A fad refers to a fashion that becomes popular in a culture relatively quickly, but loses popularity dramatically. Some fads may come back if another generation finds out about it and gets interested in it. This is a list of the worst of them.
10. Saggy Pants
Sure, if the wearers were Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie this might not be so bad – but, unfortunately, the wearer is usually a pimple-faced teen with a bad attitude. Saggy Pants (for lack of a better phrase) is the idiotic practice of wearing your pants so low that your underwear (or worse – your bare bottom) shows. Admittedly it is often more attractive than the wearer’s face, but still – cover it up! Unfortunately rather than passing quickly, this fad is sticking – and the trousers are getting lower by the season.
9. Sea-Monkeys
Sea Monkeys were first marketed in 1957 by Harold von Braunhut as Instant Life, though Braunhut changed the name to “Sea-Monkeys” on May 10, 1962. These are creatures sold in ready to go packets. To start the process, the ‘water purifier’ package is added to water on day one. The user is typically unaware that this package already contains eggs in addition to the salt. At day two, one adds the ‘instant life eggs’ package, containing Epsom salts, borax and soda ash, in addition to eggs, yeast, and sometimes a blue or green dye. The dye is used to enhance the ‘instant life’ experience by making the freshly hatched animals more visible. The Sea-Monkeys seen during the second day after adding the ‘eggs package’ are derived from the eggs added with the ‘purifier’ package. The food package is a mixture of Spirulina and dried yeast. The ‘boost’ packages mainly contain salts, which induce sexual activity in artemia. [Wikipedia]
8. Virtual Pets
Digital pets are distinct in that they have no concrete physical form other than the hardware they run on. In other words, it is a pet you can feed and walk with the press of a button, and if you forget – and it dies – it doesn’t matter – Mommy and Daddy will buy you a new one and you don’t need to learn responsibility! This ridiculous fad started with the Tamagotchi toy in Japan in 1996 when it was created by Aki Maita and sold by Bandai.
7. Mood Rings
First becoming popular in the 70s the mood ring (either a hollow glass bubble filled with thermotropic liquid crystals, or a glass stone sitting on top of a thin sheet of liquid crystals) was marketed to alert you to what mood you might be in (as if you didn’t know already!). Blue meaning happy, black meaning anxious or stressed, and a whole range of colours in between for anything from sexy to angry. They have reappeared and disappeared from shelves since the 70s, and even have their own place in a joke:
“My husband, being unhappy with my mood swings, bought me a mood ring the other day so he would be able to monitor my moods.
We’ve discovered that when I’m in a good mood, it turns blue. But when I’m in a bad mood, it leaves a big fucking red mark on his forehead.
Maybe next time he’ll buy me a diamond”.
6. Cabbage Patch Kids
Invented in 1978 and mass produced for the public in 1982, the Cabbage Patch Kid was the biggest fad of the 1980s. So much so, that it caused fist fights and near riots among parents trying to ensure their precious darlings had one for Christmas.
They were short lived as a fad, but possibly one of the most successful toys, grossing $600 million in sales in 1985. After the novelty of these dolls wore off, they were closely followed by the Garbage Pail Kids, which were collectable cards accompanied by bubble gum. Each Kid suffered from either a comical abnormality or some terrible fate, such as “Richie Retch”.
From cute and cuddly, to horrific – pure genius!
5. Lava Lamps
One of the most well liked fad items, the lava lamp was invented in the 1960s by Edward Craven Walker. Considered horribly tacky by some, the lava lamp does little else than sit in a corner and heat wax which forms lava like blobs, rises to the top of the lamp, and then sinks to the bottom as it cools. Rinse and repeat, and that’s about as far as the novelty factor goes. Perhaps that’s why they were so popular in the 60s. Just add recreational drugs.
4. Black Light
In the 1960s, the black light took off in night clubs. People would paint themselves with fluorescent paints, which would become luminous under the black light. This somehow managed to carry on through to the 80s, and merged into the punk era with such things as fluorescent spikes of hair. These days it generally tends to be used for detecting counterfeit money, genuine antiques, and attracting bugs to bug zappers. It can even be used to reassure the paranoid holiday maker; A quick pass of a black light over the sheets on a hotel bed will reveal any traces of semen!
