticipation:
  Alex Schwartz (16:09): "You experience vicariously the pleasure of opening a gift...children love to rip open wrapping paper. And so do many adults."

• On the uniqueness and sameness of fads:
  Alex Schwartz (22:18): "Labubus, when you get down to it, are something to be bought and sold. That's what they are."

• On fashion, irony, and genuine desire:
  Vincent Cunningham (28:10): "The Labubu is about...conspicuous consumption, status, individuation...but it also has irony."

• On the deep desire beneath the trend:
  Alex Schwartz (31:27): "Every craze like this comes from some deep desire that, at the base level, is the same desire. Look at the cabbage patch craze. Look at the cabbage patch riot of 1983."

• On the difference between past and present fads:
  Naomi Frye (38:54): "They had like a lady’s guidebook, but it was like 2 years old...in comparison to the insane acceleration, the hyper immediacy of this moment."

• Closing summation:
  Alex Schwartz (49:50): “So I think what you're saying, Nomi, is that the Labubu condition is the human condition.”
  Nomi Frye (49:56): “That is what I'm saying, Alex.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Labubu Unboxing & Description: 01:05–03:00
• Childhood Fads & Psychological Echoes: 03:32–04:56
• Genesis & Global Spread of Labubu: 06:38–08:44
• Labubu’s Cultural/Evil Edge & Diaspora Analysis: 08:44–09:33
• First Encounters & Online Spread: 10:02–12:36
• Unboxing as TikTok Ritual & Polarizing Online Responses: 13:53–16:16
• Beanie Babies Comparison: 21:45–25:38
• Adult Irony and Fashion Comparison: 25:50–30:48
• Dutch Tulip Mania Parallel: 26:24–28:10
• Dubai Chocolate Unboxing: 34:10–35:27
• Acceleration of Trends and Algorithmic Desire: 38:54–41:45
• Fads and Infantilization: 41:45–44:07
• NFTs and the Speculation Paradox: 44:07–44:57
• Fads, Reality, and the Digital Divide: 44:57–46:56
• Conclusions & The Fad as Human Condition: 47:34–49:56

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Tone and Style

• The conversation is energetic, alternating between playful banter, self-aware irony, nostalgia, and cultural critique.
• The hosts invite listeners into their own ambiguities and affections, refusing easy dismissal or unnuanced celebration of fads.

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Summary Takeaways

Fads like Labubu may seem trivial, but they open up questions about commerce, identity, nostalgia, irony, environmental anxiety, and the ways digital culture shapes our most basic desires. Ultimately, our obsessions reflect our moment—speeding forward, algorithm-driven, and globally interconnected, yet always rooted in an enduring need for meaning, comfort, and belonging.

Transcript

[Nomi Frye]

Divorce isn't that big a deal.

[Alex Schwartz]

You don't have kids or money. The funniest film of the year is finally here.

[Nomi Frye]

Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona star in Splitsville, an unromantic comedy.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I don't want to get a divorce.

[Alex Schwartz]

No one does. She does.

[Nomi Frye]

Critics are praising the sexy, absurd, and hilarious take on modern marriage and relationships.

[Alex Schwartz]

As an outrageous instant classic. We need to find a way to restore the balance. And you had sex with my wife, so maybe. I don't know. No way. What is wrong with you? Sportsbow rated R. Now playing in select.

[Nomi Frye]

Theaters everywhere September 5th. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. There's a box standing in the middle of our critics. Dusk tm.

[Alex Schwartz]

Can I touch it?

[Nomi Frye]

Yes, touch it.

[Alex Schwartz]

Should I touch it with ASMR nails?

[Nomi Frye]

Doot, doot, doot.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Oh, my God.

[Nomi Frye]

Nice.

[Vincent Cunningham]

This is a mukbang.

[Alex Schwartz]

Now. Okay, now I'm seeing what's on the box. Hello.

[Nomi Frye]

Should I describe. Oh, yes. Okay. It says popmart. Underneath there's a big silver logo reading big into energy. Some words in Chinese that I cannot read. And there is an image of what is now known as a labubu.

[Alex Schwartz]

Well, these little labubus, you can't find them just anywhere. This is what I'm learning. These are scarce. Shall we. Shall we do it? Shall we unbox? Are the boo boo.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Oh, my God.

[Nomi Frye]

Okay. Ooh, she is tearing into the. Oh, my goodness.

[Alex Schwartz]

Okay, and now we come to a kind of prophylactic pouch.

[Nomi Frye]

Oh. So on the pouch it says the monsters.

[Alex Schwartz]

The monsters.

[Nomi Frye]

And the monsters is originally the series of books from whence the whole Abubu saga began.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yep. Let's just get a quick poll. Who would you like to see come out?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Well, on the side of the box it says, these are the members of the family.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Really? They're the names of the virtues. Love, hope, serenity, luck, happiness, loyalty.

[Nomi Frye]

I'll be happy as long as it's healthy.

[Alex Schwartz]

What? A mother.

[Nomi Frye]

Yes.

[Vincent Cunningham]

10 fingers, 10 toes.

[Nomi Frye]

Exactly.

[Vincent Cunningham]

A healthy whale.

[Alex Schwartz]

Nine teeth.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah, nine teeth exactly.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Whatever ungodly mix of chromosomes adds up to a labubu.

[Alex Schwartz]

I'm hoping for serenity.

[Nomi Frye]

Okay? I mean, serenity now.

[Alex Schwartz]

We all need all serenity now.

[Vincent Cunningham]

You are asmring the fuck out of that Crinkles.

