Labubu dolls – those wide-eyed, fanged creatures with unsettling grins – have invaded our lives like a virus with a smile.
You spot them dangling from keychains, perched on office desks, clinging to backpacks worldwide. These grotesque-yet-endearing figures are more than mere toys; they’re the vanguard of an ugly-cute revolution that’s generating billions.
Labubu’s creator, Hong Kong-based Pop Mart, has ridden this wave to staggering success. Their 2021 revenue exploded by 78.7%, with Labubu emerging as a top-performing IP. By 2023, global expansion into North America and Europe sent sales soaring higher, proving ugly-cute’s international appeal.
Labubu didn’t emerge alone. It joins bizarre-yet-beloved predecessors, like the lumpy Cabbage Patch Kids of the ’80s, the neon-haired ’90s Troll Dolls, the almost-alive Furbies, and the Fugglers – plushies with disturbingly human teeth.
But the ugly-cute tradition actually stretches back centuries – to 17th-century Japanese Netsuke (endearing demon carvings) and 19th-century German Grodner Thaler – grotesque wooden dolls.
Modern fashion embraces this aesthetic too, from clownish jelly shoes to MSCHF’s absurd Big Red Boots. Even Crocs, the rubbery abominations, became unlikely status symbols through the weird attractions we have to things that are both gross and oddly attractive.
But why?
Ugly-cute triggers “cognitive dissonance”. Our brains first respond to “baby schema” – big eyes, round faces that trigger nurturing instincts. Then we notice unsettling features – gnarly teeth, unnatural proportions – creating repulsion.
This push-pull dynamic makes it more compelling than traditional beauty or ugliness alone. Life isn’t a beautiful Instagram curation, and it’s not nightmare-dark either. It’s both. The genius of Labubu isn’t its grotesque charm but that it gives us permission to embrace contradiction. Perhaps the real billion dollar insight isn’t that we crave weird toys but we’re desperate for symbols that acknowledge life’s fundamental absurdity.
And we can’t discount the fact that at the end of the day, ugly-cute makes us laugh a lot. And laughter drives social sharing. It also helps that the mystery packaging they come in is designed for revelation.
It’s the difference between developing a product and crafting a story.
Through sharing and comparing, they help us build communities of people who feel a bit weird about the world – just like us.
As long as we crave humor and rebellion against the mundane, ugly-cute will continue thriving. Because let’s face it, this world never settles on being one thing for long. Sometimes it’s cute, often it’s ugly, and we’re all just trying to smile through our fangs.
