Category: 5. Entertainment

So, Juan, Football City, Art United. Can you explain the concept to us please?

“Well, the concept is to try to create a relationship between art and football. A couple of years ago, I met the great Hans-Ulrich [Obrist], who is a renowned art creator, and Josh [Willdigg], who was working with him, and I’d always been going to Whitworth Gallery and different galleries in the UK. When I met him, I realised he loved football and he came up with the idea of trying to do something together and connect both worlds, which they hadn’t been connected enough, in my point of view, in history. So here we are today, after many conversations and calls, and trying to get players with artists. We have a team of 11 footballers, with 11 artists, trying to express themselves in the best possible way. And I think it’s fun. It’s been a learning process for me, of course it’s very different to what I’m used to, but I’m really happy with the result and the exhibition.”

It’s an interesting mix of footballers isn’t it, some former Reds and some not, players from all over the world?

“Of course, we have a couple of former Reds, with Shinji Kagawa, who did a great manga with a Japanese artist, and, of course, Eric Cantona. For me, if I think about an artist on the pitch, he was probably the best artist on the pitch. The way he played football and everything he did. He was different and unique. And so he was also very happy and welcoming to the idea of joining. So, I’m very happy and proud that he is one of the players in exhibition and I’m so happy to be here today and to get to know it for the first time.”

We’ve also seen the mask from Ella Toone as well, that’s an interesting piece…

“Ella is great. Since we talked with her, she also was really enthusiastic about it. As you know, she’s full of energy and, yeah, she’s been great in the whole process. So it’s very nice to see that she enjoyed the process also.”

Whether you reckon they are cute, ugly or just plain weird, chances are you have heard of the furry dolls that have become a global sensation – Labubu.

Born a monster, the elf-like creature from Chinese toy maker Pop Mart is now a viral purchase. And it has no dearth of celebrity advocates: Rihanna, Dua Lipa, Kim Kardashian and Blackpink’s Lisa.

Ordinary folk are just as obsessed – from Shanghai to London, the long queues to snap up the doll have made headlines, sometimes even descending into fights.

“You get such a sense of achievement when you can get it among such fierce competition,” says avowed fan Fiona Zhang.

The world’s fascination with Labubu has almost tripled Pop Mart’s profits in the past year – and, according to some, even energised Chinese soft power, which has been bruised by the pandemic and a strained relationship with the West.

So, how did we get here?

What exactly is Labubu?

It’s a question that still bothers many – and even those who know the answer are not entirely sure they can explain the craze.

Labubu is both a fictional character and a brand. The word itself doesn’t mean anything. It’s the name of a character in “The Monsters” toy series created by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung.

The vinyl faces are attached to plush bodies, and come with a signature look – pointy ears, big eyes and a mischievous grin showing exactly nine teeth. A curious yet divided internet can’t seem to decide if they are adorable or bizarre.

According to its retailer’s official website, Labubu is “kind-hearted and always wants to help, but often accidentally achieves the opposite”.

The Labubu dolls have appeared in several series of “The Monsters”, such as “Big into Energy”, “Have a Seat”, “Exciting Macaron” and “Fall in Wild”.

The Labubu brand also has other characters from its universe, which have inspired their own popular dolls – such as the tribe’s leader Zimomo, her boyfriend Tycoco and her friend Mokoko.

To the untrained eye, some of these dolls are hard to distinguish from one another. The connoisseurs would know but Labubu’s fame has certainly rubbed off, with other specimens in the family also flying off the shelves.

Who sells Labubu?

Pop Mart had been selling so-called blind boxes – where customers only found out what they had bought when they opened the package – for some years when they tied up with Kasing Lung for the rights to Labubu.

That was in 2019, nearly a decade after entrepreneur Wang Ning opened Pop Mart as a variety store, similar to a pound shop, in Beijing. When the blind boxes became a success, Pop Mart launched the first series in 2016, selling Molly dolls – child-like figurines created by Hong Kong artist Kenny Wong.

But it was the Labubu sales that fuelled Pop Mart’s growth and in December 2020, it began selling shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Those shares have soared by more than 500% in the last year.

Pop Mart itself has now become a major retailer. It operates more than 2,000 vending machines, or “roboshops”, around the world.