[Alex Schwartz]

Hello.

[Nomi Frye]

Oh, my God. Look at him. I don't know who he is.

[Vincent Cunningham]

This is Luck.

[Nomi Frye]

Luck be a lady Luck be a.

[Alex Schwartz]

Lady tonight Luck be a Labubu Yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

This is Critics at Large, a podcast from the New Yorker. I'm Vincent Cunningham.

[Alex Schwartz]

I'm Alex Schwartz.

[Nomi Frye]

I'm Nomi Frye. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. Hi, guys.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Hey.

[Alex Schwartz]

Welcome back.

[Nomi Frye]

Welcome back. There's a nip of fall in the air. I am wearing my hard pants, and I'm all tucked in and I'm ready to go. I hope you feel similarly, my friends.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Tucked in.

[Alex Schwartz]

Okay, I'm tucked all the way out, but I'm into it for you.

[Nomi Frye]

Right. Okay. Thank you. I. You guys, I have a question for you. Do you have any memories of being a kid and desperately wanting a particular toy or a thing that it seemed like everyone else had except you, of course.

[Vincent Cunningham]

So many of them.

[Alex Schwartz]

So many.

[Vincent Cunningham]

In my deep childhood, there was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure. Just as a total genre, of course, you had to have all four turtles. But then we're getting Shredder, we're getting Master Splinter, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then in middle school, it was all about the Tamagotchi. Yes, the digital pet that you had to keep feeding and tending to at a reasonable rate lest it become some kind of demon. I always got those.

[Nomi Frye]

So that's what would happen.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It was a very.

[Alex Schwartz]

What did they tell you?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Its physical form would vary based on how well it had been tended to.

[Nomi Frye]

If you didn't want your face eaten off. That's right, you had to feed it. Alex, what about you?

[Alex Schwartz]

Absolutely incredible. Yeah, of course I wanted the Tamagotchi. And I did have one. I know. We took a family vacation in the summer of 97. And in every photo, my Tamagotchi is hanging from a large chain around my neck because I truly thought I would be tending to it until I, not it, died much was going to be the point.

[Nomi Frye]

That's a lack of flour in that known middle school social experiment, lest you become pregnant for your time.

[Alex Schwartz]

Exactly.

[Nomi Frye]

These are friends of the past. I don't know. Friends, foes, whatever you want to call it. Obsessions, desires. Many have passed over the course of years. And we'll talk about that, I'm sure, shortly. But today, we're going to start by talking about a new friend or foe. The Labubu. We are going to touch on some toy crazes of the past. But we're also going to dig into adjacent things like NFTs and the Dutch Tulip Brace. There's nothing new, my friends, about humans wanting to spend too much money on shit we don't need, but there's maybe something new about how it's all going down now online, especially with the rise of TikTok. The big question I have for us today is what do fans mean right now? Are they notably different than they had been in the past? Can they tell us something about where we are right now as a culture? That's today? On critics at large, Labubu and you. We've been swimming through the kind of wetter environs of Labubu love and desire. But let's go dry for one second because I fear that many of our listeners, much like myself, literally like 48 hours ago, might need a bit of a basic kind of gloss on what the hell is the Labubu, when it was created, et cetera, et cetera. Alex Vinson, does one of you want to give us kind of bullet points of what this little friend is as I understand it?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Okay, the Labubu was initially only available in two dimensions as a character in a children's book called the Monsters by Ka Sing Leung. A Chinese company, popmart, made Leung's character into a toy. Popmart sort of deployed all these marketing tactics to an important thing that has to happen in these cases, which is like sort of create scarcity and excitement at the same time. And from there it was like a slow roll of usually celebrities sort of flaunting their collections of these things. Lisa from Blue Blackpink. Also, Lisa, we've discussed her on this podcast because she is in the most recent installation of White Lotus. Her collection, which she started showing off in 2024 through her various social media feeds, is sort of credited with sparking the current craze totally.

[Alex Schwartz]

And now we've seen them everywhere, frequently attached to handbags. Let's talk for a second about what this thing looks like.

[Nomi Frye]

Much like all other Labubus, he has these, like, little ears. His extremities in his face are bare and rosy. The rest is covered with a thick pelt of fur. And he's mostly pinkish, I'd say, with some touches of lavender and a little bit of a light baby blue. And his eyes are beautifully kind of glittery. It's like a whole galaxy in there. He is grinning maniacally.

[Alex Schwartz]

Exactly. The salient characteristic is it has a touch of evil. The Leboo would not be as popular as it was in this day and age, without a little touch of evil. But I want to say one other thing about the origin of the Lebooboo that I have not seen widely discussed, but I believe should be part of the conversation, if I may. Kae Singh Lung, the artist who creates the image of the Lebo Boo, born in Hong Kong, lives in the Netherlands. And there's much that's being made of the leboo as a Chinese cultural phenomenon being spread to the rest of the world. But I just. If I may, you know, touch lucky for a moment here.

[Nomi Frye]

Luck.

[Alex Schwartz]

When I saw these little faces, lucky shot, with their kind of cute, demonic, toothy smiles, I knew immediately who this was. It is a wild thing from where the Wild Things Are.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

The classic Maurice Sendak children's book. And I'm not bringing this up to say Kaysing Leung stole the design for Maurice Sendak just to show how slippery these kinds of cultural boundaries can be. And I think the feeling of where the Wild things are and the excitement factor is kind of similar to what makes the Labubu so cute, but also frightening. But this didn't come out of nowhere.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I like what you're saying, Alex, because like. Like most of us, the Labubu is not a product of a particular or single culture or nation, but of diaspora and of migration of peoples and ideas.

