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Beanie Babies are a line of stuffed toys created by American businessman H. Ty Warner, who founded Ty Inc. in 1986. Notably, the toys are stuffed with plastic pellets ("beans", making them "beanie") rather than conventional soft stuffing (PVC and PE), giving Beanie Babies a flexible feel. The "babies" part of the name does not literally refer to an infant; the toys come in many different forms, mostly animals. In an interview, Warner said, "The whole idea was it looked real because it moved."
Although created in 1993, during the last half of the 1990s, Beanie Babies emerged as a major fad and collectible. They have been cited as being the world's first Internet sensation in 1995. They were collected not only as toys but also as a financial investment, due to the high resale value of particular ones.