popculture

Labubu and Moo Deng do not obviously belong together, but they end up in the same place: keeping people watching. One is a sharp‑toothed designer toy from Pop Mart’s blind box machines, the other is a baby pygmy hippo at a Thai zoo whose bath videos travel across feeds in minutes. They sit in different corners of the world—Chinese collectibles and a local animal attraction—but live in the same part of the internet, where niche interests become global habits very quickly. Mascots used to stay on