[Alex Schwartz]

And ideas and art.

[Nomi Frye]

Absolutely.

[Alex Schwartz]

And I think the salient characteristic, if we can just get into it right here, like the demonic, the dangerous, the evil, the bad, the genius of the book where the Wild Things Are, is that a kid who is bad escapes from his house where his mom is angry with him, goes and becomes the king of these crazy Labubu, looking like monsters, and then returns, gets to come safely back. So I think the Labubu offers this deep psychological pleasure of confronting terror in a safe environment.

[Nomi Frye]

Yes, totally. But, guys, let's rewind a little bit. Do you remember when you first heard of lebooboos, the term? Or saw them without knowing what they were? Like, what's your history with this?

[Vincent Cunningham]

As often happens to me now, sort of living online, as I sometimes, more than I would like to do, it came to me in two ways. One was just as a word, because if you are still trapped in Elon Musk's haunted house called X, as I am, sometimes words just come to you.

[Alex Schwartz]

Sure.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And you kind of scroll past it. And I'm sure someone knows what that is. I don't yet. And usually what happens is I know it's something, but I don't want to find out yet. I don't look. It's like I'm letting this sort of purely lexical information just build up in my head. And one day I'll look. And then on the other hand, I. I was seeing pictures of these gremlins, and again, scrolling past them, I'm sure that they mean something, and I am opting out. I don't know what they are. And all of a sudden, when I finally looked it up and I realized that this was this. And then, oh, wait, I cannot believe people have been talking about this for, like, three months straight while I've been sort of dodging it. You know, something that, by the way, has created over $2 billion in revenue for the aforementioned Pop Martin. Just in the first half of 2025, this huge real capital creating phenomenon sort of came to me in, like, glances and whispers. And, like, I had to take the Kierkegaardian leap of faith into knowing what the fuck it was.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah, that's exactly how I encountered it, too. I was like. I heard kind of like, Le Boo Boo Labubu in the background. And then, like, on Canal Street, I would see, like, these little things which are not Labubu, but, in fact, Lefoufu, it turns out I didn't know at the time which are fake Labubus. Because, of course, the fake industry is also a huge driver of revenue because it's so hard to get these real ones. So, of course, the whole cottage industry of false idols has cropped up, of course, you know, and it was kind of ambiently in the background, but it's only coalesced in, like, the last couple of months.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Nomi Frye]

Alex, what about you?

[Alex Schwartz]

In a more traditional way. I found out about it. I'm just gonna say it from the New Yorker's newsletter, written by Gia Tolentino, our colleague, at the end of July.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Okay.

[Alex Schwartz]

And, you know, I like to think that there's someone even more ignorant than I out there who's gonna hear about it here for the first time.

[Nomi Frye]

Oh, absolutely.

[Alex Schwartz]

Probably my two parents. No offense to them.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Welcome to hell.

[Nomi Frye]

Welcome to hell. I mean, I am slowly but surely reaching the stage of, like, learning about trends from, like, the Times Styles section, you know, the thing that people always made fun of of, like, you know, that if it's, like, in the Times, it's already. Meanwhile, I'm like, oh, interesting.

[Alex Schwartz]

These things serve a purpose. Absolutely. You know what? I can't. I'm not gonna judge us. It's just. It is what it is. And It's. No, you're totally right. It's like a phrase like coronavirus or Japanese lanternfly. It means nothing until it means everything. And so it is with the booboo. And what's interesting to me about the leboo in a few ways is, first of all, it doesn't cost that much, if you can find one. I think the regular ones are $28. Of course, there's a scarcity issue, which drives up the resale value online. And let's just be real for a second. No offense to you, Loboo, but any number of stuffed animals feel like this. It's the popularity of the thing itself that has fueled the craze more and more. And I will also say, when I went on my brief and quixotic mission to try to find us a labubu, before I realized that that had been already accomplished, I posted on my Instagram, and the flood of response that came in was so fascinating. What a polarizing object. Many, many people responded along the lines of, what's saying? Get that demon away from me.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Okay, good, good.

[Alex Schwartz]

Don't even look at one.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Good to know.

[Alex Schwartz]

This is a horror. This is bad for the culture. The fact that people are so obsessed with this little plastic doll is sick. Sick. Other people said, yeah, my kid has six of them.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Wow.

[Alex Schwartz]

My friend in Stockholm, Josephine, told me that at her son's school, they're banned. Can't go in there with a labubu. Too distracting. Reminds me of the fidget spinner thing from a few years ago.

[Nomi Frye]

Remember the fidget spinner?

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, There you go.

[Nomi Frye]

But, you know, it's interesting you asked for comments online, on Instagram, but of course, shopping for the thing itself happens mostly largely online. And the unboxings of these. Of these toys also happen online. And that is an incredibly popular genre on TikTok of. Because it includes the element of surprise. I mean, unboxing in general is huge on social media. You know, you get your pair of sneakers, you get your Chanel bag, your beauty haul, and you unbox it in front of the camera and post it to your followers. But here, there is the added element, as I said, of the person doing the unboxing as well as their viewers. They're learning about what's within at the same time. So it has that inbuilt element of suspense and payoff. And I was wondering if we could maybe look at. There's like a TikTok that is a kind of a super cut of all of these unboxings. Right. Okay. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

[Alex Schwartz]

It's the gold maboo Moo.

[Nomi Frye]

This is real.

[Alex Schwartz]

24 karat gold. We go. Who do we have?

[Nomi Frye]

Okay, a woman with pink hair got a seemingly rare golden labo.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh, my God.

