The Aegyo of the NBA
When Houston Rockets forward Dillon Brooks stepped into the arena ahead of the team’s first-round series game against the Golden State Warriors dressed in a pair of tapered pinstripe pants and a navy jacket, NBA mainstays and commentators Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal burst out laughing. They’d honed in on the accessory swinging from Brooks’ belt loop: a fuzzy, peach lop-eared monster known as Labubu.
“That’s how you come to work, with a damn bunny on your hip,” Barkley howled.
Labubu is the latest in a lineage of soft, coquettish, rabidly sought-after collectible trinkets in the vein of Sanrio and Sonny Angels. Designed by a Hong Kong-based artist in 2015, the creatures’ likeness was purchased by global collectables brand Pop Mart in 2019. Four years later, Pop Mart put out the first wave of Labubu keychains and converted legions of 20-somethings into superfans, including celebrities such as Rihanna, Blackpink’s Lisa, and men’s streetwear icons like Central Cee.
With their close-set cartoon eyes and furrowed brows, the always-sold-out toys have become status symbols of delicate girlhood, dangling from purses, backpacks, and keychains. Fueled in part by the success of Labubu, Pop Mart was recently valued at $1.6 billion.
Observers were quick to point out that Barkley and O’Neal might be laughing, but in fact they were out of their depth. “Everyone is looking that guy up,” 27-year-old Labubu fan Nadeen Ezzeddine said on TikTok, referring to Brooks. “We love him now. You guys can laugh all you want; you’re not in the club. Get with it. Your age is showing.”
Adrianna L., 30, who captioned a recent TikTok post “wearing my Labubu but in a Dillon Brooks kind of way,” agreed.
“I had no context of who this was,” she said. “I went from knowing nothing about him to rooting for him when I see the Rockets play.”
Separate from his Labubu fandom, Brooks is one of the most controversial figures in the wider theater of the NBA. Dillon the villain, as he’s been nicknamed, has been accused of being the “dirtiest player in the NBA,” having received a one-game suspension after 16 technical fouls this season. The Canadian-born player has made a name for himself as cocky, aggressive, and quick to disparage, sometimes letting his mouth run ahead of his game. He’s trash-talked everyone from LeBron James to Draymond Green and shoved a camera operator during a ball scuffle.
Ezzeddine doesn’t know or care about any of that, though. She first encountered Brooks because of his Labubu, on her TikTok For You Page. “I don’t really watch sports, and there was some heated debate about him in the comments saying he was a ‘dirty player,’” she said. “And I was like, I’m sorry, I don’t care that much. My mans is wearing a Labubu, and that’s a hard yes from me.”
For her, the co-sign from an athlete in a historically hypermasculine sport is part of the charm of the moment. “I thought it was cute,” Ezzeddine said. “Someone more mainstream — especially an athlete who’s seen as this tough, polar-opposite person — showing one off is hilarious.”
“Dillon Brooks wearing a Labubu is so girlypop,” said Amy, another Labubu fan who’s been following the NBA for the past two years
A representative for Pop Mart told Highsnobiety that Brooks’ pre-game look gave Labubu a fresh entry point into the sports world: “Labubu’s attitude and just the right amount of mischief were a perfect match for Brooks, and moments like these show how our characters are connecting beyond traditional collectors and reaching new fans in unexpected places.”
For Labubu fans, the commentators’ confusion is part of the joke — the bat signal of a girlypop calling out to other girlypops, flying under the radar of men who just don’t get the whimsy of Labubu (who, it should be noted, is a monster, not a bunny). “I lowkey hope he keeps wearing Labubu,” Adrianna said. “I thought it was hysterical that every commentator was confused.”
In fact, Brooks’ choice of accessory speaks to a larger wormhole opening between two corners of the internet: the whimsical, blush-colored world of Labubu and Sonny Angels, and the basketball fandom and its idolization of macho, savage prowess. After Le Sserafim’s American member Yunjin named LeBron James as her favorite Lakers player, the basketball legend embraced the K-pop fandom, posting on Instagram that Le Sserafim’s song “Crazy” “goes crazy.” One fancam edit linking the two tracked 1.6 million views, while others superimposed Hello Kitty ears onto James, or compiled clips of him dancing whimsically.
The fancam genre is a popular one. TikTok editor @orangecactus556 has carved out a niche posting supercuts of NBA players set to various K-pop songs — high-energy compilations of Kyrie Iriving and Anthony Edwards set against the saccharine soprano of Twice and Red Velvet — with some of their videos racking up millions of views.
First introduced to K-pop by some of their own basketball teammates, they told Highsnobiety that part of the fun in their content is its unexpected nature. “K-pop and the NBA are pretty common interests, but I feel like most people wouldn’t think to pair them,” they said. “I think the fact that there’s actually a pretty big overlap between the fans is cool and fun.”
@orangecactus556 noted that there are similarities between the two fan cultures. “Sports fans are pretty crazy about their favorite players and teams, and from what I’ve seen, K-pop fans can be crazy about their favorite groups, too. I think some of the nomenclature shares similarities — for example, rookie and maknae,” or youngest member of a group, “are kind of equivalent.”
Part of the synergy is the fact that, in both cases, it’s all theater. The fun of Labubu is the lengths fans go to to get ahold of them, the feeling of belonging to a culture that only they understand, and the thrill of recognizing a fellow traveler in the wild. The same has always been true for sports stans.
It’s not always that serious, though; the joke is part of the fun. Ezzeddine doesn’t think she’s going to become an avid Brooks fan anytime soon.
“Tell him to wear Skull Panda next,” she joked, “and then we’ll see.”
