an article from Slate<\/a> that I came across which give a bit of background and a different perspective of the \u201cwhy\u201d on how the Bubble came to be. \u00a0My memories are vague \u2014 I recall stumbling upon them at a gift shop and thinking, \u201coh, these must be the toys I was reading about in the paper.\u201d \u00a0Mom bought a large number of them, though I simply don\u2019t recall if she actually imagined that she was accumulating something of value, or just doing what she does best, buying popular things. \u00a0(Sorry, Mom.) \u00a0For a while she would pawn a couple of them at a time on us (that is, the kids) when we visited, until I put my foot down and said, \u201cwe already have a whole toy bin full of nothing but stuffed animals.\u201d \u00a0(She also had a basket full of the cheap stuffed animals from Claw machines, but always said these were dog toys.)<\/p>\nAnyway: \u00a0what was more interesting was the man himself, who was, from all reports, an a** who mistreated those who loved him and repeatedly stole and took credit for others\u2019 ideas \u2014 yet the chain of events was not simply just a set of coincidences or lucky breaks, but began with his fanatical determination to create the best line of stuffed animals, with obsessive attention to detail, from his start selling a stuffed cat at a trade fair, obsessively grooming and trimming the fur to make exactly the right impression. \u00a0The beanbag element was intended to increase the posability and play value, the sales were limited to gift shops, not big box stores, because he didn\u2019t want the toys just tossed in a bin. \u00a0The changes he made which resulted in certain early Beanie Babies being \u201crare\u201d? \u00a0That was the result of his constant tinkering to improve his product. \u00a0And the animals were virtually all designed by him, fabric, eye placement, everything, not just left to an employee with the instruction, \u201ccreate a duck this time\u201d \u2014 though as he was doing this he had no idea that he was creating limited editions, they were just the erratic changes of an obsessive man.<\/p>\n
Other elements of the craze were not his doing at all: \u00a0the website and the poems and birthdays were all the creation of an employee. \u00a0The concept of \u201cretirement,\u201d however unplanned at first, was later used to great effect, and Warner had no inkling that his animals would be transformed from a toy for children to an obsession for adults. \u00a0The emergence of e-bay was also fortuitous in enabling the cross-country trading, as supply varied from region to region, that contributed to the crazy. \u00a0A good portion of the initial \u201cscarcity\u201d was just run-of-the-mill supply problems. \u00a0And there were several key players in the transformation into collectible that he profiles as well.<\/p>\n
And Warner today? \u00a0His days of extraordinary profits are past, but he is still very wealthy (having bought, among other things, hotels, with his cash) and continues to create stuffed animals. \u00a0He never married, and his two long-term relationships crumbled with anger and resentment. \u00a0His mother was mentally ill, and his father abused his sister, from whom he is now also estranged. \u00a0He was convicted of tax evasion in 2013, yet his attorneys at the time argued that he surely wasn\u2019t greedy because he didn\u2019t have a will and hadn\u2019t engaged in any estate planning \u2014 but, in reality, he enjoys his money as much as he\u2019s able, in the present, and simply has no one who he loves (and perhaps never had) to bequeath his tremendous wealth to.<\/p>\n
Is this the most deeply insightful book you\u2019ll ever read? \u00a0No. \u00a0The author is 24 years old, a bit of a wunderkind, as this is his third book. \u00a0(His first he wrote while a senior in college, about avoiding debt in college, with the basic pitch being \u201cgo to a community college and a state school, and ignore the rankings game.) \u00a0The writing is light \u00a0and it\u2019s a quick read, but it is deeply researched, with extensive interviews with everyone but Warner himself, whose contribution to the book, as Bissonnette notes, is taht \u201cin no way did he interfere with my reporting for this book.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is what qualifies as \u201clight reading\u201d in my world. \u00a0Nothing on heathcare, or pensions, or other weighty topics \u2014 this is the tale of the Beanie Babies and the man who created them, Ty Warner. You all remember Beanie Babies, right? \u00a0Here\u2019s an article from Slate that I came across which give a bit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":1386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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