[Nomi Frye]

Okay, a woman is going crazy for unboxing. Like a brown pelted. Oh, I'm not looking. Okay. A pistachio colored labu boo is revealed. Okay. These people are all adults, by the way.

[Alex Schwartz]

But are they. I mean, yeah, I think that's part of you say, you know, Nomi, and you're totally right, that unboxing is and has been for quite a while its own phenomenon, like its own genre of video online. And yeah, it's. You experience vicariously the pleasure of opening a gift.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Joyous surprise.

[Alex Schwartz]

And who has not known such a pleasure? Famously, children love to rip open wrapping paper. And so do many adults.

[Vincent Cunningham]

So do we all.

[Alex Schwartz]

So do we all. And here, out of it is born your very own Labubu. And yeah, the surprise is which one you got. It does remind me of a toy that was very big in my preschool years called Puppy Surprise.

[Nomi Frye]

I'm not familiar with puppy's game.

[Alex Schwartz]

I think Puppy Surprise, it was made by Hasbro and there was also Kitty Surprise. And now you're talking. You were gifted a heavily pregnant plush dog or cat.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I was gonna ask if they.

[Alex Schwartz]

And you ripped open their womb.

[Nomi Frye]

It's giving alien.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes. The child would tear open the velcroed womb to discover how many puppies or kitties were inside.

[Vincent Cunningham]

That is a surprise.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. And the excitement was the number you got.

[Nomi Frye]

Giving Caligula.

[Alex Schwartz]

It's 100% giving Caligula.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Hearing that and having watched those videos, I feel deeply unsettled. I feel like the first time I watched the documentary about that, like, Nixxiom Cult.

[Nomi Frye]

Oh, yes.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Like, oh, this is the dark. What I just saw seemed like forced and false enthusiasm. The child in this situation should be airlifted out of their household. What the fuck?

[Alex Schwartz]

And yet, have you never known pleasure? Have you never known excitement?

[Vincent Cunningham]

I have. And I like to think that in a younger, more tender time, you know, it could have been me.

[Nomi Frye]

In a minute. Beanie Babies, Cabbage patch kids, and 17th century Dutch tulips. This is critics at large from the New York.

[Alex Schwartz]

Hi, I'm Tyler Foggit, a senior editor at the New Yorker and one of the hosts of the Political Scene podcast. A lot of people are justifiably freaked out right now, and I think that it's our job at the Political Scene to encourage people to stop and think about the particular news stories that are actually incredibly significant in this moment by having these really deep conversations with writers where we actually get into the weeds of what is going on right now and about the damage that is being done. It's not resistance in the activist sense, but I think it is resistance in the sense that we are resisting the feeling of being overwhelmed by chaos. Join me and my colleagues David Remnick, Evan Osnos, Jane Mayer and Susan Glaser on the Political Scene podcast from the New Yorker. New episodes drop three times a week. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

[Nomi Frye]

This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales.

[Alex Schwartz]

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[Nomi Frye]

Check out [e-mail] that's o d o o.com as summer draws to a close.

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[Nomi Frye]

Hey listeners. Just wanted to remind you to make sure you check out the most recent issue of the New Yorker. It's our arts and culture issue and it contains features from our very own Alex Schwartz and Alex Barish. Alex Schwartz wrote a beautiful profile of the author and poet Patricia Lockwood and Alex Barish wrote a fascinating piece about the film studio A24. They're both just great, as is the rest of the issue. It's out on newsstands now. Or you can find all of the articles available on new yorker.com. hope you'll take a look. Okay, guys, we've been talking about the Labubu, but I want us to get bigger picture for a second. Get a little bit historical and look at some other things. Fads of the past. Things have gone down in a non dissimilar way to the Labubu craze that might be pertinent to discuss. We've been there before and might be important to our understanding of what's happening right now. Who wants to maybe jump in and start us off on this exploration?

[Alex Schwartz]

I want to go right in and talk about what, to me, is the salient point of comparison here, and that is the Beanie Baby. Because the Labubus are, I think, the biggest toy trend since the Labini. The Labini babies. Okay, that's the Labini Babies.

[Nomi Frye]

That's nice.

[Vincent Cunningham]

That sounds like miscegenation to me, and I don't like it.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh, God. Since the Labini babies of the 1990s. And of course, this was right when I was at my most vulnerable and formative. I was in elementary school when the Beanie Baby craze hit. And every day we would go across the street from my school to the drugstore candy store shop, Jarrow's, and there were Beanie Babies. Suddenly there were Beanie Babies there. And the Beanie Babies became a source of obsession and delight. You wanted them. You wanted to collect them. At some point, I must have become aware that the phenomenon was enormous, that not only was this a big deal, but that it was a big financial deal. Because what we now know is that the Beanie Babies were colliding with the early Internet and especially early E commerce in such a way that fueled the trend. Like, there were certain Beanie Babies that were everywhere and there were certain ones that were super, super rare. And there was a whole collector's network online where people would pay a premium to buy the super rare ones. So other people would hustle out to buy those that they could then sell. And it was all happening on ebay, which was New at the time. This is really fascinating to me and I think it's actually extreme relevant to Labubus, because Labubus, when you get down to it, are something to be bought and sold. That's what they are. And much like Beanie Babies, they are fueling new ways of doing that. I was listening to this new episode of PJ Vogt's podcast Search Engine, where he had on the journalist and podcaster Ryan Broderick talking about what TikTok is. And this was really interesting to me because as you guys have pointed out, Lobooboos are this big TikTok phenomenon. And what Ryan Brodericker was explaining was Americans tend to think of TikTok as a content creation platform. Actually, it's a commerce platform. It has its own attached app where you can buy things directly that are promoted on TikTok. So whereas something like YouTube or Instagram came into being so that people could create content and then the platform owners could sell advertising to the rest of us watching them, it's gone the other way with something like TikTok. People there are out making their own ads basically for this product, and the goal is to direct other people watching it to buy the product directly from like a TikTok affiliated commerce chain. So if you go back to the 90s, you have beanie Babies bringing in E commerce in this kind of pioneering way where suddenly people were like putting credit card details online in a way that seems obvious to us now, but didn't at the time.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah, no, definitely.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's an interesting thing. As you mentioned, the Beanie Baby was a more well made item.

