A story from the back ends of 2014 recirculated yesterday, warning the 90s kids that their beloved beanie babies would soon be the proud parents of non-plush baby spiders. Thankfully, we know the birth of the spider hoard is just a hoax meant to profit the people who want to go dumpter diving for your soon-to-be profitable collection of plush.
Or maybe we’re just paranoid.
The original hoax, published by Cickhole on November 5, 2014, told Beanie Babies owners to expect spiders “bursting from the seams” of the plush collectables.
“For nearly two decades now, your Beanie Babies have served as protective sacs for the spider eggs they harbor, providing a warm, dark atmosphere for the arthropods to pass through their larval stages. Manufacturer Ty Inc confirmed that each Beanie is stuffed with approximately 6,000 spider eggs, though unless you’ve been storing them in a secure, low-humidity environment, you should realistically only expect between 800 to 1,000 spiders to spawn through your Beanies’ fabric.”
Thankfully, the “warm, dark atmosphere” of Beanie Babies did not breed another slog of spiders. Ron Weasley would be relieved.
As much as the creepy crawly possibility of spiders hiding in our childhood toys may give us the heebie jeebies, it is important to remember that sites like Clickhole are not news source. The Onion offshoot even published an explanation:
“We strive to make sure that all of our content panders to and misleads our readers just enough to make it go viral. You see, we don’t think anything on the internet should ever have to settle for mere tens of thousands of page views. We believe that each and every article — whether about pop culture, politics, internet trends, or social justice – should be clicked on and shared by hundreds of millions of internet users before they can even comprehend what they just read.”
Still, we should all take care to keep our Beanie Babies in good condition. Who knows when one of those squishable faces will be enough to buy a house?
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