What’s often overlooked in the Labubu craze is that acquiring one directly from the source is, in a word, exasperating. Naturally, there are numerous counterfeit alternatives (“Lafufus”) that some collectors have come to accept. However, if you’re seeking an authentic Labubu, you must turn to the source. Pop Mart, the Chinese company that offers Labubu items, has created a series of daunting challenges, putting buyers through a kind of trial, with the opportunity to obtain a tiny figurine at the end. Unlike many other rare, trendy, or collectible goods, the hurdle for getting a Labubu isn’t the item’s price ($27.99) — it’s all the things you must figure out before making your purchase.

I devoted about a day to investigating how to properly buy an authentic Labubu from Pop Mart. The shopping experience isn’t simply one of clicking “check out” faster than others. Pop Mart has whipped up a digital chaos somewhat reminiscent of Black Friday in-store shopping: interactive displays show cases containing up to six Labubu boxes. Moments after they’re listed, the boxes become grayed out, signaling that someone has, at least temporarily, claimed them. If a Labubu hasn’t been secured yet, you must scroll through a seemingly unending array of display cases, hunting for the elusive box available for purchase; more commonly, you have to tap relentlessly, searching for a gray box with an expiring timer, at which point it will become available again. You’re essentially playing a mobile game for the chance to buy a Labubu.

The complexity and finickiness of the Pop Mart app mean that there is no shortage of content with tips, hints, and hacks for securing a Labubu. Some influencers have racked up millions of views almost exclusively making videos about how to score popular Pop Mart products. Some of the tips I studied ended up helping me: when I tapped too many times and was blocked by the app, turning Wi-Fi on and off did indeed fix the problem. But other suggestions from collectors were impossible to follow. Some fans swear by camping out on Pop Mart’s hourslong TikTok live streams, waiting for the host to randomly list Labubus for sale on the platform’s shopping page; the auctioneer-style monologues were simply too much for me to listen to.

After about 30 minutes of uninterrupted two-handed tapping, close encounters, and error messages, I finally spammed a gray box right at the moment it was released. The mystery Labubu was mine. I “shook” the virtual box, which gave me a hint as to what color character was inside: it was not orange or green (I didn’t have a color preference, but other shoppers might at this point abandon a box that Pop Mart says does not contain their color of choice). After checkout, I opted to reveal which Labubu I had purchased — it was the blue one, named “Hope.”

It’s not entirely surprising that Labubus have taken off like this: the more you are forced to look at them, the cuter they become (maybe). They’re not the first so-called blind box toy to gain a cult following, and there’s a somewhat dark comparison to be made between Labubus and gambling — for serious collectors, the thrill is in the reveal, the chance that you hit the rare color that Pop Mart says is in one out of 72 boxes. It’s addictive, plain and simple.

But the longer I spent on Labubu forums or on the Pop Mart site, the more I understood that the toy at the end is almost beside the point: legit Labubus represent the time and effort that came before the unboxing, along with the pure luck of what’s inside. A friend who has scored dozens of Labubus for their network told me flipping the dolls isn’t even worth it unless it’s an unopened box or a rare color — the margins are too low to make real money. The pervasiveness of Lafufus no doubt helps to push prices down. The real value of Labubus is in the ridiculous hoops you have to jump through to get a shot at something collectible.

According to Google Trends, search volume for “Labubu” is as high as it’s been. The TikTok livestreams will drone on, the bots will be deployed nightly, and the viral unboxings will pull in views. The hype will die down only when it’s no longer torture to buy one, when the little guys (who are actually canonically girls) are just a toy, not a stand-in for your effort. When that will happen is anyone’s guess; my Labubu is scheduled to ship out in September.