Calm Down, Everyone: Labubus Are Just This Generation’s Beanie Babies

Lately, I've been having a weird sense of déjà vu. Because haven't we already been through a small stuffed animal craze before and learned that they're not, in fact, worth getting our panties in a twist over? Did we not learn our lesson from the rise and subsequent fall of Beanie Babies that going to the ends of the earth to snag a Labubu may not be worth the stress?

I was a tween when Beanie Babies hit their heyday in the late '90s. Like many kids my age, as well as grown ass men and women, I got caught up in the frenzy that was trying to collect the toys. And boy was it a frenzy, even without TikTok and YouTube, let alone cell phones with internet, to fuel the madness.

Kids got trampled, families went bankrupt, and general mayhem ensued over people trying to collect as many Beanie Babies as they could. Organized crime sprang up, with one guy robbing 200 of the toys from a local store, and another woman getting jail time for an elaborate bait and switch scheme.

But then the craze abruptly came to an end, and everyone who thought they had their retirement locked and loaded thanks to a pile of stuffed animals was forced to face the ugly truth: The toys were a trend, and nothing more.

Fast forward to today, and here we are again, this time with Labubu dolls, the slightly unhinged-looking stuffed monsters from PopMart that people are obsessed with. And there are plenty of eerie similarities between Labubus and Beanie Babies. For starters, the rush to secure one of these toys seems to transcend human decency, just like it did before. The fighting over Labubus got so bad that they were pulled from stores in the UK.

Just like Ty did, PopMart is doing limited releases with Labubus. Each drop sells out within seconds. This creates a scarcity mindset, which only continues to fuel the idea that getting your hands on a Labubu is the equivalent of winning the lottery.

Instead of paying the roughly $28 retail for one of these toys, people are also paying much, much more to find one. The same happened with Beanie Babies (like the Princess Diana bears).

It was a status symbol to have a plethora of Beanie Babies, so it should be no surprise that it's the same for Labubus, with celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, and Dua Lipa jumping on the plushy monster bandwagon.

Most importantly, though, is that somewhere in the next six months to couple of years, Labubus will lose their luster and we'll be obsessed with something new. Just like the Beanie Babies, Furbies, Tickle Me Elmos, and Fingerlings that came before them, which are now neglected relics of the past.

Now look, the world is in the shitter right now. So if tracking down one of these creatures for your kid or yourself genuinely brings you joy, then go for it, even if it means overpaying. Sometimes, when everything else is going wrong, getting to see a smile on your kid's face makes everything OK for a brief moment in time.

But don't feel guilty if you don't want to scour the internet or go to the moon and back to get a Labubu for your child.

I am living proof that kids can survive a trend without being part of it and still come out OK.

While I had a few Beanie Babies, they were mostly gifted and not enough to give me any sort of elite status at school. I never had a Princess Diana Beanie Baby, despite plenty of begging and pleading, but I'd like to think that those years surrounding the craze were still pretty good ones.

There will always be a hot toy or must-have thing. History repeats itself, though, and trends are just that: things that are here temporarily before they are gone.

While I love to see my girls happy and want to give them the world, I don't want to teach them that they have to have the season's "it" item to feel complete. Parents are not obligated to keep up, nor should they feel guilty for not being able to or not wanting to come up with whatever the toy de jour is at the moment.

The Labubu bubble will burst, just like the Beanie Baby one did, and I feel like we'll look back on this moment and wonder why we lost our minds over these ugly little monsters. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Labubu prices and value will continue to climb and be the ticket to early retirement, just like I was sure Beanie Babies would be for me if I could get my hands on that Princess Diana Bear.

Maybe, but probably not. At least Beanie Babies were cute.