Labubu Meme
Labubu meme refers to internet jokes about Labubu, a snaggle-toothed elf character drawn by Hong Kong illustrator Kasing Lung for his 2015 picture-book series The Monsters and sold as blind-box collectibles by Pop Mart. The memes mock the teeth, the hype and the fakes.
Where labubu meme came from
Most viral characters start as an image and acquire a product later. Labubu ran the other way: it was a published illustration and a licensed collectible for nearly a decade before the internet turned it into a joke. That order explains almost everything about how the memes work.
Kasing Lung, born in Hong Kong in 1972 and raised in Utrecht in the Netherlands, built a fairy world across three picture books in 2015 and called its inhabitants The Monsters. He has attributed the visual language to the Nordic folklore he read as a child. Labubu is the standout: round and furry, with tall pointed ears, wide eyes and a row of sharp teeth. Figures were produced by How2Work from 2015. In 2019 Lung signed with Pop Mart, the Chinese designer-toy company that sells its products in sealed blind boxes, and the character moved from art-toy shelves to mass retail.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2015 | Kasing Lung publishes The Monsters picture books. Labubu figures begin production with How2Work. |
| 2019 | Lung licenses the character to Pop Mart. Blind-box vinyl figures follow. |
| April 2024 | BLACKPINK member Lisa is seen with a Labubu bag charm. This is the moment most coverage treats as the tipping point across East and Southeast Asia. |
| Through 2024 | The plush pendant format turns the toy into a visible accessory rather than a shelf object, which is what makes it photographable and therefore memeable. |
| 23 May 2025 | Pop Mart halts in-store and Roboshop Labubu sales across the UK after crowd surges and reported brawls on restock days. Online sales continue. |
| June 2025 | A 1.2-metre mint-green Labubu sells for a reported 170,000 US dollars at a Beijing auction. |
| 11 July 2025 | Fact-checkers publish on the claim that Labubu depicts the Mesopotamian figure Pazuzu, after the rumour spreads on TikTok. |
| 13 August 2025 | UK reporting on unsafe counterfeits. Home Office figures put fake Labubus at roughly 236,000 of 259,000 counterfeit toys seized at the border. |
| 3 September 2025 | South Park airs the season 27 episode Wok Is Dead, built around Labubu toys, tariffs and a mock demonic ritual. |
Why the toy became a joke
Three features of the product did the work. The blind box means you cannot choose which figure you get, so unboxing is a gamble with a filmable reaction. The design is deliberately ugly-cute, so any photograph carries a built-in contrast between the marketing and the teeth. And the scarcity was real enough to produce queues, resale prices and a counterfeit industry, which gave people something to be arch about. Memes did not need to invent a premise; the retail model supplied one.
What labubu meme actually means
There is no single Labubu meme with a fixed caption. The term covers a family of jokes that all point at the same target: the distance between how the toy is sold and how people behave about it.
| Element | Literal reading | How it is actually used |
|---|---|---|
| Labubu | A character from The Monsters, made as a collectible figure. | Shorthand for a whole consumer moment: queues, resale, bag charms, blind boxes. |
| The teeth | A design choice. The character is a monster. | The engine of the joke. Every cute framing gets undercut by the mouth, which is why horror edits and jump-scare formats work on it. |
| Lafufu | A counterfeit Labubu. | An affectionate insult. Posting a Lafufu is a way of opting out of the hype while still joining in. |
| Blind box | Sealed packaging with a random figure inside. | Gambling framing. Unboxing jokes are about the odds, the secret variants and the money already spent. |
| Labubu is demonic | A claim that the design depicts a demon. | A rumour that became a bit. Most people posting it are performing the panic, not reporting it, and South Park satirised the whole cycle in September 2025. |
How people actually use it
- Unboxing and blind-box jokes. The dominant format. The comedy is the gap between the anticipation and getting a duplicate, or the running total of what the pursuit of a secret variant has cost.
- Real versus fake. Lafufu content compares an official figure with a counterfeit, usually by tooth count and packaging detail. This has a factual backbone: UK border seizures reported in 2025 were overwhelmingly fake Labubus, and safety warnings about counterfeits were issued in the UK and Australia.
