A virtual Fidget Spinner

No one, because they're not branded or licensed. The people doing well out of them own the factories in China that make them, or buy them from those factories to mark up and sell to the gas stations and convenience stores where they get marked up again and sold to the kids who want them.

Thirty (twenty?) years ago, it was "slap bracelets". Same story; it's just that the Internet makes everything faster.

The Fidget Spinner as we know it came about because the patent holder could not afford the fees to renew the said patent. Her name is Catherine Hettinger[1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/03/fidget-...

They did exist, they just weren't very popular.

I remember back in January, there was this video [1] that kept showing in everybody's recommended videos, similar to the "1000 DEGREE EXPERIMENTAL KNIVES" video from MrGear [2]. It became popular very quickly and so the trend started.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP-tqMKqDAQ

[2] https://youtu.be/hjSheQ7LgJ4

According to an article linked here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14271914 Catherine Hettinger filed the original patent

Perhaps Ripple have something to do with it - http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ripple/