Factually! with Adam Conover - What Labubus Say About Our F-d Up Economy

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

(In addition to your weekly Factually! episode, this week we're bringing you a monologue from Adam. This short, researched monologue originally aired on the Factually! YouTube page, but we are sharing audio versions of these monologues with our podcast audience as well. Please enjoy, and stay tuned for your regularly scheduled episode of Factually!)Our future is also a blind box. Visit USAFacts.org for unbiased, nonpartisan data that unpacks topics that shape American life, and subscribe here https://usafacts.org/signup/?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=Paid&utm_campaign=Adam+Conover&utm_content=AC1 to receive their free weekly newsletter to get the trendlines behind the headlines. Views are my own—not those of USAFactsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. There's a dark presence enveloping society. An ominous creature with gnashing teeth lurking around every corner, a haunting spirit that fills every heart with a desire to buy. Love or hate him? These little demons are everywhere. From Rihanna's purse to the L.A. Ice protests to Karl Marx's grave. Yeah, because nothing says overthrow capitalism like,

purchasing a plastic collectible that'll probably be in a dumpster by next year. But, you know, the people who love these creepy little guys really love them. It's Labubu lunacy. Some Redditors are reporting spending hundreds and even thousands of dollars collecting these furry little freaks. And as Labubu's surge in popularity, people are starting to wonder, Labubo's might be a sign of a weakening economy. I have this theory that Labubu is a recession indicator.

Or Labu is an economic indicator for recession? Now, it might seem kind of silly to suggest that these cute little toys have something to say about the economy. But I think we need to listen to these TikTokers. In fact, I think that the boo-boos are something even bigger than a recession indicator. I think they indicate that something is even more seriously wrong with the American economy on a really deep level. And that's a message that the people who run our country need to start listening to. Now, real quick, if you want to support the channel, head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. for less than 1.14th, the price of a Lubbubu.

You can support all the stories, analysis, and interviews. We bring it here on YouTube and get them all ad-free. And just a reminder, my new stand-up tour, the big divorce energy tour, is on the road now. My therapist says she likes the name. Crowds are still undecided. On October 5th, I'm doing a big show at the Lodge Room in Los Angeles. On November 15th, I'll be at the Bell House in Brooklyn

for the New York Comedy Festival. And I'm also headed to Brea, California, Tacoma, Washington, Spokane, Washington, Des Moines, Atlanta, Philly, Washington. DC and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had to Adamconover.net for all those tickets and tour dates. And now, let's talk Labubu. Before I explain the dark secret that Labubu's reveal that's lurking at the core of our economy, here's a quick refresher. Lububu's were invented by Kasing Lung and are sold by the Chinese company Pop Mart.

These cute little freaks have brought in about half a billion dollars this year alone. And one reason they're making so much cash is because of the way that they're sold. in blind boxes and artificially small batches. When you buy-bye a Labu-boo, you don't know which one you're going to leget-get-get until you open up the La-Box box. This is belabored. Let's move on. And you have to buy them now because supply is limited and you don't know when more will drop,

which is drum roll please gambling, which as we have discussed before on this channel is something that Americans are kind of obsessed with right now. Now that says a lot about our economy all by itself. And you know, the rush to get exactly the luboo you want is actually intensified when you get to secondary markets which are full of fakes called lafoufus. So no wonder people freak out when they finally score a real one. These things are so popular.

They even had to pull them off of the shelves in physical stores in the UK because customers were getting into fistfights. They're getting boo-boos for booboos. There is so much money in these things. People are even laburgling them. Okay, I swear, that's the last wordplay in the video. unless I think of another one I like later. But look, when I look at these little guys and the frenzy around them,

the first question that comes to mind is, why? I mean, why are people doing this? What demonic spell has the Labuobu cast? Why are Americans gambling their hard-earned cash on these little plastic toys? Well, when you look at what people who actually buy Labibu's are saying about them, it turns out that they might not be doing it because, you know, it's all fun in games. A lot of people are buying these things because they actually feel

totally fucking hopeless about their real lives. One Luboo lover admitted to buying boo-boos instead of getting their car repaired because they were depressed AF and another justified their Lubu-Boo spending by saying with the state of the world we should be able to buy as many Labu-Bibu babies as we want.

In other words, we might be going Labu-Crazy because we're all fucking depressed. After decades of inflation, wage stagnation, and supply chain shortages, money doesn't feel real to a lot of Americans anymore. So what's the point in saving it?

Social scientists call this collective financial dissociation the lipstick effect. It's the idea that when people start to lose faith in the economy, when they can't afford a house or even a nice bag, they start splurging on smaller purchases, like makeup or haunted dolls. The term arose after 9-11, another time of national turmoil,

when Este Lauder noticed an 11% increase in lipstick sales. And once economists started looking back in history, they saw more and more examples of this. During economic downturns in the 90s, when other industries were in a tailspin, jobs and cosmetic fields actually increased. And we could even see this effect during the Great Depression

when makeup sales also increased 25%. So now let's apply that same logic to Lububu's. Lubu's are a status-enhancing purchase, makes you look cool to your friends at a relatively affordable price point. If you can't afford a nice house or nice new furniture to impress your social circle, well, you can at least afford a $30 buck Labibu to hang off. You're not a bag. Now look, it's really easy to make fun of this, right?

