I love it when taste collapses. When the aesthetic ladder snaps and suddenly we’re all staring at a thing that shouldn’t work — and it does. Enter Laoshugan: a scrawny, wonky, off-register creature that looks like it crawled out of a cracked teacup and into the feed. It’s not adorable in the sanctioned way. It’s not Pixar. It’s not plush-perfection. It’s wrong. And that wrongness is the point.
Ugly cute isn’t new, but Laoshugan feels like a stress test. Think of it as the aesthetic equivalent of gallows humour. Big eyes that don’t line up. A face that looks like it’s been lightly argued with. The vibe is less “hug me” and more “I survived.” And people love it — not despite its ugliness, but because of it.
Here’s what’s going on psychologically: ugly cute short-circuits the tyranny of polish. For decades, cuteness was aspirational — symmetry, smoothness, innocence packaged for consumption. Ugly cute says: no thanks. It chooses vulnerability over virtue, personality over perfection. It’s the anti-brand brand. You don’t admire it; you recognise it.
Laoshugan isn’t asking to be liked. It’s asking to be tolerated. And that’s radical. In a culture obsessed with “optimisation”: faces optimised, bodies optimised, selves optimised. Ugly cute offers relief. It’s permission to be unoptimised. To be a little busted. To show the seams.
There’s also a quiet politics here. Ugly cute refuses hierarchy. It doesn’t perform excellence; it performs endurance. It says: I’m still here. I’m not winning, but I’m not gone. In an era of burnout and soft despair, that’s a powerful message. Laoshugan isn’t selling happiness; it’s selling companionship in imperfection.
Art history has always loved the grotesque — the gargoyle, the caricature, the outsider figure that mirrors our anxieties back to us with a crooked grin. What’s new is the speed and intimacy. Ugly cute circulates fast, becomes a proxy self, a meme-mask we can wear without explanation. It’s a way of saying “this is how it feels” without the burden of eloquence.
And let’s be honest: ugly cute is funny. It punctures the solemnity of taste. It laughs at the algorithms that trained us to want the same ten faces forever. Laoshugan is a glitch with charisma. A mistake with a fanbase.
So no, Laoshugan isn’t the death of beauty. It’s a reminder that beauty was never the point. The point was always connection. And sometimes the shortest path to connection is a creature that looks like it’s been through it.
That’s ugly cute. That’s Laoshugan. And yes, it’s art.
All images sourced from Laoshugan creator CroLoops
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