The Business of Labubu and the Power of Manufactured Obsession
Social Currency with Sammi Cohen
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (podtrac.com) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
People are lining up at 4 AM, crashing websites, and dropping thousands on a fuzzy vinyl creature with nine teeth and a cult following. Meet Labubu: part toy, part fashion statement, part emotional coping mechanism. Born from a Nordic mythology-inspired art project and catapulted to fame by Pop Mart, Labubu has become a collector’s dream and a status symbol—thanks to limited drops, blind box buying, and celebrity fans like BLACKPINK’s Lisa.
Today, Sammi unpacks how scarcity, nostalgia, and the chaos of modern life created the perfect storm for Labubu’s rise—and what that says about the future of fandom, consumption, and identity.
Follow Sammi on Instagram here
Subscribe to the Social Currency newsletter here
Here’s what Sammi covers today:
00:00 Labubu’s Bizarre Social Currency
01:08 Where Labubu Came From
02:55 Scarcity as a Business Plan
04:10 The Lisa of It All
05:27 What Labubu Tells Us About the State of the World (Really)
06:31 The Future of Fandom
07:22 How to Show Social Currency Some Love
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices