Collecting Nostalgia: A Personal Retrospective on Beanie Babies

In Collecting in a Consumer Society, professor Russell W. Belk describes collecting as “the process of actively, selectively, and passionately acquiring and possessing things removed from ordinary use and perceived as part of a set of non-identical objects or experiences (67).” He distinguishes the elements of a collection from other goods based largely on the idea that collected items involve “passionate consumption” as opposed to practical consumption, such as food or usable appliances. Objects entering a collection become “memory cues that recall the stories of their acquisition or conjure up associations with a more distant past…And as a part of extended self, possibly contributing to symbolic self-completion” (140). My reflections on Beanie Babies are mainly based around the collection itself - of interacting with multiple toys and engaging them with each other. If one was gifted to me or present for an important occasion, it would recall vivid memories, particularly explored in this gallery with Halo and Chilly.

I took this photo in the living room of my home in Sharon, most likely around 1998. This area was where I typically played with Beanie Babies as it was a large open space with natural light spilling onto the floor. Notable toys in this image are Halo and Chilly, both Beanie Buddies. Beanie Buddies are larger sized versions of Beanie Babies, and because they were more expensive ($15-$20 as opposed to $5-$10), I only owned a couple. Halo is the white angel bear (middle ground, right) and Chilly is the white polar bear directly below Halo. In the left foreground of the photo is a Dalmatian Beanie Baby, with a McDonald's Teenie Beanie Dalmatian placed on top. 

From 1997 to 2001, McDonald's released Teenie Beanies, a smaller version of Beanie Babies. They were often variations of already existing Beanie Babies, but also included new animal breeds. A Teenie Beanie would be added to your purchase of a Happy Meal, and they became quite popular with an explicitly higher resell value.

These two photographs were taken moments apart on February 14th, 1998 in Ottawa, Ontario. My brother Emile and cousin Nabeel can be seen behind me. They are both five years older than me, but playing with Beanie Babies was a longstanding game that shaped our imagination and integrated itself into many facets of our upbringing. We created life-like scenarios, such as arranging the Beanies as an audience and performing storylines for them; re-enacting our favourite films with the stuffed animals as characters; and consoling each other by facetiously impersonating the voice of a small panda, peacock, or lobster. I would also pretend I was a school teacher, handing out assignments and drawing graphs on a whiteboard (blank paper taped to the wall) with Beanies as my pupils. Unfortunately, due to lack of dexterity, intellect, and sentience, none of the Beanies passed my exams.

These toys shaped my childhood with a sense of charm, curiosity, and joy. “We might imbue an object with magical properties or attach a belief to it, but this comes from within us, and is not a central or stable part of our belief system," writes Gaynor Kavanagh in Dream Spaces: Memory and the Museum. "An object does not have free will or the right to make a point about something - it is the human agent who provides this through the manipulation of it" (101). The stuffed toys were a tool that connected Emile, Nabeel, and I in a simple and genuine manner prior to our more complicated relationship as teenagers. The literal collection of Beanies are not necessarily the salient aspect of my association with them; it is more so the "magic" applied through experiences, memories, and familial/social bonding that coded these toys as significant.

Dated February 16th, this was taken two days after the previous photographs in Ottawa. Back home in Sharon, my grandmother and I sit on my bed while I monitor the heartbeat of a beloved toy. The blue and white carry cage was part of a non-Ty toy set which included a dog, a stethoscope, a needle, and a blood pressure pump. These items expanded to additional projects, such as making sure the rest of my stuffed animals were also in good health. Quacker, the yellow duck Beanie Baby and larger version of the Teenie Beanie Quacks, can be seen in front of my right knee. 

These are the original nine Beanie Babies released at New York City's World Toy Fair in 1993, publicly available in 1994, and retired by 1998 (Dyson, aboutBeanies). The brown bear, lobster, and shark can be seen in the following two photographs.

Taken in April 1998 in our front garden in Sharon, a number of Beanie Babies are placed very intently on my poised body and scattered on the grass. A brown bear, sheep, panda, turtle, lobster, and shark can be identified. 

I was gifted Halo in 2000 by my third grade teacher Ms. Reed. I had gotten pneumonia for the second time and was missing over a week of school while being in the hospital. One afternoon, I was sitting upright in the hospital bed eating addas polo, a common Iranian dish of lentils and rice made by my mother. Unbeknownst to me, Ms. Reed came to visit and entered my room with a Beanie Buddy of a white bear angel. I was so embarrassed about eating food which I knew she would not be familiar with, and tried to hide my tupperware as quickly as possible. Being a very ungraceful 7 year old, she of course saw my meal and inquired about it. I was too shy and flustered to respond, so my mother did on my behalf. I was overwhelmed by the beautiful toy she had gifted me and shocked at the sincere gesture, yet at the same time, was dealing with the complications of having my foreignness exposed so starkly to my teacher. These mixed feelings are further explored in Identity & Nostalgia.

Ty Beanies Magazine was a bi-yearly publication which covered Ty related news, reader submissions, and photo galleries. It contained a section where readers could send in a photograph of themselves with their collection and have it published. This photograph was taken on December 24th, 2002 in Abu Dhabi. I eagerly mailed in a copy of the photo to the United States, but never received a response.

This Beanie Buddy named Chilly was particularly special to me as a child. I do not remember if it was difficult to find, or if I had eagerly wanted it for a prolonged period, but I remember finally purchasing it at a Beanie Baby stand in Union Station, Toronto. It can be seen in the previous photo, between me and a turquoise Beanie Buddy bear on the right side. While driving home from a trip to Al Ain in the Emirates, probably around 2002, our car was rear-ended. I was eating spaghetti while Chilly was on my lap, and the pasta spilled onto him, staining a small part of his body with tomato sauce. The accident was minor, but my first, and I remember being devastated by both the jarring experience and the damage done to Chilly.