Just as Maggie thought that young people were lost and had completely abandoned interacting with one another, the collectible toy Pop Mart appeared. And if you haven’t yet heard of the Chinese brand that sells figurines in mystery boxes, it’s about time you did. What started in Beijing in 2012 is now spreading across the world. Pop Mart has achieved cult status on TikTok and makes young people connect with each other on the street.
My Chinese friend Maggie, 38, has taken me to a huge shopping mall filled with plastic toys and teddy bears in both oversized and undersized forms. We walk among crowds of young people wearing thick layers of makeup, wigs, and outfits that look like they’ve come straight out of an animated film.
“Why are they dressed like that?” I ask Maggie.
“It’s pop culture,” she replies, continuing: “You dress up as the icon or anime character you like. That way you show other fans who you identify with, and if you meet someone on the street wearing the same costume or the same Pop Mart charm on their bag, you know you’re connected.”
Two Young Men Kissing
Maggie squeals and exclaims, “So cuuute!” when she sees a shop window displaying her favorite Pop Mart figures kissing.
It’s two young men, meant to represent members of her favorite K-pop group. I ask if they’re gay in real life.
She doesn’t know. Most likely they aren’t. But that uncertainty is actually the whole point of this intense icon worship.
Young people like to imagine the love between two people of the same sex.
“If two men love each other, then you know it’s real love,” Maggie tells me, reaching for a picture of the two boys that she plans to buy and place on her bedside table.
I don’t really understand the hype. But from the perspective of a young Chinese person, it makes more sense.
After more than a month here in China, I haven’t yet met a single young woman who believes in love. No one wants to get married, no one wants children. Why? Because they don’t believe they can have a happy life with a man. They’ve seen how their father is drunk every day, cheats on their mother, and steals her money. As a result, true love between a man and a woman is hard for many young women to imagine.
But if two men fall in love, then it must be real.
After all, I’m in a conservative country, and falling for someone of the same sex does not make life easier. If two men choose to step outside the stereotypical idea of love, it must mean they truly mean it.
That idea allows young women to dream. And the two lovers are just one of many stories women escape into through the endless Pop Mart universes.
Pop Mart is Like Football Fans
Pop Mart is far more than just plastic. People often say that youth communities are hanging by a thread when it comes to solidarity and belonging, and that social media is pulling those threads apart.
Maggie believed that for a long time as well—until she saw how young people interact through their shared love of pop culture.
“My neighbor was moving and didn’t have space to take her life-size cardboard cutout of a pop icon with her,” Maggie explains. “She posted in a fan group that someone could come and get it for free. Shortly after, a stranger showed up to pick it up.”
The culture is generous and warm-hearted. People share and trade their little collectibles across communities, no matter who you are or where you come from. If you have two of the same figurine, you give one away to a fellow fan.
The same thing happens on the street, Maggie says. Many young people buy handbags with a transparent pocket on the outside where they can display their various Pop Mart figures.
To me, it’s a bit like wearing an FC Copenhagen or AGF football jersey: you show the world who you support and what you like. If you see someone on the street with the same figurine in their plastic pocket—or the same football jersey—you might exchange a knowing nod or stop to talk.
After we’ve wandered in and out of one fan club shop after another, and Maggie has practically spent herself poor on pink teddy bears with eyes that fill their entire faces, we step back out into the fresh air.
I turn around and look up at the large Stitch figure above the entrance to MINISO LAND (a brand with pretty much the same concept as Pop Mart). It makes you want to climb up and give him a big hug. And that very urge to embrace him, I think, illustrates quite precisely the need that this kind of commercial plastic toy fulfills among Chinese youth.”
