I’m as interested in the reactions to the queues for Labubus (Pop Mart’s viral toy) as I am in the queues themselves.

Under every post on every channel about this phenomenon, roughly 80% of the comments are something like this: “Why are people queueing hours for that? What a load of rubbish”.

It’s a reasonable response, but it totally misses the point – and massively underestimates far more significant behavioural shifts that sit underneath these long queues.

Because this isn’t happening in isolation. Anyone who’s ever been on a retail safari with me will have seen long queues to get into stores – and in some cases, those queues don’t even lead to the gratification of buying some sought-after product.

Young people – a generation brought up in a world where queueing in retail has been designed out – are choosing to queue.

To some extent, the queue itself is the experience.

Let’s call them Generation Queue. Why are they so happy to stand in line? And what else are they queueing for?

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