When Cute Turns Cursed: The Dark Legend Growing Behind Labubu Dolls
It started with a grin.
Not the warm, innocent kind you’d expect from a toy, but something sharper—almost mocking. The kind of smile that stares a little too long from the corner of your shelf. The kind you notice still lingering in the dark, even after you’ve turned away.
Meet Labubu, once the darling of designer toy collectors. Now? The internet’s latest urban legend in the making.
Originally born from the pages of The Monsters, a whimsical book series by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung, Labubu was imagined as a cheeky, elfin trickster—mischievous but endearing. When POP MART partnered with Lung in 2019 to bring her to life as a collectible, the world fell head over heels. Blind box fanatics scrambled to unbox her latest outfit. Stores sold out. Resellers thrived. She was weird. She was whimsical. She was everywhere.
And then… something changed.
What began as playful fandom twisted into a digital wildfire of superstition, sparked by one unsettling idea:
What if Labubu isn’t just a toy? What if she’s something else entirely—something ancient?
Whispers turned into videos. TikToks. Posts. Panicked uploads showing Labubu dolls burning in backyard pits, their once-adorable faces melting under flames. The captions? Even more alarming.
“DO NOT bring Labubu into your home.”
“She ruined everything the moment I brought her in.”
“Mine moved. I swear I heard it whisper.”
The theory? That Labubu is possessed—specifically by Pazuzu, the wind demon from Mesopotamian lore. The same malevolent entity that famously terrorized audiences in The Exorcist. Believers point to Labubu’s signature grin, razor-like teeth, and hollow stare. Coincidence? Or an echo of something far older?
It doesn’t help that Pazuzu, in mythology, is a dual figure—protector of some, destroyer of others. Just like Labubu: cute to some, chilling to others.
One viral video from @jessicavibezx shows her torching her collection and declaring:
“This isn’t a toy. This is a warning.”
In a follow-up post, she adds cryptically,
“What came out of the packaging wasn’t plastic. It was hunger.”
Skeptics, of course, have dismissed it all as classic internet hysteria. A digital-age tulpa born from groupthink and spooky lighting. One collector on Reddit argued,
“It’s mass pareidolia. People are just projecting fears onto a weird-looking toy.”
Others, however, have quietly removed theirs—just in case.
And still, sales haven’t dropped. In fact, demand has spiked. Some even speculate the fear is part of the allure now. Labubu isn’t just collectible—she’s cursed. And that, in the twisted logic of the internet, makes her even more desirable.
Conclusion:
Labubu dolls were once just charming pieces of vinyl art—quirky, creative, and undeniably unique. But as myth bleeds into marketing, and fear becomes part of the folklore, they’ve evolved into something else entirely: cultural curios caught at the crossroads of consumerism and superstition.
Is Labubu truly haunted? Or are we simply projecting our anxieties onto plastic smiles and painted eyes? In a world where stories spread faster than truth, sometimes it’s not the toy itself that’s dangerous—but the collective belief that gives it life.
One thing is clear: the Labubu legend is still growing. And whether you see a cute collector’s item or a harbinger of misfortune… you’ll never look at those teeth the same way again.