If you can’t track down a Labubu, you might need to settle for a Lafufu. The grinning toy monsters have become the stuff of our collective consumerist nightmares. Plus:

Jia Tolentino 
A staff writer covering news and culture since 2016.

The tiny grinning monsters called Labubus were created in 2015 by a Hong Kong-born, Netherlands-raised artist named Kasing Lung for a book series called “The Monsters.” Lung licensed Labubus to a Chinese toy company called Pop Mart in 2019; Lisa from Blackpink hung a Labubu from her purse in 2024, sparking runaway Labubu madness; Pop Mart shot to $1.8 billion in revenue by the end of the year. Recently, at a bar, I encountered a Labubu dressed in knockoff Prada hanging from the work bag of a stylish homosexual. At a Liberty game at the Barclays Center a few days later, the team’s heroic mascot, Ellie the Elephant, carried a miniature purse with a Labubu attached. The Labubu fell off as Ellie strutted. “Sh-h-h, don’t tell her!” her minder whispered as he passed.

Labubus come in mystery boxes. Knockoff Labubus are called Lafufus. Labubus are said to resemble an ancient Mesopotamian demon called Pazuzu, but that is probably a coincidence. They are popular because they look funny, because Labubu is fun to say in the same way that a typo in the group chat is fun to repeat back to the typo-committer for years, and also because consumer culture is currently a series of dramatic swan dives into a sort of giddy meaninglessness that functions as tacit admission that we’ve all more or less lost the plot.

“The brevity of the interlude,” the art critic and essayist Jonathan Crary writes, in his book “24/7,” between when a product is made and when it “literally becomes garbage” requires two contradictory yet coexisting attitudes: “on one hand, the initial need and/or desire for the product, but, on the other, an affirmative identification with the process of inexorable cancellation and replacement.” He’s referring to tech here—the planned obsolescence of the iPhone you’re likely reading this on, etc.—but the argument is also, in many ways, about Labubus. We are no longer in the comparatively Edenic age of the Furby, the Beanie Baby, the Tamagotchi. Now, within the span of thirty seconds on TikTok, you can see Megan Thee Stallion getting a Labubu on the red carpet and a seven-year-old sobbing with joy while unboxing one and laborers assembling the dolls at a factory in China, where the heads get stamped out of rubber and elderly gig workers split them open to be stuffed while making (in the case of the Lafufus, at least) approximately $5.57 per day. In the world of Labubus, it’s not just toys that were made for the trash heap—it’s us, our obsessions, our collective trajectory, the very teleology of our existence, our stupidest loves, our minds.

After six decades of civil-rights efforts, the prosperity disparity remains unchanged. Programs meant to close the gap haven’t made a dent, and there’s reason to doubt that even reparations would deliver a lasting fix. Idrees Kahloon on what’s really driving this stubborn divide—and what might actually alleviate it. Read or listen to the story »

Earlier this month, Paramount, which owns CBS, announced it would pay sixteen million dollars to settle a lawsuit with President Donald Trump, who claimed, among other accusations, that the network’s interview with Kamala Harris had been unfairly edited. Weeks later, CBS cancelled Stephen Colbert’s late-night show, citing financial reasons.

Will the President’s lawsuits against media companies have a chilling effect on comedy? If a recent episode of “South Park” is any guide, probably not. On the latest episode of the Political Scene podcast, the staff writer Andrew Marantz and senior editor Tyler Foggatt are joined by Roy Wood, Jr., the host of CNN’S satirical program “Have I Got News for You.” “There’s always going to be these petty, ticky-tack battles that the Administration fights,” Wood told the hosts. “But I don’t think that’s gonna stop the comedians from doing what Trump hopes this would do, which is silence them.” Listen to the full episode »

P.S. Robert Wilson, the co-writer of the visionary five-hour opera “Einstein on the Beach,” has died. He once explained to an audience, “If you slow things down, you notice things you hadn’t seen before.” Read Hilton Als on Wilson’s genius.

Ian Crouch contributed to this edition.