3. Smiley Buttons
The smiley face graphic was popularized in the early 1970s by a pair of brothers, Murray and Bernard Spain, who seized upon it in a campaign to sell novelty items. The two produced buttons as well as coffee mugs, t-shirts, bumper stickers and many other items emblazoned with the symbol and the phrase “Have a happy day” (devised by Gyula Bogar). Even today we still see these buttons on nouveau-punks and, of course, frequently on the internet. [Wikipedia]
2. Pet Rock
Advertising executive, Gary Dahl, came up with this brilliant way to fool people out of a lot of money; take a rock, stick it in a box, and call it a pet. While this 1970s fad only lasted six months, its fame seems endless. The rock came with a “Pet Rock Training Manual”, with instructions on how to properly raise and care for one’s newfound pet (notably lacking instructions for feeding), was included. The instruction manual contained several commands that could be taught to the new pet. While “sit” and “stay” were effortless to accomplish, “roll over” usually required extra help from the trainer. “Come” was found to be impossible to teach reliably. [Wikipedia]
1. Baby on Board
Do I care? The sign was first marketed by Safety 1st Corporation in 1984 and became a widespread fad by 1985. According to Wikipedia, its use in the US rapidly declined by 1986 as parody imitations with lines like “Baby I’m Bored”, “Pit Bull on Board”, and “Mother-In-Law in Trunk” became popular. Unfortunately its popularity continues in the UK (and New Zealand), along with other versions such as “Princess on Board” and “Little Person on Board”, which may explain why so many English children behave so abominably in public (particularly in London). An urban legend claims that the death of a baby led to the creation of the signs. According to snopes.com, there is no truth to this claim. Comedian George Carlin considers Baby On Board to be “the three most puke-inducing words that man has yet come up with”.
Bonus: MySpace
Our bonus item is the cyberfad, MySpace. MySpace, a social networking site, is owned by Fox Interactive Media. As of September 7, 2007, the site claims to have 200 million accounts. The site has become famous for hosting some of the ugliest websites on the internet with loud music and garish backgrounds. The site is home to millions of early teenaged girls who talk entirely in capital letters with an indecipherable text-message based variant of English called “stupid”. LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLZ.
Lol, hmm, language? clueless
Spanner: The Hat thing, for me, can be explained. I used to have long hair and while working in the food industry at the time, I found that it contained my hair better. Now I do it out of habit, the ability to see better, and because no one would recognize me if I didn’t.
Crimanon.
For ‘Whatever’s’ sake don’t mind or notice me. Don’t even dignify me with an explanation. As all bigots say, “Some of my best friends wear their hats back to front.”
Unless one is making some kind of fascist judgement, whatever anyone’s personal fads are, or what they look like, doesn’t make a spit of a difference to what they are as a person, a human being. Nice young kids wearing their hats back-to-front have come up and helped us when we’ve been utterly lost in a strange town. I just say it looks kind of awkward, especially with that hole-in-the-head in front. And if you put me to a lie-detector, you’d discover I used to wear my school cap back-to-front whenever I could as a form of rebellion against formality and conformism!
Blatantly obvious though it is, worth adding here that making assumptions from how people look or what they wear is a dangerous road to begin to go down. Unless you can be absolutely sure they want to tell you unmistakeably by uniform, hood or shaven swastika they have CHOSEN to belong to something nasty. But even that can prove ambiguously complicated or tragic, as films like ‘Lacombe, Lucien’ and ‘American History X’ have set out to show us. (Not that maybe there were perhaps many outward indications, such as uniforms, in those.)
Spanner: What’s your problem? Was it really so painful for me to explain why I do it? Get that 8-track out of your ass and be civil.
Hey, come on Crimanon. Just write out where I was uncivil. Or do you think I was being sacastic?
Segue put it beautifully over on another list. In these posts we can’t see one anothers’ expressions or hear subtle tones of voice. It’s too easy to misunderstand.
I wrote something. You reacted with a reply. Maybe it it was just a throwaway, maybe not. If it had mattered ***** all, maybe you wouldn’t have replied.
What’s my problem? Which one do you want? Don’t go giving me more I haven’t got. O.K.?
I’ve known fashion fascists personally. Our younger daughter came home in tears once. The kids were making life a misery because something she wore was ‘old fashioned’. We had to go out and spend money on some expensive ***** that we needed for something else. Any harm in telling you that isn’t my game?
And aren’t these sites supposed to be interactive?
O.K. Pax from me, over to you.
By the way, Crimanon.
“Get that 8-track out of your ass”
and be civil?
Take a look in the mirror, squire.
By the way, can Baby on Board actually be qualified as a fashion fad, rather than than a way of announcing a (presumed) fact? “Disabled Driver” isn’t a fad, after all. So that means the way something instructive is written and presented can be regarded as a fad? Just throwing the idea open.
Spanner in the works: good point. =)
Boredom……..hello anybody…..
Two fads: the fohawk and the fanny packs
Spanner: I caught sarcasm. “For ‘Whatever’s’ sake don’t mind or notice me. Don’t even dignify me with an explanation. As all bigots say, “Some of my best friends wear their hats back to front.”, a very Randall thing to say. Nothing personal Randall, you’re just memorable.
