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On Labubu and the Hyperreal

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Re: On Labubu and the Hyperreal

#21

Post by mockerell »

yieldcrv wrote: post #2

extrapolated all of this not only 7 months too late beyond the trend’s implosion, while missing the way more obvious fact that being trendy attracted women of the same age range this was also the tail end of the fashion trend based on muting masculinity in favor of catering to the female gaze, an adaptation once again for women’s comfort until women realized they hate feminine men more than they thought they briefly…

The lack of actual photos of Labubus "in the real" (usually on a keychain at a pant's belt loops) is jarring. The topic of the "performative male" has been regurgitated in social media for quite some time. Still the author ignores that and misses the overall bigger picture.

I think any argument made here with regard to Baudrillard's hyperreality could be made about most trends, not only Labubus. Actual insight into the demographic is missing.

I prefer the following video which touches on the performative male (it's in German though). Don't get distracted by the title, it's nuanced and offered me some insight into performative behaviors (both the recent manifestation and in general) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rFMdKcR824

Re: On Labubu and the Hyperreal

#22

Post by pokememon »

Trading Card Games (TCG), and generally any item relying on gacha mechanics, are this generation's "scratchers".

It's amazing seeing grown adults who would scoff at their peers buying lotto tickets and scratchers enthusiastically burn cash on TCG without the slightest sense of hypocrisy.

The secret is "social head canon".

"Head canon" is when you fill in the plot holes to make sense of your favorite narratives.

"Social head canon" is the same but for our understanding of society.

When the algorithm feeds children videos of adults opening TCG packs what they see is grown adults, the people who are appear to, and are supposed to, have it all figured out, losing their shit over cardboard and the child fills in the "why" on their own.

But they are wholly ignorant of "gambler's high" so they concoct elaborate narratives for why the adults "love the cards". That "social head canon" is so sticky because it can be anything, infinitely complex, wholly private, and different for every person.

Once that child grows up they learn about "gambler's high" and so seek the same thing, but now for the intended reasons.

Rinse and repeat across generations.

Re: On Labubu and the Hyperreal

#23

Post by maxbond »

alephnerd wrote: post #7
maxbond wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could apply this same logic to your comment. "If Labubu discourse makes them happy, who cares? It's their life." We should live and let live but that doesn't preclude discussion.

Sure, but the article is going from discourse into direct moral judgement. If you write an entire blogpost making a moral judgement on personal choices yeah I'd flame you.

I can imagine someone who xollects Labubus feeling insulted or patronized, but they are not lifting a finger to stop them from buying a Labubu. They are just publishing their thoughts. Their thoughts happen to contain moral judgements, that is not a departure from participating in discourse. Frankly it is ridiculous to suggest discussing morality is not engaging in discourse, and this kind of ontological/categorical argument is a way to sidestep the merits of the argument without engaging with them by just labeling them as illegitimate.

Generally, I'm just not buying that only some forms of discourse are legitimate, and again, if this article was illegitimate, your comment would be illegitimate for the same reason, so what are we doing here?

But I would agree that people who felt judged, slighted, etc. would be free to respond, "flaming" or otherwise. I see no issue with that. (Flaming is probably not the right way to respond but that's a different question.)

Re: On Labubu and the Hyperreal

#25

Post by havblue »

alephnerd wrote: post #4

Alternatively - who cares? If some people feel happy playing with Labubus, mechanical keyboards, or why do you care? It's their life and not yours. Additionally, this article also clearly fails to deep dive into how Pop Mart basically exported Asian style marketing strategies to the West. Back in Asia, conspicuous consumption and quick commerce is not viewed negatively the same way it is amongst Western HN/Redditors,…

Discussing the nature of hyperreal consumer products is similar to art criticism. You think about the intent of the item and how it affects the recipient. It isn't just being a jerk about it that is, since you can gain insight into societal trends by asking, "why the heck are people taking weird pictures of Donnie Darko stuffed animals and posting them online." Discussions of buying new mechanical keyboards when you have plenty that work fine are a bridge too far though. Because I buy too many of them.

Re: On Labubu and the Hyperreal

#27

Post by buildbot »

freetime2 wrote: post #15
doctorpangloss wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha what would Pokémon have to do to convince you it's more than a fad? It's already the world's biggest IP, it's been around for 30 years...

I’m referring specifically to the cards, which exploded in popularity after Logan Paul paid $5 million for a rare card in 2021. The prices are completely driven by artificial scarcity - obviously they could easily print any card in unlimited numbers, but they intentionally print some cards in limited quantities that can only be obtained by getting lucky with a random pack. Most buyers don’t even play the card game. I…

This was true over 20 years ago when I was in elementary school - I don’t know anyone who really played the game, most people just collected the cards.

Magic the Gathering was always both though, you collected good/rare cards & played the game with them!

Re: On Labubu and the Hyperreal

#28

Post by Barrin92 »

alephnerd wrote: post #7
maxbond wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could apply this same logic to your comment. "If Labubu discourse makes them happy, who cares? It's their life." We should live and let live but that doesn't preclude discussion.

Sure, but the article is going from discourse into direct moral judgement. If you write an entire blogpost making a moral judgement on personal choices yeah I'd flame you.

>If you write an entire blogpost making a moral judgement on personal choices

as the article correctly points out the Labubu craze is not a personal choice. It's a social, commercial, public, media driven phenomenon. People didn't organically discover this toy, it's part of a very deliberate marketing and attention effort. And as Ian McGilchrist points out, attention is a moral act:

"Attention is a moral act: it creates, brings aspects of things into being, but in doing so makes others recede. What a thing is depends on who is attending to it, and in what way. The fact that a place is special to some because of its great peace and beauty may, by that very fact, make it for another a resource to exploit, in such a way that its peace and beauty are destroyed. Attention has consequences."

What we as a culture promote, celebrate spend focus, time and resources on, and in turn what we sacrifice for that is an important question and worthy of debate. And thinking it isn't, is literally acting like a child being mad that someone took your toy away.

That we now have a whole array of "disney/labubu adults", perpetually stuck in child-like nostalgia, cozy aesthetics, fleeing from the real world and think that's all beyond criticism and that there's no public dimension to what we consume is just immature.

Re: On Labubu and the Hyperreal

#29

Post by buildbot »

alephnerd wrote: post #12
john_strinlai wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

indeed, i always understood a "fad" to mean some short-lived trend. meanwhile, pokemon is probably around the same age as the average HN user.

> probably around the same age as the average HN user. Based on the references and speech patterns I've seen on HN, I think the average HNers is at least a decade older than Pokemon. The first Pokemon videogame only came out in 1996. Y'all are boomers - nothing wrong with that, but HN has become an older monoculture.

I don’t think this is true. HN was well known to CS people in my undergrad and I’m barely a millennial.

Re: On Labubu and the Hyperreal

#30

Post by nippoo »

pokememon wrote: post #22

Trading Card Games (TCG), and generally any item relying on gacha mechanics, are this generation's "scratchers". It's amazing seeing grown adults who would scoff at their peers buying lotto tickets and scratchers enthusiastically burn cash on TCG without the slightest sense of hypocrisy. The secret is "social head canon". "Head canon" is when you fill in the plot holes to make sense of your favorite narratives. "Soci…

Except scratch cards are a guaranteed statistical loss. Trading cards, if you're skilled and know what you're doing, can be a sensible side-income.

It's the difference between poker and roulette...

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