Why We Lose Our Minds Over Simple Things? 

Imagine walking into a store and seeing a doll that looks a little bit like a monster. It has a creepy grin, jagged teeth, and it is definitely not what you would call cute in the traditional sense. This is Labubu. It retails for about thirty dollars, which seems reasonable for a toy, but if you tried to buy one right now, you would likely find empty shelves. If you turned to the black market or online auction sites, you would see people paying hundreds of dollars for that same doll. In one extreme case, a massive life-sized version sold for an eye-watering sum that could buy a nice house.

It sounds absolutely insane because it is. We are looking at a plastic toy causing stampedes in malls and midnight queues, yet this madness is not an accident.

It is a carefully engineered psychological game that brands are playing with your brain, and Labubu is just the latest player in a game we have seen many times before. 

You have likely seen this exact script play out with other products that suddenly took over the world. Remember the chaos over Prime energy drinks? Or the sudden obsession with carrying around a giant, heavy Stanley Cup everywhere you went? Even canned water called Liquid Death became a billion-dollar company. When you strip away the noise, you realize that none of these products are revolutionary inventions. One is just a cup, another is sugar water, and Labubu is just a piece of plastic. The product itself does not matter nearly as much as the story wrapped around it. These companies are not printing money because they invented something new.

They are making billions because they mastered a specific cycle of hype that turns normal people into obsessive collectors. 

It all starts with a spark, and the funny thing is that this spark almost never comes from a boring corporate advertisement. Think about how Labubu blew up. It was not a billboard; it was a simple photo of a K-pop star named Lisa hugging the doll. That was it. Suddenly, millions of fans saw it and decided they needed it too. It was the same with the Stanley Cup. A woman posted a video of her car that had unfortunately caught fire, and the only thing that survived the flames was her Stanley mug with the ice still frozen inside. That genuine, unscripted moment told a better story than any marketing team ever could.

We trust real people more than we trust companies, so when we see a celebrity or a regular person holding something, our brains instantly assign it value. 

But a spark creates a fire only if people keep feeding it, and that is where the genius of social sharing comes in. These brands design their products to be shown off. Labubu is sold in what are called blind boxes, meaning you buy a box without knowing which specific character is inside. It is a mystery. This turns the act of opening the package into a thrilling event. People film themselves opening the boxes, hoping to get the rare one, and then they post those videos on social media. It is addictive content. The same logic applied to Stanley Cups. They were so big and colorful that they became a fashion accessory for videos. When a product makes the customer look cool or interesting online, the customer becomes the marketing department.

We do the work for them, spreading the virus of hype to our friends and followers without getting paid a dime. 

The brands then pour gasoline on this fire by pretending they are running out of stock. This is the oldest trick in the book called scarcity. If you could walk into a store and buy a Labubu doll anytime you wanted, you probably would not care about it. But when you know there are only a limited number available and that a line is forming around the block, a primal fear kicks in. It is the fear of missing out. You start thinking that you need this thing not because you like it, but because everyone else is fighting for it. This panic drives the price up on the secondary market. When news outlets start reporting that a twenty-dollar water bottle is selling for hundreds on eBay, it just makes the product seem even more legendary. It creates a feedback loop where high prices create more hype, which creates even higher prices. 

However, there is a dangerous trap hidden in this strategy. Hype creates a massive explosion of sales, but explosions eventually burn out. Look at what happened to Prime energy drinks or fidget spinners. They were everywhere for a year, and then they vanished into bargain bins. The sales crashed because once the excitement faded, people realized they did not actually need the product. It was just a trend, like a sugar rush that leaves you crashing afterwards.

Hype can build a business fast, but it cannot keep it alive. For a brand to last decades instead of months, it needs to do something much harder than generating excitement. It needs to become a part of who you are. 

This is the secret weapon used by brands like Nike with their Air Jordan sneakers. They did not just sell a shoe; they used a concept called Social Identity Theory. This is a fancy way of saying that humans are pack animals who want to belong to a tribe. When Michael Jordan launched his shoes, wearing them meant you were part of a specific culture. You were signalling to the world that you loved basketball, hip-hop, and a certain kind of rebellious excellence. Wearing the shoes made you feel like you were part of a cool, exclusive group. Unlike a fidget spinner, which was just a toy to keep your hands busy, Jordans became a badge of identity. 

So, while we watch people lose their minds over an ugly doll today, we can be sure of one thing. The Labubu craze will likely fade away just like the fidget spinner did, leaving behind a lot of plastic and regret. But the lesson for anyone is clear.

It is easy to grab attention for a moment by making people afraid they will miss out. It is much harder, and much more valuable, to build something that gives people a sense of belonging.

The brands that win in the long run are not the ones that sell us stuff we want to show off for a week. They are the ones that sell us a story we want to be a part of for a lifetime.