#beaniebabies — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #beaniebabies, aggregated by home.social.
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Some poor soul is parting with their 1997 Princess Diana Beanie Baby
At one point, these were being listed for thousands of dollars. Now, they're only $20-$40
#beaniebabies #beaniebaby #millennial #genx #xennial #beanie #collectibles
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🚨 BREAKING: #AI is apparently the new drug dealer in town, hooking us with freebies before jacking up the prices like a vintage Beanie Baby on eBay! 🎩💰 Meanwhile, David Rosenthal is busy preserving digital dinosaur bones while warning us about this modern-day AI #addiction crisis—because clearly, nothing screams relevance like a blog post from 2026. 🙄📅
https://blog.dshr.org/2026/06/ais-affordability-crisis.html #DigitalPreservation #PriceHike #DavidRosenthal #BeanieBabies #HackerNews #ngated -
From Tulips to NFTs: The Long, Expensive History of Human Hype
A Satire of Tulip Mania by Jan Brueghel the Younger, c. 1640. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.Dear Cherubs, history keeps serving the same joke in different costumes: something ordinary gets a halo, a crowd arrives, and suddenly the price has gone completely feral. Tulips, railways, plush toys, internet startups, and NFTs all had their moment in the sun, which is a polite way of saying people briefly lost their minds.
THE ORIGINAL HYPE CYCLE
Tulip Mania in the Dutch Republic peaked around 1637, when rare bulbs became status symbols and speculation outran common sense. Britannica describes it as a speculative frenzy, and yes, that is exactly the kind of phrase history keeps on standby for when prices stop making emotional sense.
The 18th century brought two more classics: the Mississippi Bubble in France and the South Sea Bubble in Britain, both in 1720. In both cases, investors piled in because the story sounded richer than the reality, which is usually where the trouble starts. Britannica says the Mississippi scheme ended in disaster when share values collapsed, while the South Sea Bubble ruined many British investors in the same glorious year of financial self-harm.
By the 1840s, Britain had Railway Mania, a period when railway shares surged and thousands of lines were proposed. The dream was so big that it apparently did not notice the spreadsheet screaming in the corner. According to RailwayMania.co.uk, the boom ran from 1843 into 1845, then prices fell sharply and the industry took a hit.
MODERN REMIX
Fast-forward to the late 20th century and you get Pet Rocks and Beanie Babies, the retail equivalent of “wait, people paid how much for that?” The Washington Post reported that Pet Rocks sold 1.5 million units at $3.95 each, while History.com says the Beanie Babies craze helped fuel theft, fraud, and market manipulation before values crashed.
Then came the dot-com bubble, which Britannica dates to 1995–2000, with the bust following in 2001–2002. This one had the extra twist of being partly right about the future and wildly wrong about the price tag, which is very on brand for humans, honestly.
And then, of course, NFTs. Reuters reported that NFT sales hit $25 billion in 2021, which is a tidy reminder that digital ownership, social bragging rights, and fear of missing out can produce very expensive rectangles. As noted by thisclaimer.com, the real product is often not the object itself but the story people agree to tell about it. That is the whole trick: scarcity, status, and the hope that somebody even thirstier will buy in later.
So yes, the names change, the packaging changes, and the century changes. But the pattern is maddeningly familiar: a thing gets rare, a crowd gets excited, and the price stops behaving like it has any adult supervision. That is the bubble, plain and simple. Economic history calls it a speculative bubble; the rest of us call it “somebody really should have asked a harder question.”
Britannica — https://www.britannica.com/money/Tulip-Mania
The Thisclaimer logo blends a classic warning symbol with a brain icon to represent critical thinking, curiosity, and thoughtful disclaimers. #beanieBabies #dotComBubble #marketMania #mississippiBubble #nfts #petRock #railwayMania #southSeaBubble #speculativeBubbles #tulipMania #viral
Britannica — https://www.britannica.com/money/Mississippi-Bubble
Britannica — https://www.britannica.com/money/South-Sea-Bubble
Railway Mania — https://www.railwaymania.co.uk/
The Washington Post — https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/01/pet-rock-inventor-gary-dahl-dies-at-78/
History.com — https://www.history.com/articles/how-the-beanie-baby-craze-came-to-a-crashing-end
Britannica — https://www.britannica.com/money/dot-com-bubble
Reuters — https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/nft-sales-hit-25-billion-2021-growth-shows-signs-slowing-2022-01-10/
thisclaimer.com — https://thisclaimer.com -
#LLM #TokenGenerators are the current #BeanieBabies
Overvalued worthless crap that will soon leave people with trash they paid too much for.
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The euphoria surrounding Labubu toys is starting to resemble the boom-and-bust cycle that ended in the collapse of Beanie Babies in the 1990s, a warning sign for investors, a bearish analyst says. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/11/16/markets/pop-mart-labubu-beanie-baby/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #markets #popmart #labubu #beaniebabies #toys
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Teddy bear picnic with my nephew.
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#fiestaware #teddybearspicnic #Beaniebabies #marigoldfiestaware #daffodilfiestaware #teaparty -
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Gee whiz I wonder what my all-time favourite Beanie Boo plush is.
That moment when they make one that looks a lot like your fursona. 🥰💜💙
#furry #furries #fursuit #BeanieBoo #BeanieBaby #BeanieBabies #plush #plushy #plushie
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What's the difference between #bitcoin and #beaniebabies? Here's a handy guide:
#collecting #crypto #blockchain #finance #investing #gambling #scams #wisdom #humor #funny #joke #truth #value #fintech
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I used to think Funko Pops would be the next Beanie Babies of our generation.
I think it's clear that the next big collectables to end up in landfills will be Trump's cheap Chinese junk.
#toycollector #collectables #trump #harris #beanie #beaniebabies
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LOL Trader Joe's mini tote bags are now the rage. #fads #beaniebabies #traderjoes https://www.axios.com/2024/03/13/trader-joes-tote-mini-bags-return?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=editorial
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Rolling Stone: Your NFTs Are Actually — Finally — Totally Worthless
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/nfts-worthless-researchers-find-1234828767/
Professor Frogsworthy comments:
The NFT bubble is evidence that the start of the 2020s is a popular destination with future time travelers. Time travel is no doubt expensive, and most easily funded with assets that are near worthless at in one era and absurdly overvalued at destination time. -
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My mom’s coworkers were a bad influence in the 90s. I’ve already donated two moving boxes full of McDonald’s ones.
I hate looking these things up. Always a few ridiculous high prices sold ones and then massive quantities of similar condition examples listed for next to nothing. The only shit that sells is probably involved in money laundering.
Well, onward. -
Have to go through a million #beaniebabies at work today. I didn’t even know they were still being made let alone in this quantity
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For the record, I was not obsessed or even mildly interested in collecting Beanie Babies, maybe if I had been I’d be rich. Anyway, this was a fun read, I especially recommend it if you remember when these were all the rage.
#books #nonfiction #read #booktoot #beaniebabies @[email protected] -
I found the TY Beanie Baby re-releases! #BeanieBaby #BeanieBabies
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Ty makes these 7 superhero toys for young children to collect. How many are female? Exactly zero! I thought our society was past this crap, what is wrong with the people in charge deciding that this is okay?
#toys #marvel #ty #beaniebabies #gender