Meta’s Muse Charm looks like a Tamagotchi, but it’s tapping into a much newer trend

Meta’s new Muse Charm is trying to do two things at once: make AI feel cute, and make it feel wearable. That’s a risky combo. The company is stepping into a hardware graveyard that already has names like the Ai Pin, Rabbit, and Friend pendant, but this one lands closer to what young buyers are already doing with their stuff. Not on a desk. On a bag. Or clipped to a keychain. Or dangling where it can be seen.

That matters because Gen Z has already turned random practical objects into accessories. Lip gloss, hand sanitizer, sunblock, and fragrances have all been recast as bag charms, with women driving much of the trend. Hailey Bieber’s Rhode lip case helped push the idea that beauty products could double as fashion, and Labubu took the same instinct into full-on craze territory. Pop Mart said revenue hit $1.8 billion in 2024, up 7x from 2019, even if demand for the fuzzy monster itself has since cooled.

The bigger point is that the charm trend never really disappeared. Analysts expect the global bag charm market to top $1 billion by 2030, and the appeal is obvious: these little things let people signal taste without trying too hard. Meta’s Muse fits that logic because it’s customizable. You build an avatar, then wear the thing that represents it. The Tamagotchi comparison is easy, but the more current reference is the Apple Watch turned into a charm, a look that’s spread through TikTok and is now showing up across Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and Etsy in a ridiculous range of straps, clips, pendants, and cases.

And there’s a reason this all clicks with younger buyers. They’re swimming in algorithmic feeds and tech that feels less like a tool than a trap. Physical objects feel more controlled, more personal, more real. That’s why retro tech keeps resurfacing too: digital cameras, flip phones, iPods, CDs, cassette tapes, home phones, wired earbuds. Muse Charm is trying to catch that mood before Meta’s own baggage catches up with it.

That baggage is heavy. Meta has already settled with the FTC over claims it made private information public without consent, been penalized for privacy violations, and in 2023 was charged again with violating a privacy order from the 2019 settlement. It has also been hauled before Congress over harms to minors and has lost or settled multiple lawsuits on the same issues. So yes, the charm is on trend. The question is whether people want a cute AI trinket from the company that made trust feel optional.