YMMV / Beanie Babies

• Accidental Innuendo: The name of Goochy the Jellyfish. In addition to being very phonetically similar to the slang term "coochie", "gooch" is Irish slang for the area between a man's anus and testicles.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Poopsie is a notoriously divisive Beanie Baby in part due to his status as an obvious Captain Ersatz of Winnie the Pooh. Fans tend to be split into three categories regarding him: those who think he's a fun and unique bear that cheekily manages to skirt around Disney's notorious stringent copyright enforcement, those who see him as an uncreative and shameless knock off, and those who believe that he's an otherwise cute bear ruined by an unfortunate name. The Beanie Buddy version of Poopsie even lampshades its mixed reception in the tag text◊:
    Poopsie the BEANIE BABY was one of the most controversial bears ever produced!
  • Though not as infamous as Poopsie, Wish the Starfish is also a fairly divisive Beanie. Some love him for his unique Non-Standard Character Design, dopey look, and for being the only starfish Beanie Baby to date (licensed Patrick Star Beanies notwithstanding), while others think his semi-realistic blue eyes make him look ugly and unintentionally creepy.
  • The 30th anniversary beanies that have little-to-no color differences between them and the originals, such as Zip II and Dottie II. Some collectors still appreciate them for their softer fabric, while others dismiss them as lazy and uninspired.
  • Silver II is particularly divisive, with his larger and closer-together eyes being a big point of contention. Some people find him to be even cuter than before, while others think he looks ugly and too Beanie Boo-like for comfort. Recognizing Silver II's mixed reception, Ty pushed Amber II's eyes a bit further apart from the muzzle, making it more appealing to Silver II's detractors.
• Contested Sequel: Beanie Boos are this to the original line. Many fans of the previous Beanie Babies despise them for their garish, overly-cutesy designs, while others love them for being more bright and bold.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Scorch and Magic are both very popular for being cute dragons, and are often depicted in fanart.
  • Inch the color-block worm is also a fan favorite, with many fans clamoring for him to be re-released as a 30th anniversary beanie.
  • Goochy the jellyfish is another popular beanie for his goofy design and unique fabric, which is noticeably soft and shimmery.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
  • In general, assuming that any old Beanie Baby will fetch hundreds, if not thousands of dollars (especially those from the massively-overproduced fourth and fifth generations) will elicit groans from collectors. These assumptions tend to arise from three main factors: People who were around during the nineties believing that the craze is still ongoing, clickbait articles and videos claiming that common Beanie Babies are worth thousands of dollars for no reason other than to garner ad revenue, and fake listings on secondhand sites like eBay that are set up in order to manipulate the market and/or launder money. Some common Beanies that are assumed to be valuable include Curly the Bear, Erin the Bear, and Jake the Duck^note It does not help that, in Jake's case, Ty claimed that he was valuable and sought-after in his Beanie Buddy counterpart's poem, alleging that the many colored fabrics used in his design made him difficult to manufacture.. This also applies to Ty's other plush toy lines, most notoriously the Attic Treasures (whose earlier tags are often mistaken for valuable older Beanie Baby tags) and Beanie Buddies (Buddy recreations of valuable Babies, such as the royal blue Peanut, are often mistaken for the original Baby version despite being far less valuable).
  • No, errors on tags do not add additional value to most Beanie Babies. It's widely believed that Ty deliberately put errors on tag poems (most notoriously Chocolate's poem having "rnoose" rather than "moose") in order to create artificial market hype. The same goes for many common tag errors, such as "Original" being misspelled as "Origiinal". A full breakdown of errors can be found here. The same goes for older Beanie Babies manufactured with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pellets instead of polyethylene (PE) pellets; outside of a few fringe cases, Beanies with PVC pellets are not worth more than those with PE pellets.
  • The Princess Diana memorial bear is an especially infamous example, not helped by Ty hyping it up with artificial scarcity (specifically by only allowing retailers to order twelve bears per store). Despite claims to the contrary, no version of Princess is an insanely valuable rarity selling for six- or seven-figure sums. There are specific tag/pellet combinations that are somewhat valuable^note Specifically, Indonesia-manufactured Princesses with a Canadian tush tag and PVC pellets, but those only sell for around $200 USD at most.
• Girl-Show Ghetto: Beanie Boos are clearly made to appeal more to young girls than the mostly gender-neutral Beanie Babies, which is a contributing factor as to why many fans of the old Beanies dislike them.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A Tumblr user found and purchased a mysterious Scorch with white wings, the cause of which was later determined to be sun bleaching. A few months later, a prototype of Scorch was discovered that, among other changes, had white wings.
