The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute by Zac Bissonnette

Author:Zac Bissonnette
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-03-03T07:00:00+00:00

Talk with collectors of anything for more than about a minute, and you’re almost guaranteed to hear the phrase “the thrill of the hunt.” Sigmund Freud, a noted collector himself, saw the root of collecting, not surprisingly, in sex and toilet training. He wrote in 1908, “The core of paranoia is the detachment of the libido from objects. A reverse course is taken by the collector who directs his surplus libido into an inanimate object: a love of things.” Psychologists believe that the ownership of objects—often teddy bears and blankets—gives young children a sense of power and control in a world where they are otherwise vulnerable, and enables them to develop a sense of self independent from their parents.

Collecting is generally seen as a harmless and possibly positive influence on people’s lives, but at its most extreme it seems to reflect a regression to the soothing and comfort provided by objects during childhood. Ty’s retirements and scarcity allowed the acquisition of $5 beanbags to activate the same endorphins that people chasing rare books and fine art thrive on—but at an initially negligible cost and without any immediate need for specialized knowledge.

In 1998 Paula Benchik-Abrinko wrote about her sister Peggy Gallagher’s quest to find every Beanie—a task she’d completed in mid-1996 and then kept up to date with new releases. At the time her collection was worth enough to cover the cost of four years at Harvard:

The calm experienced with owning the collection comes only after the storm of the hunt. . . . How did she do it? Thousands of dollars to Ma Bell looking for them; hours on the computer trying to find people who could trade for what she needed; harassing poor Ty reps; following overnight couriers thinking they had her beanies. . . . Why this happens or how this happens is beyond me. . . . Peggy has had many sleepless nights thinking of places she hasn’t searched and nightmares of calling a store as the targeted piece leaves the store to a lucky buyer. . . . It is just about that time when hopelessness overcomes you that you then happen upon the animal that has eluded you for so long.

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