You can now buy Labubu dolls in stores, physical or virtual, in more than 30 countries, from the US and UK to Australia and Singapore, although many of them have recently paused sales due to overwhelming demand.

Sales from outside mainland China contributed to nearly 40% of its total revenue in 2024.

The demand did not rise overnight though. It actually took a few years for the Elfin monsters to break into the mainstream.

How did Labubu go global?

Before the world discovered Labubu, their fame was limited to China. They started to become a hit just as the country emerged from the pandemic in late 2022, according to Ashley Dudarenok, founder of China-focused research firm ChoZan.

“Post-pandemic, a lot of people in China felt that they wanted to emotionally escape… and Labubu was a very charming but chaotic character,” she says. “It embodied that anti-perfectionism.”

The Chinese internet, which is huge and competitive, produces plenty of viral trends that don’t go global. But this one did and its popularity quickly spread to neighbouring South East Asia.

Fiona, who lives in Canada, says she first heard about Labubu from Filipino friends in 2023. That’s when she started buying them – she says she finds them cute, but their increasing popularity is a major draw: “The more popular it gets the more I want it.

“My husband doesn’t understand why me, someone in their 30s, would be so fixated on something like this, like caring about which colour to get.”

It helps that it’s also affordable, she adds. Although surging demand has pushed up prices on the second-hand market, Fiona says the original price, which ranged from C$25 ($18; £14) to C$70 for most Labubu dolls, was “acceptable” to most people she knows.

“That’s pretty much how much a bag accessory would cost anyway these days, most people would be able to afford it,” she says.

Lababu’s popularity soared in April 2024, when Thai-born K-pop superstar Lisa began posting photos on Instagram with various Labubu dolls. And then, other global celebrities turned the dolls into an international phenomenon this year.

Singer Rihanna was photographed with a Labubu toy clipped to her Louis Vuitton bag in February. Influencer Kim Kardashian shared her collection of 10 Labubu dolls with her Instagram following in April. And in May, former England football captain Sir David Beckham also took to Instagram with a photo of a Labubu, given to him by his daughter.

Now the dolls feel ubiquitous, regularly spotted not just online but also on friends, colleagues or passersby.

What’s behind the Labubu obsession?

Put simply, we don’t know. Like most viral trends, Labubu’s appeal is hard to explain – the result of timing, taste and the randomness that is the internet.

Beijing is certainly happy with the outcome. State news agency Xinhua says Labubu “shows the appeal of Chinese creativity, quality and culture in a language the world can understand”, while giving everyone the chance to see “cool China”.

Xinhua has other examples that show “Chinese cultural IP is going global”: the video game Black Myth: Wukong and the hit animated film Nezha.

Some analysts seem surprised that Chinese companies – from EV makers and AI developers to retailers – are so successful despite Western unease over Beijing’s ambitions.

“BYD, DeepSeek, all of these companies have one very interesting thing in common, including Labubu,” Chris Pereira, founder and chief executive of consultancy firm iMpact, told BBC News.

“They’re so good that no one cares they’re from China. You can’t ignore them.”

Meanwhile, Lababu continues to rack up social media followers with millions watching new owners unbox their prized purchases.

GhanaWeb Special: The gold market that fuels galamsey

During a visit to Colchester Hospital in Essex on Wednesday, 2nd July, the Princess of Wales opened up about the her cancer journey and planted ‘Catherine’s Rose’ – a flower named in her honor – in the wellbeing garden.

The garden, which opened in July 2024, is a relaxing and restorative space for NHS staff, patients and visitors and is described a vital hub for the community, offering activities for those working in or visiting the hospital.

This green space’s impact it has on patients and NHS workers, forms part of the research for the RHS’ Blueprint for Wellbeing Gardens, which will launch next year.

Kate’s visit also coincides with the donation of 50 ‘Catherine Roses’ to the garden, which she helped to plant.

The rose, bred by Harkness roses, was unveiled in May this year to highlight the important role nature plays in supporting mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing.

After her conversation, the Princess of Wales planted ’Catherine’s Rose’ in the hospital’s wellbeing garden

Proceeds from every sale of Catherine’s Rose go to The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity to help the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust establish a training programme for clinical teams nationwide. The initiative aims to strengthen support for patients during and after cancer treatment.

