The Labubu Economy
Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing
The Motley Fool
4.3 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Today on Motley Fool Money, we're breaking down the collectibles economy and how businesses |
| 0:09.3 | turn plastic into profit. |
| 0:19.9 | I'm Emily Flippen, and today I'm joined by analysts Sanmideo and Asset Sharma to discuss the latest craze in the industry of collectibles. |
| 0:27.8 | The boo-boos. |
| 0:29.0 | Along the way, we'll dig into how the hype cycle has helped perpetuate these fats and explore the successes and failures of previous collectible manias to help evaluate how investors should |
| 0:38.4 | best play it. But to start, let's clarify the anatomy of what a craze is. Sadmeet, you've lived |
| 0:44.4 | through more than one craze. And regardless of what industry it is, you said there's always some |
| 0:48.8 | similarities. Now, before we get into exactly what a Luboo is, because I'm still not sure I know, |
| 0:54.6 | what actually is a craze? And how is that different than just like a sustainable trend? |
| 0:58.9 | So, craze is really an intense collective impulse that burns incredibly bright, often for |
| 1:03.5 | a very short time. Think of it like a flashfire in consumer marketplace spreading virally |
| 1:08.2 | before quickly burning itself out. You know, we've seen it time and time again with Beanie Babies in the 90s, fidget spinners a few years ago. |
| 1:14.9 | And the driving force of this is really a powerful cocktail of human psychology. |
| 1:18.4 | You have FOMO, our desire for novelty, and the simple need to feel like part of the group. |
| 1:23.6 | You know, today's crazy to become more sophisticated as companies pull on specific levers to build the hype, such as gamification of buying, |
| 1:30.7 | engineers scarcity, and exclusivity, community, and character and aesthetic design. |
| 1:36.0 | I think about what defines a craze personally versus something that may be more sustainable. |
| 1:40.9 | It's like that desire that you just mentioned, that almost capitalizes on our human nature to not want to miss out on things, right? There's always these little, |
| 1:48.9 | I don't know if to call it gamifications, but elements that are almost taking advantage of human |
| 1:53.3 | psychology, where if you feel like you're not participating, you are actively falling behind. |
| 1:57.7 | Absolutely. You know, they're not just a transaction anymore. It's like you said said, it's a game. It's, it's, um, they're creating a dopamine hit from like a reveal like you would in a blind box where you're like, what am I going to get? And you open it up. You're like, wow, this is what I wanted or wow, this isn't what I wanted. You know, the companies release limited editions and collaborations, creating like a sense |
| 2:18.5 | of urgency to buy. And then you have social media, which is like rocket fuel, which causes |
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