[Nomi Frye]

Was it?

[Vincent Cunningham]

I think famously it was understuffed so that it would be more poseable than other stuffed animals of the time because it wasn't chock full of stuffing. You could. It could sit, you could recline it with the arm out. So part of the appeal, at least initially, was a certain notion of quality. But it was interesting because everything. I totally agree with and remember everything that you just mentioned, Alex, but I think I also remember that it was understood as a child's pursuit. And there were two reasons that an adult would be into it. Either crazily kooky, you know, like some lady that was like just a Beanie Baby enthusiast would be like, it's like a spinster archetype or something. Right. Or a hoarder or whatever. Or to your point, rapacious capitalist.

[Nomi Frye]

Yes.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Using the Beanie Baby as a financial instrument, which I think is maybe characteristic of this whole trans idea at some Point it becomes more of a security or whatever, something to be traded.

[Nomi Frye]

A nest egg.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Right, right. Whereas I think there is a sort of sane adult who can, like, put their labubu on their Telfar bag today.

[Nomi Frye]

Sure.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And we just are like, oh, that's like an ironic thing that they' indulging in the trend but not being either like, Mr. Like Scrooge McDuck or Crazy Lady. There is a third thing that an adult can do with this today, I think.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, I think you're right. I think Labubus have become part of fashion in that way. They do remind me of the Dutch tulip craze. Okay, dare we go there?

[Nomi Frye]

Say more? Because that, I think, combines both the kind of, like, speculative market element that you were talking about as well as the kind of fashion element that you guys were just mentioning.

[Alex Schwartz]

Well, it turned out that the Dutch loved tulips, and they didn't know it until they got their hands on some. And they didn't get their hands on some until some traders brought them from where else? Asia. We're right back to the present. The labubus are coming west. The tulips came west. They wind up these tulips, these special flowers that look nothing like native European flowers. And in the Netherlands in the early 17th century, and suddenly everyone has to have them. There are special breeds that are stripey. Everyone wants those. And if you're anybody, you're going to have some tulips planted and the price goes out of control, and people are putting down simply insane sums of money to have flowers which, as we all know, will wither planted in their homes. Nothing gold can stay. There was a big crash after this wild appreciation of the value of tulip bulbs. And, yeah, it does remind me of the Labubu thing, in a sense, in that fashion is an interesting combination of showing personality, but also showing that you're with it, with a broader trend and how you work within a broader trend to show individuality, to distinguish oneself. Yeah, it makes total sense to me to see these labubus on, like, very obvious branded bags. I saw one on a Birkin bag. Okay. Birkin, as we all know, is deeply inaccessible. But, you know, the LV logo, seeing it on Chanel bags, which themselves are just very expensive Labubus. I mean, I feel cynical for saying that, but I really believe it. No, totally.

[Vincent Cunningham]

With the notable exception. And this goes again. So the Labubu is about, yes, this conspicuous consumption, yes, a notion of status and individuation within that stripe. But it also has irony, whereas I think the Dutch tulip, the actual bag, is about those things, but without the layer of irony. It almost seems like the ironic trend therefore becomes like a release of steam from the unironic mass of trends that we all engage in. Like, I have to keep up the suspension of disbelief in my life that I'm not just following trends with what I wear, where I go, whatever, that I need an escape hatch that I can make fun of that replicates this larger structure in my life.

[Nomi Frye]

But I want to say something. I think you're totally right. It's the kind of, like, fashion light, say, or, like, you know, something that's a little bit more playful, et cetera. But as we know and as we've seen these objects, you know, there is an element of earnestness. There is an element of, say, like, desperation even, that goes counter to the kind of, oh, yeah, this is just a lark. This is like a little, you know, game that I played to show that I'm not all that serious. And There are many TikToks online showing the kind of like, oh, my God, like, here I am again at this drop, you know, like, trying to get my hands on this new laboo. Yeah, yeah, the drop. And, you know, I was feeling a little bit, like, superior. You know what I mean? Like, I was feeling like, oh, you know, this is not for me. This is for the stupid masses on TikTok. I wasn't really thinking that, but you know what I mean? I mean, I was like, oh, I don't understand why they're so, like, obsessed and desperate. But then I thought, oh, but I can totally. I have been in situations which are more, like, slightly fashiony, you know, Like, I haven't done that in a long time. But, like, the supreme website or the Supreme. I've never stood in line in the Supreme Store, but, like, a new drop comes every Thursday, and people are, like, trying really hard, trying really hard creating bots. It's like there are situations where it feels to be more explicable why people are doing these things. And. Yeah, and irony doesn't really play a part in those pursuits.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, I think the irony thing is interesting because I think it is the case, but it also isn't the case. Like, some people may have an ironic approach to it. You know, when Rihanna wears a Labubu and she goes about her day, there's a hint of irony. To me, I think she probably enjoys it, but, you know, she's the coolest.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Person on the planet. So therefore, there has to be.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, exactly. And I also just saw Naomi Osaka walk into the US Open with a bedazzled labubu on her bag. And that's a little. It's not ironic in the sense of like, I know this is dumb, but I'm wearing it. I think she's into it, but it's a little bit of a wink at the culture. It's a sense like she's cool, she's with it. But the adult women I just saw, weeping as they opened, as they ripped open their labubus, they're feeling it. And it's reminds me of in that sense, right? Every craze like this comes from some deep desire that at the base level is the same desire. Look at the cabbage patch craze. Look at the cabbage patch riot of 1983.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I still have my Cabbage bash crate by the way.