Following the Princess’s ceremonial planting, Harkness Roses and Kensington Palace are set to donate 500 rose plants to community gardens across the UK this summer (including Maggie’s gardens for people affected by cancer, East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices and Horatio’s Gardens for those living with spinal injuries) – sending a powerful message of hope to hospital patients across the country.

The Princess of Wales during a visit to Colchester Hospital in Essex on Wednesday

In January 2025, Kate Middleton shared she was in remission from cancer, after initially announcing her diagnosis via video recording in March 2024. While she has not disclosed the type of cancer or specific details about her treatment, she has since been open about her experience.

She’s also continued to highlight the “healing power of nature” in her health journey over the past year.

At this week’s hospital visit, Kate shared with patients and staff how challenging the journey has been, describing the experience as a “life-changing experience” for both patients and their families.

“You don’t necessarily, particularly when it’s the first time, […] appreciate how much impact it is going to have,” she said.

The Princess of Wales placed particular emphasis on the often-overlooked difficulty of the times that follow treatment. “You are not necessarily in that clinical team any longer, but you’re not able to function normally at home as you once used to,” she told patients and staff, underscoring the importance of continuous support.

In light of this, she commended Colchester Hospital’s “holistic” approach to the support offered to its patients, their loved ones and their carers – one that, according to ITV, encompasses counseling and dietary advice.

Wanda Sachs is the Daily Writer for House Beautiful and Country Living, exploring the latest in interior design, home trends, property news, wellbeing and sustainable living. With a keen eye for style and a passion for storytelling, she previously served as an Associate Editor at The Berliner in Berlin, where she launched and led the magazine’s monthly style vertical, covering emerging fashion trends. Wanda holds a combined BA in English and German from Goethe University Frankfurt.

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Other highlights this week

Maroon 5 member Adam Levine has just now opened about a hilarious anecdote about purchasing a pet for his then-girlfriend, Behati Prinsloo.

While appearing for an interview on Sean Evans’ Hot Ones podcast, he candidly recalled that he was pranked by his friend, Blake Shelton.

“My now-wife, then-brand-new girlfriend, she said she really wanted a teacup pig,” the Girls Like You singer began by saying.

Recalling the conversation with his friend, he continued, “And I didn’t know what that was, but of course the first person I would ask [would be Shelton]… So I asked Blake. I’m like, ‘What’s a teacup pig?’ He’s like, ‘I’ll get you a teacup pig. Yeah, give me five grand.’”

“We had to give it to a little girl on a farm. We’re like, ‘Send us pictures! We can’t wait to not be responsible for this animal anymore! Just show us pictures!’” Levine told the host.

“She sends us a picture like six months later and the pig is like 400 pounds. I’m like, ‘Dude, what if this animal had grown to be this big in my house?!’” the three-times Grammy winner added.

Revealing Shelton tricked him into spending $5000 on a small pig for his girlfriend, he continued, “I’m just like, ‘Blake, bro, $5,000 for a pig that wasn’t a micro pig?’”

“And he’s like, ‘You’re an idiot! There’s no such thing as f—ing teacup pigs, you dumbass!’ So that was a pretty good prank that he played on me,” the 46-year-old singer concluded.

For those unversed, Adam Levine and Behati Prinsloo tied the knot in July 2014, and the couple shares three children.

The culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, has demanded to know why no one at the BBC has lost their job over the airing of a documentary on Gaza that featured the son of a Hamas official.

A review looking into the broacast of Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone is reportedly due to be published next week. The programme first aired in February, but was pulled by the broadcaster after the link between its 13-year-old narrator and Hamas emerged.

“I have been very clear that people must be held accountable for the decisions that were taken,” Nandy told the Times on Saturday. “I have asked the question to the board [of the BBC]. Why has nobody been fired?

“What I want is an explanation as to why not. If it is a sackable offence then obviously that should happen. But if the BBC, which is independent, considers that it is not, I think what all parliamentarians want to know is why.”

The review is being led by Peter Johnston, the director of the independent editorial complaints and reviews body that reports directly to the BBC’s director general. It is expected to determine whether any editorial guidelines were broken, and whether any disciplinary action is needed. The BBC will also undertake a full audit of expenditure on the programme.

