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Also, though, dovetails beautifully with gender norms around owning/running a business (I recommend Meg Conley's recent essay on the Beanie Baby market for a much more insightful version of this point). The cuteness is kind of what allows them to effectively sell anything, because it renders them perceptually powerless. So there's no threat and it declaws the capitalist underpinnings.
Also, though, dovetails beautifully with gender norms around owning/running a business (I recommend Meg Conley's recent essay on the Beanie Baby market for a much more insightful version of this point). The cuteness is kind of what allows them to effectively sell anything, because it renders them perceptually powerless. So there's no threat and it declaws the capitalist underpinnings.
Yeah, really excellent point. Makes me think in general about the gendering of capitalist enterprise as a form of obfuscation, like how MLMs are frequently articulated as being about care or wellness or other female-coded transcendent values.
Those girls can sell anything.
Can you link to the article? It sounds fascinating!
https://megconley.substack.com/p/the-beanie-baby-boom-the-influencer
Oh, this is fascinating. Thank you for sharing it! I think there's an some kind of an extension of this in 'hating on things that teen girls like'. I can't quite articulate it, but there's an intersecting track some place -- have you seen Lindsey Ellis' video essay apologizing to Stephanie Meyer? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O06tMbIKh0