The Truth About Consumption: Who is Paying for Moutai, BAYC, and Labubu?

Author: Manman

Contemporary consumption is departing from its original logic.

From the Maotai on the state banquet table to the monkey avatars on the Ether chain (BAYC Bored Apes), and then to the trendy Labubu toys on young people's desks, these seemingly unrelated products are telling the same story in their own ways: we are no longer paying for "functionality," but rather for some visible desire.

In this consumption structure, the use value of goods is phased out, while emotions, identity, recognition, and speculation take the stage, forming a new era map of "consumption as symbolism."

01 Micro: Consumption constructs the "persona", not just satisfying needs.

Labubu's popularity is less about successful design and more about precisely hitting the self-label of urban youth as "cute with a hint of rebellion." It is not a toy, but a "projection tool" for self-presentation.

BAYC (Bored Ape Yacht Club) is more straightforward - what users buy is not just an image, but a public declaration of "I belong to Web3," a ticket to enter a specific circle, and a launch key for a virtual identity.

As for Moutai, its social role has long transcended that of an alcoholic beverage. You don't have to drink it, yet it can "speak" for you at a dinner table: a familiar language of the system, a symbol of identity that requires no further words.

At this level, consumption no longer addresses the "needs" of the physical layer, but serves emotional recognition, social intentions, and psychological belonging.

"Smash it for me" via Crazy Racing

02 Middle View: Consumption habits are structural responses induced by "mechanisms".

Why can these products maintain their popularity? What they rely on is not the naturally occurring "market preference," but a highly structured "induction mechanism:"

Artificial Scarcity: Labubu relies on hidden funds, BAYC relies on a fixed quantity, and Moutai relies on a quota system. Supply is precisely controlled, and scarcity is programmatically created.

Symbol encapsulation: All three possess strong attributes of layered language; they are all carriers of cultural transmission.

Community Amplification: Product preferences are building a business card for social personas, whether it's "Show-off Box," "Show-off Monkey," or "Gift Maotai," all are expanding exponentially with users as the unit of dissemination.

Labubu stimulates the desire to collect, BAYC creates dreams of wealth, Moutai maintains personal debts.

They all point to one fact: consumer behavior is actually a collective response programmed by "mechanism + emotion + culture."

03 Macroeconomics: The Assetization of Consumer Goods and Behavioral Finance Logic

The most popular consumer goods at present often possess four attributes: price speculation, symbolic scarcity, closed circles, and emotional resonance. This means that they are not just commodities, but also "quasi-financial assets."

After these characteristics are superimposed, they are no longer simply consumer goods, but rather "capital structures." Behavioral finance has a mature explanation for this:

Anchoring Bias: Early hype sets a high price anchor, making it reasonable for subsequent consumers to accept a premium.

Herd mentality: When those around are rushing to buy and showcase, individuals tend to abandon independent judgment, and following such behavior becomes the norm.

Confirmation bias: once people buy in, they tend to collect signals that support the legitimacy of their decision while suppressing opposing information.

Sunk cost effect: the more you invest, the harder it is to withdraw, leading to continued betting to avoid the psychological pain of "being wrong."

Speculation, identity recognition, and emotional satisfaction are interrelated and causative in this type of consumption behavior, forming a self-reinforcing cycle and a symbolic speculative market where prices are easily inflated.

The price surge of BAYC is a collusion ritual among speculators, holders, and KOLs; the value inflation of Labubu cannot be separated from the collusion of blind box scalpers and platform strategies; the "valuation stability" of Moutai resembles a large social credit system operating in tacit agreement.

What the three reveal is not only the "upgrade of consumption" but also the "downward shift of finance": the logic of capital is beginning to permeate the emotions and decisions of our daily lives.

04 Monetary easing and the structural collusion of "quasi-consumer assets" expansion

Looking at it from a more macro perspective, there is an undeniable institutional impetus behind this round of consumer financialization - the global monetary overissuance.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, central banks in various countries have been continuously implementing quantitative easing, leading to excessive liquidity and severe bubbles in traditional assets. Capital has begun to seek "structural premium exports." These "symbolic consumer goods," which possess storytelling and emotional anchoring capabilities, perfectly serve as ideal containers for absorbing the bubbles.

Labubu is treated as a speculative blind box, BAYC once surged in the NFT market, while Moutai has long held a top position as a "hard currency." They are all accomplishing a task: converting the loose monetary environment into a reservoir of "emotional assets."

Therefore, today's consumption bubble is not a single point explosion, but a "top-down" structural collusion. It is not just a market phenomenon, but also the capitalization mobilization of financial mechanisms on cultural carriers.

The less something resembles a commodity, the more expensive it is.

As beings of animal nature, the only main task of humans coming to Earth is to obtain 2000 calories of food every day.

"m's, Wild Life" via Xiaohongshu

After the Industrial Revolution, social productivity underwent a qualitative leap, and basic survival needs were no longer the "main quest" but became taken for granted.

In today's development of productivity, what we consume may not just be products, but rather the result of self-projection and emotional attachment.

Labubu is a cute response to loneliness, BAYC is a self-index of futurism, and Moutai is a tacit echo of the language of power. They each stand in different corners of the consumer pyramid, yet they all reveal a trend to us: consumer behavior is becoming or has already become a pet cultivated by capital.

No matter how the products change their forms, the one who ultimately pays the bill is always that "persona" inside us that longs to be understood, recognized, and distinguished.

Therefore, the things that look less like commodities are more expensive.

Because they carry too many of our expectations about "who I am," and expectations are the anchor of the current consumer society.

When the bulk reaches a rising bottleneck period, the pseudo-concept of "middle class" may be the purchasers of these new "consumer goods."