The popular Labubu plush toys are no longer allowed at Ísaksskóli, as the principal says the toys had started causing major disruptions and rivalry among the students, reports Vísir.
Labubu plush toys first hit the market in 2015 but gained huge popularity last year when a Korean pop star was seen carrying one on her bag. The Labubu craze then spread widely across Asia, and this year the trend reached the USA and Europe.
Each plush costs around six to seven thousand ISK and comes in a sealed package, so buyers do not know the colour of the toy until after purchase. Some colours are rarer than others, and a few have sold for hundreds of thousands in the resale market. Counterfeit Labubus have also begun to appear.
“All sorts of strange things had started happening. They were beginning to control different situations in the classrooms and causing a lot of trouble. So we decided to request that the plush toys simply be left at home,” says Sigríður Anna Guðjónsdóttir, principal of Ísaksskóli, in an interview with Vísir.
Sigríður says that in her 16 years as principal, she has seen several crazes like the Labubu phenomenon come and go. Many of them share the feature that children feel they need to collect more and more of the item.
“Then the imitations appear, and you’re not good enough if you only have the imitations,” she says.
“Some kids have six plush toys, and they’re all hanging off their school bags — then a hierarchy is created, and children go home crying, asking, ‘Why don’t I have one like that?’”
“That has no place in schools,” says Sigríður.
Ísaksskóli sent an email to parents on Thursday requesting that the plush toys be left at home, and the principal immediately received positive responses from parents.
“One father replied saying he completely agreed, but there’s a toy day tomorrow and he asked if the kids could bring the plushes then. That was no problem,” she says.
Buy subscriptions, t-shirts and more from our shop right here!