  • One of the many prototypes for Nana/Bongo had a lavender-and-light gray color scheme. Fast forward thirty years later, and fellow primate Bananas II would use a near-identical color palette (albeit with the body and accent colors swapped).
  • The controversy surrounding Poopsie becomes a lot funnier following the introduction of Winnie the Pooh into the Public Domain. Had Ty waited 21 years to introduce Poopsie, they could've made him a proper Pooh Beanie Baby and avoided the controversy altogether.
• Like You Would Really Do It: In December 1999, Ty, Inc. announced Beanie Babies would cease production, but later held a vote to let fans decide whether to keep going. The fans overwhelmingly said yes. Given the arguably manipulative history of the franchise, this is widely seen as a last-ditch effort to maintain the fad.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Runner's "mean" poem for being absurdly brutal:
    I'm not so mean, I'm really shy
    But every cobra has to die
    I grab them by their little head
    And whack them till they're stone cold dead!!
  • Due to the infamously inflated secondary market in The '90s and its subsequent burst, it's popular to compare fads with similarly inflated markets, such as Funko Pops and NFTs, with Beanie Babies.
• More Popular Spin Off: Though many old-school collectors loathe them, Beanie Boos managed to overtake the original Beanie Babies in sales and became Ty's primary product line. Beanie Boo design tropes, such as glitter eyes, bled into Ty's other lines, Beanie Babies included.
• Obscure Popularity: While rarely discussed nowadays outside of referencing the infamous craze in The '90s, Beanie Babies and especially Boos have remained popular throughout the Turn of the Millennium and into the modern day. The popularity of Beanie Boos in particular likely lead to other plush toys adopting larger, sparkly eyes and Super-Deformed proportions, a stark contrast to how little they are talked about in wider pop culture.
• Older Than They Think: The craze really took off in 1995-1996, but the toys themselves had been around since 1993. Ty, Inc. had been selling plush toys for a good seven years before that.
• The Scrappy: The long-necked Boos, sometimes known as Ostrich Boos, aren't particularly well-liked due to their odd appearances (even among Beanie Boo fans), but two of them are especially hated:
  • A dog is an unorthodox choice for a long-necked stuffed animal, and Camilla the Poodle's design suffered from it, if fan reception is anything to go by. This is due to her veering into the Unintentional Uncanny Valley thanks to her anthropomorphic appearance (especially compared to the other canine Babies and Boos) and flesh-colored fur. It doesn't help that, for whatever reason, Ty frequently features her in online ads.
  • Gertie the Giraffe, despite being an animal that would be otherwise perfect for such a line, is considered by some to be just as bad as, if not worse than, Camilla. This is due to her bizarre Mix-and-Match Critters design, incorporating fluffy fur everywhere but her face, a dog's snout, and flipper-like arms. Many fans have unfavorably compared her to a Skin Walker wearing a giraffe's hide.
• Sweetness Aversion: Part of the reason why collectors of the original Beanie Babies loathe Beanie Boos is because they come off as trying too hard to be cute. Their giant eyes, big heads, and bright colors are the biggest points of contention.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Squish-a-Boos, later renamed to Squishy Beanies, are hated due to clearly being made to capitalize on the popularity of Squishmallows. Even fans of Beanie Boos dislike them. The only sought-after Squish-a-Boo is the 21st Billionaire Bear, and even then that's less so due to its design and more so because it's an employee-exclusive Billionaire Bear.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Many assumed the purple orangutan shown at the 2023 New York Toy Fair was Schweetheart due to their similar appearances, but he turned out to be Bananas, a post-90s Beanie Baby, instead. The only other post-90s Beanie Baby to get a re-release was Celebrate, who makes sense as he was made to be a Milestone Celebration back in the day.
  • Few people expected another Teddy iteration to get a 30th anniversary variant, let alone the Magenta Teddy.
  • Hope getting a 30th anniversary Beanie came as quite the surprise to many, as she was historically one of the less popular Beanies.
  • The mere existence of modern, original classic-style Beanie Baby designs (which began with the Valentine's Day drop) was a huge shock to many (even if they were largely Palette Swaps), as pretty much all of Ty's plush designs had incorporated design tropes associated with Beanie Boos.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • In general, Ty's human-based plushies and lines thereof tend to be maligned due to having strange faces that both look too human and not human enough. The Beanie Kids/Boppers in particular are disliked due to their soulless eyes and grins, selling for basically nothing on the secondhand market.
  • Part of the reason Camilla is considered to be The Scrappy among Beanie Boos is because, in addition to being anthropomorphic, she has a long neck and her fur is skin-colored, making her look more akin to a Skin Walker wearing a poodle's skin.