Gen Z's Calendar Years: The Precise Birth & Age Ranges, Explained
The Great Gen Z Unboxing: What Labubu's Rollercoaster Ride Tells Us About the Future of 'New Consumption'
You hear a lot of noise these days about "new consumption," particularly when the conversation turns to China's Gen Z. Everyone from market analysts to stock exchange CEOs seems to be trying to pin down what drives these younger buyers. At the Fortune Global Forum in late October, Bonnie Chan, the head honcho at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, even trotted out a prime example of investor obsession: "This thing called Labubu." And for a while, it seemed like Labubu, the 'ugly-cute' doll from Chinese toymaker Pop Mart, was the poster child for a market phenomenon that defied conventional logic. It was a rollercoaster ride, alright, one that offered a dizzying ascent followed by a swift, sobering drop. But if you strip away the celebrity endorsements and the social media hype, what does Labubu’s trajectory actually tell us about the underlying mechanics of this so-called new consumption? My analysis suggests a market driven by emotion, yes, but one where the data points to inherent volatility, not just boundless growth.
The Hype Machine and the Serotonin Slot Machine
Let's look at the numbers. Pop Mart, the Beijing-headquartered retailer behind Labubu, didn't just have a good run; they had an absurd one. For the first six months of 2025, they reported 13 billion Chinese yuan in revenue ($1.9 billion), which was up more than 200% from the previous year—to be more exact, a 207.7% jump. Profits? Even wilder. Net income surged by almost 400%, hitting 4.5 billion yuan ($630 million). Labubu alone accounted for nearly a third of those sales. The stock market reacted exactly as you’d expect: Pop Mart shares rocketed over 125% since the beginning of 2025. At its peak, the company's market cap hit $37 billion, making it worth as much as Hasbro, Mattel, and Sanrio combined. Founder Wang Ning's personal wealth swelled to an estimated $18 billion. These aren't just figures; they're the financial echo of queues snaking around Pop Mart outlets in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, each person a data point in a real-time sentiment survey.
The core of Pop Mart's genius, and the engine behind the Labubu craze, is the "blind box" model. You don't pick your toy; you buy a mystery box, hoping for a rare variant. It’s a retail strategy that leverages an almost casino-like thrill, a slot machine for serotonin. This isn't just about collecting; it’s about the chance of collecting, the social media spectacle of the unboxing, and the secondary market speculation that inevitably follows. Celebrities like Rihanna, Lisa, and Dua Lipa were photographed with Labubus hooked onto their handbags. Tennis star Naomi Osaka proudly showed off her customized dolls on TV, calling them "Andre Swagassi" and "Billie Jean Bling." This perfectly encapsulates what analysts call "emotional consumption"—a shift where young urban shoppers, often frustrated by limited career options, funnel disposable income into hobbies and small, identity-affirming pleasures rather than big-ticket items. But how long can a market sustain itself on pure, unadulterated FOMO and the dopamine hit of a mystery box?
The Inevitable Correction and the Broader Cultural Shift
As with any asset driven by speculative fervor, the Labubu mania couldn't last forever. Even CEO Wang Ning admitted he couldn't accurately forecast its longevity. And he was right. The summer frenzy has died down. Investors, always a jumpy bunch, are now wary of declining secondary market prices for the dolls, a classic sign of dwindling popularity. Then came the gut punch in early November: a leaked livestreamed conversation with a Pop Mart salesperson admitting the blind boxes are overpriced. The market reacted swiftly, wiping almost $2.2 billion off Pop Mart’s market value in a single day. The stock has since dropped 40% from its peak. This is the methodological critique I always come back to: when the underlying value proposition is primarily emotional and speculative, the actual "facts" of pricing and sustainability eventually catch up.
So, Labubu's individual rollercoaster might be heading for the station, but what about the broader "new consumption" trend it supposedly represents? This is where the narrative gets more complex. While the specific hype around one ugly-cute doll may fade, the underlying shift towards Chinese intellectual property (IP) and local brands gaining traction outside of China is a far more robust development. For too long, China, despite its economic heft, has punched below its weight culturally. Now, we're seeing Chinese video games like miHoYo’s Genshin Impact and Game Science’s Black Myth: Wukong attract massive global fan bases. Chinese animated films, like Ne Zha 2, are dominating global box offices. Even Chinese drink brands (Luckin Coffee, Chagee) and cosmetics are making inroads, leveraging aggressive digital marketing that, as Malina Ngai, CEO of AS Watson, points out, "immediately surpass a lot of the brands when it comes to social media, storytelling, and endorsements." This isn't just about selling a product; it's about selling a cultural statement. Amber Zhang of BigOne Lab notes that Chinese consumers are now favoring domestic brands that align with their cultural values, saying, "People are buying them because they feel like: 'Hey, this is a great statement of my personality, and it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t have a [foreign] logo on it.'" This is the part where I find the long-term data genuinely compelling, despite the short-term volatility of individual fads. It's a fundamental shift in cultural soft power. As Fortune reported, Labubus revealed the 'new consumption' trend among China's Gen Z that's now spreading overseas.
Blind Boxes and the Future's Volatile Unboxing
What Labubu's journey really shows us is a dual narrative. On one hand, it's a testament to the immense power of culturally resonant, emotionally driven products, especially when amplified by social media and the psychological pull of the blind box. Pop Mart's initial success wasn't an accident; it was a masterclass in understanding the psyche of Gen Z. As Ashley Dudarenok, founder of ChoZan, put it, Pop Mart acts "more like cultural anthropologists than toymakers." They identified an IP, turned it into a cultural moment, and built an ecosystem around it.
On the other hand, the inevitable market correction for Labubu itself—and the broader investor wariness it created—serves as a stark reminder that even the most potent emotional drivers can’t defy gravity forever. While analysts like HSBC are hopeful Pop Mart can transcend individual IPs and become a "lifestyle" brand akin to Lego or Sanrio, the question remains: can any brand sustain exponential growth when its primary appeal is the ephemeral thrill of the unboxing and the fleeting nature of internet hype? The "new consumption" era, especially with its reliance on the fast-moving currents of Gen Z trends, is a volatile landscape. It promises rapid, unprecedented gains for those who tap into the zeitgeist, but it also guarantees equally rapid adjustments when the collective attention span inevitably moves on. The unboxing of Labubu might be winding down, but the unboxing of the future of global consumption, driven by these powerful, yet unpredictable, cultural currents, is just beginning.