This is the Labubu/Fartcoin economy - the attempt to maintain agency and community within constraints rather than spending energy fighting battles with Sam Altman who says things like“the whole structure of society will be up for debate and reconfiguration” due to AI. There are two core things to understand here"“

Something that troubles me is the idea that maybe everything is becoming financialized because financial markets are the last remaining system capable of aggregating distributed information and enabling coordination at scale.

Labubu and Fartcoin are the economy people can actually participate in. They’re a form of symbolic participation, what happens when ownership is out of reach and when expression replaces accumulation.

Both represent a form of aspirational displacement . This is the idea that when you can't afford a house, you buy mystery boxes that might contain a... See more

When institutional financial advice assumes you have disposable income, long time horizons, and faith in market stability – none of which apply to most young people7 –

Both represent a form of aspirational displacement . This is the idea that when you can't afford a house, you buy mystery boxes that might contain a rare variant and then that’s good enough. It’s a way to perform relationship to consumer culture.

Labubu6 are functionally plush bunnies with plastic people faces and the pointed teeth of a jack-o-lantern. They are sold in blind-box packaging (you don’t choose them, you open a box and receive your fate) by a Chinese company called Pop Mart (There's something strangely poetic about importing economic nihilism from China too. We're buying... See more

Labubu and Fartcoin are the economy people can actually participate in.