Are Labubus Demonic?
The Labubiscourse has gone from "aww weird little cutie" a full-blown spiritual panic.
What’s going on?
I could teach half a degree about Labubology at this stage – there’s so much to say about the little beasties (from their role as recession indicator to fashion statement) that I’ve written a whole separate Substack about them.
But the latest discourse isn’t about them being faddish or ugly – it’s about them being DEMONIC. Whether seriously or not (I can’t tell anymore), people are:
Calling them “the devil’s pet”
Linking them to Mesopotamian being Pazuzu (and noting that Katy Perry hates them)
Having them blessed in Christian ceremonies (aww)
What’s driving it?
Labubus aren’t the only think being called demonic this summer: ChatGPT is also under fire. As Kimberley Online says, “if you guys call one more think demonic this year, you have officially devalued the word.”
As to what’s behind it: saying that we’re calling things demonic because Gen Z is finding religion is the easy way out (also: the evidence is inconclusive – for every article saying Gen Z is uniquely religious, there’s another one saying they’re not).
Basically, “demonic” has become a catch-all for bad vibes – when we don’t understand something, it must be evil. “Everything’s a conspiracy if you don’t understand how anything works” – and the Labubus’ rise to fame was uniquely meteoric. So there must be something deeper behind it, the logic goes.
What does it mean?
If we decide every oddity is unclean, we shut off our curiosity – and with it, our ability to understand the systems shaping our lives. Instead of reaching for demons, we need to ask hard questions like:
Why does this exist?
Who benefits from this?
What ARE the implications?
Final takeaway
Dismissing anything we don’t get it as evil is more harmful than a furry little critter with big eyes and sharp teeth – we need to sit with the strange and stay open to the possibility that weird ≠ wicked.