When so many people are admitting to spending perhaps unwise amounts of money on their liboo boo-boo obsessions, it's easy to judge and to say, hey, these people are just too stupid to understand that they're making frivolous purchases. That's their own fault. but that's a really condescending way to look at other people. You know, a few years ago, I read Matthew Desmond's incredible book evicted

about what life is like under the grinding poverty that many Americans live in. In one passage, a woman who has almost no financial resources, she is almost completely broke, she's housing insecure, she's unable to get a job

because there's no work available in her area. She splurges almost an entire month's worth of food stamps on a lobster dinner for her wedding anniversary. Now, you might accuse her of being careless with money and say, that's why she's in this mess to begin with. But no, according to her, she knows exactly what she's doing and it makes sense in her position because her poverty is so extreme

that she knows saving money isn't going to change the circumstances of her life. If she puts that money in the bank, she'll be behind on rent and unable to earn a decent living whether or not she has those extra few pennies. So why not spend a little bit of money, money to make her one life on earth a little bit more pleasant. Now, even though I get this psychologically, once I understand the position that she's in, this is an unbelievably pessimistic view to have about one's own life and prospects, right? Even though it makes sense psychologically

when your economic situation is that bad. And, you know, what the Lubu-Boo craze seems to indicate is that that is how bad things are getting for a lot of Americans. They might not be buying lobster on food stamps, but they're buying shit that makes them feel good because they do not expect to be able to buy a house. They do not expect to be able to retire. They do not expect to be able to take a vacation and saving 30 or 70 or 100 bucks isn't going to change that. So why not say fuck it and feel good right now? In other words, Labibos are worse than a recession indicator. They are a nihilism indicator. They are an indicator that Americans have fundamentally lost their faith in our economy.

You know, a little while back, the Vogue writer, Amy Francombe noticed this trend in a piece that she called America's economic nihilism. She suggests that as things like housing and health care have gotten more out of reach,

quote, money is no longer about building wealth, it's about feeling better. One woman is quoted in the article saying, I used to be more mindful of saving, but last year I was applying for hundreds of jobs and getting ghosted,

living back at home, watching everything get more expensive, and at a certain point, you just want to feel good in your day. Now I don't save as much, but I'd rather spend a bit to feel like myself again. So all of this is evidence that Americans are starting to feel

more and more hopeless about the economy that we live in. And that is something that the people who run our economy need to be paying a lot more attention to. So let's talk about the concept of a recession. See, one of the weird things about recessions is that you actually can't tell whether or not one has happened

until you're already pretty deep into it. According to USA Facts, there's actually only one official way to call a recession. A committee called the National Bureau of Economic Research announces that we are in a recession once there is a significant decline across a number of economic measures

for more than a few months. USA Facts, by the way, is our data partner for this video, and if you want your economic questions about America answered with real facts straight from objective sources, you should check them out at USAFacts.org. They're really helpful in our research process, and I know they're going to love them as well.

So since the NBER hasn't called a recession yet, we can't really say that we're in one. And that's made a lot of people at the top of the old American wealth pyramid really confident. Hell, even our president doesn't see a problem with the economy. Some people on Wall Street say that we're going to have the greatest economy in history. And yeah, if you're a real estate billionaire, you work on Wall Street, you probably do think that. The stock market has continued to do great with the S&P 500 hitting record high. But all that cash for the wealthy is covering up some real problems. In July, more than half of industries showed job cuts.

And we've had bad jobs report after bad jobs report. Trump's tariffs are starting to raise prices on average Americans. And producers are reporting the largest inflation jump in more than three years, which is about to get passed on to us, the consumers. Now, the biggest recession indicator would be if employment fell for more than a month consecutively. And while the data doesn't reflect that yet, payroll employment has barely increased all summer, and after those numbers are revised, it's likely they will even show a decrease.

But then, most importantly, there's the Lubbubu index, because the thing is, the economy isn't all numbers. The economy is also how we, the people, feel about those numbers. If people feel bad about the economy, they don't spend money, and then the economy slows even more. The economy is kind of like Tinkerbell, or like a Lubu, if it had Tinkerbell. bell wings. If we don't believe in it, it fucking crashes to Earth. Maybe you do a little flying Labubu there and it's like, wee, we can do that maybe.

You could even include me describing that and then we can put that in the video. Wouldn't that be fun? It makes the, if we don't believe in the economy, it crashes. And right now, more than three quarters of Americans fear an economic recession. In fact, I think the real reason people on TikTok are asking if Labubu is a recession indicator is that recession and depression are the only words we really have for shi-fucking sucks for me right now. So if you're a Wall Street tycoon or God forbid the president of a country, you need to pay attention to that. You need to pay attention to the fact that people are starting to lose faith in the economy itself rather than just the number

in the stock market. Because let's talk about what average Americans are facing right now. More than half of Americans no longer meet the minimal quality of life index. Medical premiums rose 301% from 2001 to 2023. Travel expenses rose 170%. Rent grew 131%. The cost of raising kids and saving for college searched 107%. And you cannot hand-wave that away by saying that we're not technically in a recession or the stock market is doing great or we're going to have the greatest economy in the history of the country. People are suffering to such a degree that they have begun to lose faith in the very economic structure of this country. And when that happens, bad shit happens in a country. That's what caused the French Revolution, motherfuckers. So if God help you, you're one of the people

who is running the economy of this country. I think you need to look these guys in their beady little eyes and listen to what they are telling you. Our economic system is broken for the majority of Americans. And if it is not fixed, there will come a day that we are not content to tear each other apart for la boo-boos. Instead, we are going to be coming for la you-you. Found another pun. How about that?

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