Nandy described feeling “exasperated” as she called for an “adequate explanation from the BBC about what has happened”, adding: “I have not had that from the chair or director general yet.”

The review led the corporation to delay and then pull entirely another documentary from the region, Gaza: Doctors under Attack, which has since been broadcast on Channel 4.

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Nandy said the BBC had to “get a grip” after the livestreamed Glastonbury performance from punk rap duo, Bob Vylan. The group have been dropped by several music events since the singer Bobby Vylan led crowds in chants of “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]” during their set at the festival last Saturday. The performance is being investigated by police.

“The BBC leadership have got to get a grip on it,” Nandy said. “It makes me angry on behalf of the BBC staff and the whole creative industries in this country. Particularly the Jewish community, who deserved far better than what happened at the weekend. Action has to be forthcoming.”

Bob Vylan, who are known for addressing political issues in their music, including racism, masculinity and class, have claimed they are being “targeted for speaking up”. The group have been vocal advocates for Palestinian rights and also led crowds in chants of “Free Palestine” during their set.

The BBC has been approached for comment.

Artist Anita Nowinska is donating paintings worth £84,000 to a hospice to help comfort those who are ill.

Nowinska, 60, from Totnes, Devon, said she decided to donate her original paintings “to bring light into difficult places”.

“Painting is what keeps me well, but the paintings were building up, and I wanted them to do more than sit in storage, to bring joy to others,” she said.

Forty five paintings will be donated to St Peter’s Hospice in Bristol and Nowinska has pledged to donate half of all her future work.

Nowinska’s journey into painting came from personal crisis after a career in recruitment ended in the late 1990s.

She found herself with no home, no job, no partner and expecting a child so turned to art as a lifeline.

In the darkness of that moment, quite literally by candlelight after her electricity was cut off, she said she rediscovered a box of pastels.

That night, she created her first flower painting.

“While I was painting, the stress just melted away. I felt peace for the first time in ages,” she said.

Nowinska said she received a call a few days later from a local gallery which, having seen a painting she had framed as a gift for her mother, asked if she had more work to exhibit.

“It felt like the universe was answering my prayer,” she said.

She said she had embraced her art fully, raising her son in Devon, where nature and creativity became “central to her life and healing”.

“Even a dandelion growing through pavement cracks has beauty, that’s what I try to capture,” she said.

Her work has been exhibited across the UK, but 2024 brought new challenges for her with the market for her work tightening, leading to a decision to donate 50% of her work.

“If one painting can bring a moment of relief or joy to someone in pain, then it’s worth everything,” she said.

“Art is meant to be shared. If it can bring comfort, then it’s doing its job.”

She asked for any hospices, hospitals and care homes interested in taking her work in the future to get in touch via her website.

The life of a social media creator can be high in glamour and status. The well-paid endorsement deals, the online followers and proximity to the celebrity establishment are all perks of the industry.

But one hidden cost will be familiar to anyone coping with the 21st-century economy: burnout. The Guardian has spoken to five creators with a combined audience of millions who have all experienced degrees of workplace stress or fatigue.

“There’s no off button in this job,” says Melanie Murphy, 35, who has been a social media creator since 2013. “The algorithms never stop. You can’t pause the internet because you get sick. If you vanish for two or three months completely you know the algorithms will bring your followers to new accounts who are being active.”

Dublin-based Murphy says her symptoms of burnout were “complete fatigue” and a “nerve sensation of tingling and brain fog.” A dose of Covid was then “the straw that broke the camel’s back”, she adds.

There is also a self-consciousness that comes with struggling in a nascent industry some people may not take seriously – or cannot conceive of as being hard work, given its association with glamour or the ephemeral nature of social media fame.

“It’s really hard to talk about my job impacting how bad I felt without people being like ‘shut up you’re so privileged’,” Murphy admits.

She is not alone. Five out of ten creators say they have experienced burnout as a direct result of their career as a social media creator, according to a survey of 1,000 creators in the US and the UK by Billion Dollar Boy, a London-based advertising agency that works with creators. Nearly four out of 10 (37%) have considered quitting their career due to burnout as well, according to the research.

The World Health Organization defines burnout as the consequence of “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”, with symptoms including exhaustion, reduced effectiveness at your job and a feeling of mental distance from your work.