[Nomi Frye]

Really?

[Vincent Cunningham]

He was born in 1987.

[Nomi Frye]

Oh my God.

[Vincent Cunningham]

His name is Luther. I can only imagine that the reference is to Luther Vandross, who was a God in my household.

[Nomi Frye]

That's so cute.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And he still lives at my mother's house.

[Alex Schwartz]

That's deeply.

[Nomi Frye]

That's adorable.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I don't think she was part of the riot though. I remember she was not there on January 6th.

[Nomi Frye]

It reached a height, I believe, like Black Friday 1983. People were like, the fur went flying. I mean like dolls were torn limb from limb, people were trampled. And I remember it as a kind of like example as a non American for me. It was like, look at these crazy Americans. You know, it was like the er, example of like American consumerism and the lengths people will go to, the price they'll pay either in tooth and lim or an actual money to get their hands on this new product, which in and of itself isn't anything special. And yet there is something about this particular formation that makes it like desirable like nothing else.

[Alex Schwartz]

But I do think the difference now is that it's all coming to us from the Internet to begin with. So the exposure is off the hook. You're already being fed this and digesting this in the virtual realm and it's imprinting itself on you. And then it becomes part of this kind of like aesthetic package that you are being delivered. That again strikes that unstable mix of feeling like something is self defining about the aesthetic choices you're making while knowing that they've been prepackaged algorithmically and given to you. And so I was reading this really interesting piece by our colleague Kyle Chayka, published online. Great piece.

[Vincent Cunningham]

IRL Brain Rot and the lure of.

[Alex Schwartz]

The labubu so basically, in his piece, Kyle is talking about first his unsuccessful quest to obtain a labubu. And he states to me, you know, nakedly and vulnerably that he actually wants one of these because other people are wanting them. He doesn't get one. But he connects this to these other aesthetic fads that are happening right now in the culture, such as everything matcha. Dubai Chocolate is a thing, and he's talking about these kinds of amalgamations that form in an Internet y way where nothing is pure. Dubai Chocolate involves a whole bunch of mixtures of pistachio. We can get into it condensed into this chocolate bar. And how all of these things, the kind of repulsiveness but addictiveness, the pleasure with an edge, coalesces and gives you this sense of, like, Internety. One thing after another, things smashing together, mash together, but seeking them out in real life.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

His argument is significantly more complex than that, but that's part of it. I have a reveal for us. I have an unboxing to do for us.

[Nomi Frye]

Wait, what?

[Vincent Cunningham]

You brought something else?

[Alex Schwartz]

I brought something else.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Oh, my God.

[Alex Schwartz]

Because we're talking about trends, and we really have to have the. We have to have the objects on the table, please.

[Nomi Frye]

Okay, so Alex has just pulled out a beautiful green pistachio green package adorned with dripping chocolate driblets.

[Alex Schwartz]

This is Dubai chocolate.

[Vincent Cunningham]

So good at describing that.

[Alex Schwartz]

It's filled with khtifi and pistachio.

[Nomi Frye]

Oh, my God, how it's fat.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Wow.

[Nomi Frye]

Okay, here we go.

[Alex Schwartz]

It's got some real volume.

[Nomi Frye]

Should I break it?

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, I think you should open it so we can see the inside. Cause that's, like, the traditional way. Just show us the inside.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Oh, my God.

[Nomi Frye]

Sorry. Disgusting. Okay, do you want to.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, I'm gonna try a piece. You take a piece.

[Nomi Frye]

I'll take a piece.

[Alex Schwartz]

So much like the Labubu. I will say now that I'm seeing this in person. What's very distinctive about this is that it is not appetizing looking at all. And maybe that's a cultural thing, maybe other people disagree, But I am seeing cow dung when I look at this.

[Nomi Frye]

This is psychotically sweet.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's interesting. It's definitely more of, like, an experience than a comfort to which I will return.

[Alex Schwartz]

I think it's good. It's not giving me flavors I never knew before and taking me to new realms. But, you know, doesn't this say something about. So much of the pleasure of these things is the anticipation. Like, this is why the booms go bust, too. Cause you're anticipating and anticipating and wanting and hunting and yearning and desiring. And then you eat the chocolate and it's good. That's okay.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Nomi Frye]

There's plenty of precedent for Labubus, but are these newer fads different or worse than the ones we've seen in the past? This is Critics of Larch from the New Yorker. Stick around. Foreign.

[Alex Schwartz]

I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's global editorial director.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I'm Michael Kolori, Wired's Director of consumer, tech and Culture.

[Alex Schwartz]

And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show, Uncanny Valley, is all about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley. At Wired, we're constantly reporting on how technology is changing every aspect of our lives. So each week on the show, we get together to talk about one of the biggest stories in tech.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Right? So whether we're talking about privacy, AI, social media, or a major tech figure, we will always explain the Silicon Valley forces behind these stories and how they affect you.

