Labubu fell 98% from its peak. That is what a fad looks like.
The doll was the biggest toy story of 2025. Public interest is now a rounding error, and Pop Mart's revenue confirms it. The lesson is not that toys are fickle — it is how fast the curve moves.
Published 2026-10-30
Labubu was everywhere: the bag charm, the blind box, the resale markup, the copycats. In July 2025 the English Wikipedia article about the character was read 1,412,695 times in one month. In September 2026 it was read 24,426 times. That is a 98% decline, and it is not an artefact of the data: Pop Mart, the company behind the character, reported a 45–50% year-over-year revenue decline for the third quarter of 2026, with the Americas down 70–75%.
Two independent measurements agreeing is the whole point of the Fad Index. Interest data alone can be misleading; revenue alone arrives a quarter late. Together they describe a curve that peaked, rolled over, and is now settling into whatever remains.
What actually happened
The mechanism is familiar from every toy craze since Beanie Babies:
- A scarcity story. Blind boxes, short runs and resale premiums create a reason to buy now.
- A social proof loop. The product is visible on bags, desks and feeds, which produces more demand than the supply story can meet.
- A resale market. Once the secondary market clears above retail, buyers start treating the object as an asset.
- A supply response. The maker increases production and licenses the look. The scarcity story dies first, then the resale premium, then the casual buyer.
- A long tail. The core audience stays. Everyone else moves to the next thing.
None of that is a moral failure by the maker or the buyer. It is the shape of a hit-driven category.
What the curve does not tell you
Pageviews measure curiosity, not units sold. A fad can be enormous offline and quiet online, and a niche property can generate disproportionate search interest without moving much product. The index is a timing tool, not a revenue forecast.
It also does not tell you what to buy. If anything, the useful signal is the opposite: by the time a toy is a mainstream news story, the easy money in resale is already gone, and the shops holding inventory are the ones exposed.
The practical read for a shopper
- Peak is when a product is hardest to find and most likely to be overpriced.
- Cooling is when shelves refill and discounts start.
- Faded is when the second-hand market is full of people who bought at the top.
For a shop, the same curve is an inventory rule: the risk is not missing the trend, it is being the last one holding it.
Why we publish this
Most “hot toy” coverage is a list of things to buy. A measured index lets you see the shape of the wave instead of the spray. We will keep publishing the series weekly, with the same caveats, whether the number is going up or down.