Others spoken to by the Guardian talk of creative block and their own lack of engagement with the material that, by necessity, they have to churn out on a regular basis.

“There’s no HR department, there’s no union,” says Murphy. “If my husband got burned out, like I did, and literally couldn’t stand up off the couch, he would have someone to call. The only people I could really call were creators.”

Shortly after the birth of her second child in 2023, Murphy had what she called a “complete burnout breakdown”.

“My body was, like, ‘I’m done’.”

Perhaps ironically, Murphy says, YouTube videos were a help in her recovery. She also sought out therapy and “pulled back a bit” from work, having saved up enough money to cover a few months off. Now, after “a lot of brain retraining stuff”, she only posts two YouTube videos a month – having run at one or two a week before. She used to be “very, very active” on Instagram but now posts only “if I feel inspired to post”.

Now, Murphy and her husband, an airline pilot, “kind of match” each other in earnings which “does mentally take a bit of weight off”. Murphy’s company makes “a bit over” €100,000 (£86,000) a year. She says she has cut down heavily on unpaid work and changes to her work-life balance have probably reduced her earnings by about €20,000.

Murphy has 800,000 followers across YouTube and Instagram – her main sources of income are brand sponsorship – including from the Trainwell personal training app and online therapy company BetterHelp – and advertising revenue from YouTube, which shares a substantial cut of ad spend with creators.

Creators – people who make a living from making online content, often via brand sponsorships – lead a professional life that reflects the digital culture they are embedded in. It is fast, demanding and vulnerable to sudden changes of taste.

Becky Owen, the global chief marketing officer at Billion Dollar Boy, says the average full-time creator has to carry out a number of tasks to be successful, from planning, filming and editing content to managing relationships with brands; and, of course, engaging with followers.

Owen says the “wheels are coming off” for many creators.

“It’s prevalent. It’s not just a few,” she says, adding that there can also be an emotional toll because a lot of creators “monetise themselves” and turn their lives into content.

“Beyond getting new commercial deals, the greatest challenge creators face is managing the business side of what they do. They’re juggling countless responsibilities, trying to excel at all of them, often before they even have a chance to focus on the content itself. That’s where they really need support,” says Owen.

Allison Chen, 22, a New York-based creator who specialises in baking, cooking and lifestyle content and has a combined audience of 1.3 million across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, says the pursuit of views and engagement can be wearying. It can leave you feeling “regardless of how many views you get, there is always a higher peak to achieve”.

“Social media creators also have the same comparison and self-esteem issues that regular social media users have,” she says.

Chen says deleting social media apps has helped. Her routine involves downloading Instagram and TikTok whenever she needs to upload content – and then deleting them. “I repeat it every day,” she says.

London-based Hannah Witton, 33, suffered in a similar way. She restructured her professional life to avoid burning out completely, having been a full-time creator since 2015. Witton took three months of maternity leave after giving birth to her son in 2022. Three months, she says, is the longest amount of time she has seen any creator take off after having children.

“The shortest amount of time I’ve seen someone take off [for maternity leave] is three days. I wish I could have taken longer off but I just knew it wasn’t possible.”

When she returned, Witton found she was trying to produce the same amount of YouTube and podcast content – on sex and relationship advice – within half the time, with the added financial burden of paying for a producer to help make her content.

“Something had to suffer. And the thing that was suffering was me and the content – and my relationship with the content,” she adds. “Audiences are smart, and I think they can pick up on those kinds of things.

This week Google-owned YouTube called on the UK government to take creators more seriously as a profession, in recognition of the “profound economic and cultural contributions they bring to the UK’s creative industries”.

Meanwhile, creators used to broadcasting advice to others are having to rally themselves through the hard times.

“It is possible to get through this and still earn good money while not spreading yourself too thin, which many creators do,” says Murphy.

It has puzzled philosophers, scholars and those aspiring to be cool for generations: what is it that makes someone cool? Now it appears that the alchemical code has finally been cracked.

There are six specific attributes needed to be cool, according to a study published this week by the American Psychological Association.

It found that cool people are generally perceived to be extroverted, hedonistic, powerful, adventurous, open and autonomous, according to the survey of 6,000 participants from 12 countries including the USA, Australia and South Africa.