[Alex Schwartz]

Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.

[Nomi Frye]

So, you guys, we've been talking about fads. We've been talking about fads of our childhood. We've been talking about the tulip craze of the 17th century. And I was reminded of a particular chapter in one of the Little House on the Prairie books, which was my favorite. I'm sure I've mentioned it several times before over the last couple of years on the pod. This was in Little Town on the Prairie, I believe. And what was happening was Mary, the eldest, Ingall's sister, she was blind. She was going to college for the blind in Vinton, Iowa. And Laura, the middle sister, and Caroline, the mother, were preparing her clothing that she would take with her to college. And of course, they were sewing everything by hand. Knitting everything by hand. This was, you know, the full 1818.

[Alex Schwartz]

There was no TikTok then to order things from.

[Nomi Frye]

There was certainly no TikTok to order things from. But also the mechanisms of knowledge and learning about what the trend was in women's clothing particularly, were very hard to come by and access. And so the question was, they were sewing her a dress and they wanted to know were hoop skirts coming back in or were they out? They wanted her to look stylish and ready for any occasion when she goes to college. They had like a lady's guidebook, but it was like 2 years old. And I was thinking about that in comparison to the insane acceleration, the hyper immediacy of this moment. We've never seen kind of a turnover as quick as this.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, I think, you know, one thing that's happening now, which is a continuum and an acceleration of earlier trends that go back to the hoop skirt and then move through the big trends of my own youth, which all have had to do with brand names. Just like wearing branded clothing.

[Nomi Frye]

Don't forget the designer denim craze of the early to mid aughts.

[Alex Schwartz]

Exactly. Is just showing that you are a consumer and what you're consuming. And you're a knowing consumer.

[Nomi Frye]

You're a canny consumer.

[Alex Schwartz]

You're a canny consumer, I guess is the point. Although the more popular these things are, the less canny, it seems to me. I mean, we're all serving as the vectors for capitalism, for, for capital to spread itself and where it's kind of willing agents.

[Nomi Frye]

Yes.

[Alex Schwartz]

There are two particular things about the Labubu situation. And also honestly, Dubai chocolate and Stanley Cups. Let's put, let's just roll Stanley Cups up in there. We're talking about a super popular water bottle that people want to have a hundred of because you got to catch them all. Like you have the got and catch them all instinct. It's always going to be there. It's the collector's instinct. And you can have it about, you know, you can be Nabokov and have it about butterflies, or you can be a TikTok mom who has it about Stanley cups. But the two things about the boo boos that really strike me now are one, this item is fundamentally junk. What I mean is, yeah, there may be people like Vincent and his Cabbage Patch doll. Labubu's gonna survive somewhere. Luther, like Luther and Vinson, Labubu is gonna be on someone's shelf years from now. But many, many more Labubus are going into a landfill and people are collecting junk and kind of reveling in junk at a time when there is a great deal of anxiety and pressure about the physical state of the world. Yes, our environment is degraded. We all know that we need to be accumulating a lot less stuff, making a lot less cheap stuff, that it's not great. But I almost feel like there is a maybe nihilistic, but maybe also just like, I want everyone to stop telling me about how bad the world is. I want to just have my fun and collect my Labubus. Okay, yes, they're contributing to the, to carbon in the atmosphere. And sure, they're going to just sit in a landfill for a billion years, but let me just have my Fun Right now there's kind of like a revolt and leave me alone, leave me alone. Stop telling me what to do. And a similar thing strikes me with Dubai Chocolate and like, opposed to that, I see the kind of whole Maha thing of like, you know, only pure substances, the whole trying to optimize, trying to maximize. And here there's this super indulgent, delicious kind of Frankenstein y treat. It's a lot of stuff at a time when we're being told like, get clean and we should be suspicious of everything we put in our bodies. And yeah, there's a pleasure in that. So that's a kind of like, I feel like these two big cultural forces are clashing. And the second thing about it to me is the real childhood element of it.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah. And I think these two are connected. Like Alex, when you were saying, you know, it's a sort of revolt in the sense of like, don't tell me what to do. You know, it's like life is hard enough. Like I know everything is collapsing, but I want to hug this little, you know, there is something, I think childlike about that attitude. And far be it for me to, you know, I totally understand it. I probably have it myself. Not with Olabubu, but with other things. Who is the individual who is ideally most able and most justified in shutting out the world? Right. It's a child. It's not a child's responsibility to pull his weight in the workforce. It's not a child's responsibility to make the world that has been fucked up by his elders into a better place to live. And you know, that's adult work, right? To be a child is to be left alone in a lot of ways, in a lot of blessed ways that I think as adults we often idealize. I think childhood is. Is difficult in many other ways that we don't give ourself account of. But I think the desire to just suck your thumb and hold in your other hand like a little furry monster and shut out the world is very much connected.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's interesting because childhood is two sided in this way. On the one hand you shut out the world, but on the other hand you indulge in facsimiles of what you perceive to be the wider world. Yesterday I was at the playground with my kid and there was a kid in one section of the playground structure being like, to enter this room you have to pay me. What he said was $1,000 million dollars. It was so cute, classic. And it was like. But he has already heard of capital and scarcity and commerce. And he's playing with the concept. And it almost seems like today when like, you know, the gulf between economic strata is so like crazy that the upper middle class is playing out what they think is happening with the real rich. You know, all of a sudden we get our little things and we like have a facsimile of economic behavior. It's nihilism, but it's also a kind of play acting at the unfathomable. This is maybe one theory of Labubu libido.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And also I think the sort of make believe of capital. Remember NFTs? I mean, obviously this was very, a very real marketplace. Yes. But I just mean there weren't any real objects in the world. It was all virtual and these ugly, ugly things for the most part, bored apes and what have you became worth, you know, thousands and even millions of dollars in some cases. And that speculative bubble then completely collapsed and these things returned to being complete trash, you know, or not trash even, because it wasn't even real. It was just like a made a made up, you know, object of desire that suddenly lost its kind of like vaunted worth in one fell swoop.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. And there is this fine line between collecting and speculating. The NFT situation was explicitly a speculation scheme that people thought, okay, I will retain the value of this and the value will grow. And I guess you try to offload it when you think you can and you know, it's part of the crypto phenomenon of speculation and yeah, but you're not cuddling up with your hideous bored ape and touching its cozy hair. I mean, the reason why I think the child element is significant is I have very mixed feelings about it. One is a positive feeling that yes, it's good to be kind to yourself and to engage with your inner child and all the rest of it. Good, you know, do what makes you feel good. The negative aspect of it is the self infantilization aspect of it. The head in the sand aspect, the becoming over invested in a toy. Not for the imaginative pleasure that a toy brings you. Like, my kid is of the age where he's playing with his stuffed animals all the time and speaking through them, seeing the world through them, creating character for them, as opposed to just like, oh my God, I pulled this thing out of the bag and it's a really rare one. But the other thing about digital culture and self infantilization, and I'm sorry if this feels like too obvious a point, but we are watching on the same media, on the same apps that we're looking at people joyfully opening their Labubus on We're watching child death. I feel like a little bit crazy to have to put it as bluntly as this because it both seems so obvious and so over the top to be talking about it right now, but it's true. We're watching children suffering on apps that also show entertainment and shopping. I don't mean to sound like the resident scold of the roundtable, it's just.

