The Labubu Epidemic and the Death of Free Will

The internet is making you think you need a monster gremlin looking keychain.

Do you actually like them or did the Internet tell you to? If so, call for help coz you’re being held hostage by aesthetic marketing

I was minding my own business, peacefully scrolling through TikTok, when I came across one of the most atrocious things I’d ever seen. It was a keychain. Teddy bear-ish in shape, sure. Kind of fluffy. But the face? Straight out of a horror movie.

Big creepy smile. Eyes that looked almost alive. Psychopathic. Possessed. The kind of thing you’d expect to find crawling across the ceiling at 3 a.m.

To make matters worse, one of my favourite YouTubers was unboxing one like it was the cutest thing ever. I was confused but okay… her life, her choice.

Then within days, it hit me.this wasn’t an isolated incident.

It was a plague.

These monster ass keychains had a name. Labubus.Apparently, they were here to replace Sonny Angels.

Now, I never really got the naked baby hype of Sonny Angels either, but at least some of the collections had clothes and looked kinda cute

But suddenly, every influencer, every chronically online teenage girl, every “clean aesthetic” girl was obsessed (which I find pretty ironic btw). And I just wanted to grab them by the shoulders and scream,

“WTF is wrong with you? You want these little demons hanging off your bag??!”

The thing is,this Labubu epidemic snapped something in me. It made me realize just how easily we’re manipulated into wanting stuff. Not needing. Wanting.

Most of us don’t even like these things.

But the more we see it, the more we convince ourselves:

“I do need this.”

“I do find this cute.”

“I will literally die without it.”

And that, my friends, is how consumerism gets you.

It’s how influencers and brands profit:

Step 1: Get paid to promote a product.

Step 2: Shove it in your face until you can’t remember life before it.

Step 3: Watch you spiral into “I’m not cool if I don’t have this” mode.

Take Rhode, for example. The peptide lip treatments.

£15 for one lip gloss. Insane, right? You’d think people would catch on. I mean, why pay that much for a gloss that’s literally known to get grainy when you could get something better at a drugstore for half the price?

That’s not lip care, that’s daylight robbery.

And yet? They’re selling out. Because people aren’t buying the product,they’re buying the brand. The status. The moment.

You’re not applying gloss,you’re applying Hailey Bieber’s approval. You’re paying to pull it out on a night out and say, “Oh this? It’s just Rhode.”

And let’s not forget the whole Rhode lip liner drama.

The lip liners they came out with had no durability.And then they claimed, “Oh, they’re not lip liners… they’re lip shapers.”

Excuse me, what???

She even used Tate McRae in the promo , but I watched a makeup tutorial where Tate used the so-called lip shaper and then immediately went over it with an actual lip liner.

I’m sorry… if you have to follow up your lip shaper with a real liner, what was the point of the product in the first place?

It’s this kind of stuff that really opens your eyes to how manufactured desire has become. We don’t want the product.we want to belong to the moment it’s selling.

Now listen,I’m not judging. God knows I’ve been sucked in to trends too.

A few years ago, the Balenciaga cagole bags dropped and I thought I had found my soulmate. That bag was my entire personality. I prayed for it. I dreamed of it. I imagined walking through life with it on my arm.

It was too expensive, of course. I couldn’t afford the real one. And for years, I mourned that bag like a lost love.

Then Balenciaga got cancelled and I kind of… forgot about it.

Now when I look back, sure,it was cute. But that much money? For a bag?? Not worth it. And honestly, the scary part is: if I’d had the money back then, I would’ve bought it.

The viral Dior palette? Barely any pigment.

Gua sha? A beautifully packaged hoax.

And the Rhode phone case? It’s just a bulky brick designed to make you crave the matching lip gloss,like an accessory to the accessory. Marketing genius, sure.

And can we talk about skincare for a sec?

My cousin went through this hardcore phase where she ordered everything from that viral brand The Ordinary. She was obsessed with the red AHA peel mask.you know, the one that makes you look like a vampire mid-metamorphosis.

Her mom (my aunt) kept warning her:

“You don’t need a 20-step night routine. Your skin’s fine.”

But of course it was all “Mom, you wouldn’t understand.”

Her skin actually did start to improve… until it didn’t. It got irritated, sensitive, and worse than before.

Now? She uses one gentle product. Her skin’s healing.

All that hype? Just another overcomplicated ritual we convinced ourselves we needed.

This is what consumerism does.

We start losing our personalities without realizing.

We copy the people we watch. Their style becomes our style. Their likes become our likes.

Is my favourite song actually my favourite song… or have I just heard it too many times on TikTok?

Do I actually like skinny jeans… or did Alix Earle tell me they’re back in?

Do I want lip filler… or is it just because every influencer on my feed has it?

It’s scary how our tastes are being rewritten in real time and we don’t even notice it.

Who even are we anymore?

Who am I without a constant murmuring in the background telling me what’s “in season”?

Have you seen those TikToks that are like, “So what are we wearing this summer?”

Excuse me???

I’m wearing whatever the f*ck I want.

Two years ago, denim skirts were “in”.they were the moment. Now they’re being dismissed as “church girl core” or “weird.”

But you know what?

I love denim skirts.

I’ll wear one whenever I want to.

I’m not going to let social media decide what I’m allowed to feel cute in.

I’m actually glad to say I’ve reached a point where I don’t fall for every trend the second it pops up. (Still human though.So yeah, sometimes it happens. But I recover faster.)

If I feel good in something , it’s staying on, regardless of what the trend forecast says.

⸻

So here’s the thing:

I’m learning to pause.

To stop chasing every trend that goes viral.

To ask myself, Do I actually like this? Or have I just been exposed to it 50 times in the past two days?

It’s not easy.

The internet is loud. The desire is constant. The keychains are… terrifying.

But every day I scroll past a Labubu without buying one?

That’s a win.

xoxo,

emaan