- Horror edits. The design lends itself to darkened, sharpened, jump-scare treatments. The Pazuzu rumour of mid-2025 fed this directly, even after fact-checkers looked at it.
- Status-symbol satire. Jokes about the bag charm as a class marker, about queueing, and about the resale market. The May 2025 UK sales pause after reported brawls gave this strand a real news peg.
- Crossovers and edits. Labubu inserted into unrelated franchises, films and reaction templates. This is where the character functions as a generic meme object rather than a specific joke.
One note on accuracy, because it is the detail meme captions get wrong most often: Labubu is the name of one character, not the name of the range. The series is The Monsters, and it contains other characters. Calling every figure in the line a Labubu is common but incorrect.
Is labubu meme offensive?
The character carries no slur, no crude expansion and no adult content, and the memes are not offensive in that sense. Two narrower points are worth stating once. First, the claim that the design is demonic or linked to Pazuzu is a rumour, not a finding; fact-checkers examined it in July 2025 and found nothing supporting it, and Lung has consistently pointed to Nordic folklore. Repeating it as fact is inaccurate rather than edgy. Second, some of the mockery aimed at collectors slides into mocking the people rather than the marketing, which is worth being aware of if you are writing captions. Note also that memeyell has no affiliation with Pop Mart, How2Work or Kasing Lung, and nothing here is buying advice.
What we do not know
- The name. A widely repeated story says Lung took the sound from a small child mispronouncing a Chinese word. We could not trace it to a primary interview and are treating it as unverified.
- Revenue figures. A first-half figure of around 6.3 billion yuan, roughly 870 million US dollars, is attributed to the series in reporting on Pop Mart interim results, but sources differ on which half-year that covers. Treat any single number as approximate.
- The Lisa moment. April 2024 is the date coverage settles on, but whether one appearance caused the boom or simply marked it is an interpretation, not a documented fact.
- Attempted bans. Reports of restriction attempts in Russia and Iraq exist, but we have not confirmed what was actually enacted, by whom, or whether anything is in force.
- Tooth count. Nine teeth is the figure usually given and is used as a counterfeit test, but variants across more than three hundred released figures make it an unreliable rule on its own.
- Meme first sightings. Unlike a single-image meme, this one has no traceable first post. Any claim about the original Labubu meme should be treated sceptically, including ours.
- The film. A Sony Pictures project with director Paul King has been reported as in development. Development is not production, and nothing here should be read as confirmed.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Labubu?
It is a collectible character: a small furry monster with tall pointed ears, wide eyes and sharp teeth, created by Hong Kong illustrator Kasing Lung for his picture-book series The Monsters.
Who created Labubu?
Kasing Lung, born in Hong Kong in 1972 and raised in the Netherlands. He has said The Monsters drew on the Nordic folklore he read as a child, and the books were published in 2015.
Is Labubu the same thing as Pop Mart?
No. Pop Mart is the Chinese toy company that has held the licence since 2019 and sells the figures in blind boxes. The character belongs to Kasing Lung, and earlier figures were made by How2Work.
What is a Lafufu?
Lafufu is the nickname for a counterfeit Labubu. UK Home Office figures reported in 2025 put fakes at roughly 236,000 of 259,000 counterfeit toys seized at the border.
Why did shops in the UK stop selling Labubu?
Pop Mart paused in-store and Roboshop sales across the UK on 23 May 2025, citing crowd sizes on restock days after reports of long queues and brawls. Online sales carried on.
Is Labubu based on a demon?
No. The claim that it depicts the Mesopotamian figure Pazuzu spread on TikTok in 2025 and was examined by fact-checkers in July that year, who found nothing behind it. Lung points to Nordic folklore.
Was Labubu on South Park?
Yes. The season 27 episode Wok Is Dead, first aired on 3 September 2025, built a plot around Labubu toys, tariffs and a mock demonic ritual.
What do Labubu memes actually joke about?
Four things mainly: the blind-box gamble, the gap between the cute framing and the teeth, counterfeit Lafufus, and how much people will pay and queue to keep up.
Make a labubu meme
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