So what does a cool person make of it?

Chris Black, the co-host of the podcast How Long Gone (which is cool) and the founder of Done to Death Projects, a brand consultancy with fashion clients including Stüssy (also very cool), says that while the traits are “relatively accurate” for him, cool is something that cannot be easily outlined. “The je ne sais quoi of the whole thing has always been what I associate with cool,” he says.

Does Black like being described as cool? “It’s become a pretty general word. I don’t think it has the sort of gravitas that it once had. There are things I don’t embody that I think make people cool. So it’s tough to think of yourself as it, no matter how much you want it.”

Philippa Snow, a writer and cultural critic whose latest book, It’s Terrible the Things I Have to Do to Be Me, explores female celebrities and the price of femininity, says trying to define cool is similar to defining charisma. “Like the famous quote about pornography, it’s tempting to say about both that you know it when you see it.”

Some suggest that sprezzatura, an Italian word first used about by Baldassare Castiglione in 1528 and defined as “a certain nonchalance, to conceal all art and make what one does or say appear to be without effort” captures the earliest essence of what cool is.

Cool as a characterisation originated from 1940s jazz culture, when the black musician Lester Young challenged racial norms by refusing to smile when performing. He also used fashion as a marker of defiance, wearing sunglasses indoors on stage. Not long after he coined the slang term “that’s cool”, his fans began to use it when referencing him.

Prof Joel Dinerstein, who has taught a course called The History of Cool at Tulane University, Louisiana, for more than 25 years, says the terms he associates with cool people are “rebellious” and “charismatic”, flagging that another key quality is self-authorisation.

For Black, whose line of work is based around finding cool people to partner with brands, someone “being comfortable with who they are and what they say” is his “real baseline for coolness”. His criteria also includes someone “being very, very good at what they do”, saying it “shows a level of dedication and self-respect that I think is deeply cool”.

While Pierre Bourdieu’s 1970s concept of cultural capital is not directly a theory on coolness, cultural and social assets both play into the notion of cool. Nowadays, social media means being cool is often less about a person and more about an aesthetic that can be carefully curated. Unlike a person, however, as soon as an item becomes mainstream, it is generally no longer deemed cool. See Labubus and Stanley cups.

Conversely, Brat – the cultural phenomenon unleashed by Charli xcx a full year ago – is still considered cool. At Glastonbury, she did something that typically a cool person would never do – describing herself as cool. “Thank you so much, you’re fucking cool as fuck. But not as cool as me, bitch!” she shouted as she wrapped up her set.

Each year, Dinerstein asks his students who they perceive as cool. This year’s answers spanned everyone from the composer Hans Zimmer to the singer Lenny Kravitz.

Snow suggests Rihanna would be considered cool by many millennials. “There’s something so delightfully don’t-care about her becoming one of the biggest musical performers in the world, and then choosing not to give us another album for over a decade. Making us wait and still commanding our attention with not only her other projects but her image itself is powerful and cool, in an almost S&M-adjacent fashion.”

Black says youth will always be cool. “That has fucked us in some ways because we all think we should be at our peak at 23, but as you age you realise it usually takes people to their 50s to work out what they actually like.”

And perhaps, there lies a key point overlooked by researchers. Youths. Speaking to two gen Z-ers, they reveal the word “cool” as an adjective is becoming defunct in their lexicon. In its place? “Sick” and “lowkey”.

Things that are definitely not cool

• ChatGPT

• Pretending not to be “on the pen” (using weight loss jabs) when you are

• Cowboy boots

• Labubus

• Using corporate jargon outside work. For example, posting holiday photos on Instagram with the caption “highlights from Q1”

• Talking about sleep scores

• Giant adult sippy cups

• LinkedIn

• Birkin bags

• Including your Myers-Briggs Type Indicator result in your dating bio

Things that are cool

• Being a member of a library

• Good service – anywhere

• The Row’s monthly Spotify playlists

• Asking questions

• Restaurants where you don’t have to shout at each another to be heard

• Curaprox’s colourful toothbrushes

• Ordering an object to view at the V&A East Storehouse

• Not being a TV snob

• Using lamps rather than the “big light” in a room

• Being OK with ageing