[Nomi Frye]

Not a scold, it's just true.

[Alex Schwartz]

It just seems very striking to me and it seems so indicative to me of a global culture of this kind of like, vast and profound inequality.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah, well, it. Similarly, speaking of NFTs, in this whole world of financial speculation, the meme stock GameStop, people jumping on and off of that stock and making its fluctuations go in a way that was like advantageous to them in the short term, happened, as far as I remember it, in the sort of deep throes of the pandemic, that there is a certain kind of nihilistic, thrill seeking, acquisitive in shape that accompanies moments of extremity. Kind of how you're describing and sort of the closer these things become, the more mutually implicated they become, the more kind of, I don't know, dark they feel.

[Nomi Frye]

How do you guys feel now about Labubus now that we've explored this newish thing in ways which we hadn't considered before? Like, are your feelings changed?

[Alex Schwartz]

Well, the thing itself. We gotta return to the thing itself. The thing itself.

[Nomi Frye]

Always return to the thing itself.

[Alex Schwartz]

Hi, Lucky. Let's check in with Lucky. Hi, Lucky. I believe.

[Nomi Frye]

Luck.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh, Luck. Hi, Luck.

[Vincent Cunningham]

But, you know, you meet your child.

[Alex Schwartz]

And you give him a nickname, right? Look, I'm not above admitting that it's cute and cuddly and seems like a fun little accessory. I think what I'd say is there's no greater power than the power of refusal. If you're feeling glum because you couldn't get your hands on a loboo, if you know your local pop mart is sold out of this thing, touch grass. Isn't that what they say? Touch grass, but do something else for a little while. I sound so dismissive, and yet only partially dismissive is all the people flooding my DMs who are just like, this thing is the end of culture. This thing is not the end of culture. Let's be very clear about that. Yeah, no, it's a point and a line. Enjoy em. Don't go crazy.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It would be pretty to think that it's the end of culture, but it is culture.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah. I think there's a difference between encountering this little friend and person as a singular object. It brings to mind Toy Story when the protagonists, Buzz Lightyear specifically, realizes that he's not one of one, that there's a whole series of exactly uniform Buzz Lightyears. But he is his own individual. You know, he has a subjectivity that has been kind of explored over the course of the movie. And that is a kind of a painful moment of schism. And so I think similarly, when I'm looking in, you know, the beautiful lavender, glittery eyes of this little friend, I feel like she is right now in this moment, singular to me, even though I know it's not true. And there is a difference between, like holding a friend in your hand and speculating on many friends online.

[Alex Schwartz]

So I think what you're saying, Nomi, is that the Labubu condition is the human condition.

[Nomi Frye]

That is what I'm saying, Alex.

[Alex Schwartz]

This.

[Nomi Frye]

Has been Critics at Large. This week's episode was produced by Michelle o'. Brien. Alex Barish is our consulting editor. Our executive producer is Stephen Valentino. Conde Nast's head of global audio is Chris Bannon. Alexis Quadrato composed our theme music, and we had engineering help today from Pran Bandy, with mixing by Mike Kutchman. You can find every episode of critics at large@new yorker.com critics.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Foreign.

[Alex Schwartz]

I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's global editorial director.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I'm Michael Kollori, Wired's director of consumer tech and Culture.

[Alex Schwartz]

And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show, Uncanny Valley is about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley. And right now, Silicon Valley and Washington have never been more intertwined. So each week we get together to talk about events, a big story, often at the intersection of tech and politics.

[Nomi Frye]

Right.

[Vincent Cunningham]

So whether we're talking about Trump, Coin, Doge, or Elon Musk, we will always explain how these Silicon Valley forces are.

[Alex Schwartz]

Affecting Washington and how they affect you. Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.

[Nomi Frye]

From prx.