The Labubu, a snaggle-toothed collectible somewhere between forest spirit and mischievous goblin, spent 2025 as the improbable mascot of a spending pattern economists call treatonomics. Priced around $28 in its blind box, with rare "secret" editions reselling for hundreds or thousands, it became a status object for tight budgets. By 2026, the resale froth is deflating. The behavior underneath it is not.
The lipstick effect, upgraded
Treatonomics describes a familiar reflex dressed in new packaging: when big purchases feel out of reach, consumers reach for small, mood-boosting luxuries instead. Economists have tracked the pattern since the Great Depression, when lipstick sales rose even as households cut back elsewhere. The 2020s version swaps the lipstick for a $20 mystery box, a pricey matcha, or a resale sneaker drop, small outlays that deliver disproportionate joy.
Why the blind box worked so well
The mechanics were engineered for repeat delight. You do not know which figure is inside until you open it, so each purchase carries a jolt of chance. Pop Mart, the company behind Labubu, saw revenue surge on the order of 165 to 170 percent in the first quarter of 2025 as the craze peaked, while adjacent characters like Sonny Angels and Smiskis held steadier, quieter followings.
- Micro-price, macro-feeling: a $10 to $20 object reads as a genuine treat even during a squeeze.
- Scarcity as theater: rare variants sold for well over $100 on resale markets, sometimes far more.
- Status without the price tag: the toys signaled cultural fluency, not wealth.
The bubble, and what survives it
As 2026 opened, the specific Labubu market showed classic late-cycle signs: falling resale values and wavering investor confidence. That is the toy correcting, not the impulse. Analysts expect treatonomics itself to persist for another three to five years, with "little treat culture" simply cycling through mascots faster than before. Today a goblin doll; tomorrow, something not yet designed.
What it says about money now
The deeper signal is emotional accounting. A generation stretched on housing and priced out of milestones is reallocating discretionary spending toward affordable, frequent hits of pleasure and belonging. For brands, the takeaway is uncomfortable but useful: the winning product may not be the aspirational big-ticket item, but the small, repeatable one that makes a hard week feel briefly generous.
The Labubu will fade. The wallet logic that made it a phenomenon is already choosing its successor.