“I just say it looks kind of awkward, especially with that hole-in-the-head in front.” ,actually the weird half moon thing you get while wearing you hat too long on a sunny day seems worse.
“pants and shoes back-to-front as well?”, not since the mid Nineties. Kris Kross (sp?) I think. I need to go and Jump for no reason at all now.
And ***** the Fashionistas! Teenie Bopper preteen sluts who feel bad because the jocks would rather masturbate than spend money on a date to her them complain about the other “Girls”. I don’t blame you for making your kid feel better, I blame the other parents who try to live through their own children. I STILL rock the grunge.
“Get that 8-track out of your ass”, It was a jab at your age. Like I said, I thought you were being an ass.
We good now?
Crimanon,
Absolutely no sarcasm intended, matey. It’s just my quaint, intricate 19th century limey way of putting things over. As I said, poor segue got caught out as well, plus I made an ass of myself about Poles up trees. Happens all the time. I even wondered if I was so out of touch with everyone else I just ought to ***** off out of Listverse and leave you all in peace. I’m probably dribbling out far too much e-diarrhoea (I checked the spelling. I had to) around here for a newcomer anyway.
We’re more than good. I just loved that half-moon thing. That was quite new for me. Mooning to me was hitherto what Bart Simpson does with his pants, especially to Australians (and occasionally Homer does as well).
There is still nothing better than Driving down the road on some immature snack run and pressing some hams and *****ing people off. Mooning is an art form in the states.
And watch it with the Simpson name, at least on person in this conversation is pretty attached to it. It gets scary sometimes too!
Newcomers are welcome, Just look MPW. He is Technically a newbie, He fits in just fine. There is always more room for old codgers like yourself.
Crimanon,
P’raps I should just make clear that sarcasm isn’t really my bag anyway, except as very much of a last resort. I’m more into irony or trying to calm things down by such as self-mockery. I think one always needs to give the benefit of the doubt if possible, and heavy sarcasm doesn’t, it just adds water to hot fat. If I’m into a real *****ty word situation without question, I’d prefer to hit someone straight in the teeth with four letter stuff anyway, although that isn’t always on the cards.
Crimanon,
Re your 134, I’m not sure what to make of the Simpsons warning. I love ‘The Simpsons’. It’s said to be the world’s all time favourite animated. When I’m watching them, they’re my favourite, when I’m watching ‘Futurama’, its my favourite, and when I’m watching ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’, that’s right up there too.
Unless I’m given a reason not to, I’ll keep on posting Simpsons references where they illustrate my points. I feel pretty invulnerable behind my Spanner anyway, though I suppose a determined cybernaut or CIA agent could probably track me down eventually. But why bother?
myspace is pointless
which is why it is extremely sad that i actually have myspace open in the other tab
I have had 8 out of the ten…I am ashamed of all but the black light. those things really are neat.
What’s up with the hippie in #5…. my sister had a lava lamp growing up, I was SOOO jealous ( she was older and got everything) and then I sent her this.
Ha ha ha, I recognize all these. I am proud to say that I never owned a cabbage patch doll, but I am guilty of a myspace account and a lava lamp. Oh well, this was intertaining.
its kind of sad that ive had almost all of these things…
guilty…
mmm… and myspace
but black light parties are really fun i think…
but i have never and WILL NEVER date a guy that dresses himself in pants that go down the his knees… not attractive boys.
Love that saggy pants one. That whole trend was started in the prison system, and that’s why so many guys thing its hardcore. But actually only certain convicts would wear their pants low to tell other guys they’re into the whole sodomy thing! That’s seriously how it started! So when you see saggy pants on the street, and you’re friend says “that’s so gay”, he’s actually right!
My sea monkeys never looked like the ones on the package. It made me sad.
I bet if all the young people who wear their pants down around their ankles knew how it started and what it meant, they wouldn’t do it anymore. haha
I think Black Lights are still great! Graffiti parties were my favorite theme parties!…except for the stupid girls who came there and got in a tif because they got messy. Honestly, why go to a graffiti party (or any college party for that matter) if you’re trying to keep your clothes pristinely white?
How about tramp stamps? Be honest… decades later, the ink will blur and it’ll look like a permanent shart stain. Tramp stamps also connect to the low rider jean fad which only 0.2% of the population can actually pull off. Muffintops are not *****y.
And there was some card collectible game with pokemon-looking characters that fought or battled? They weren’t pokemon but they reminded me of them. I don’t know what it is but my godson loved those. He and his friends were obsessed with amassing them. He made me play it with him once. The main object of the game appeared to be “confuse your godmother and create many random and often contradictory rules to ensure that you win at all costs.”
How about leg warmers? *Shudder*. 80′s dance movies and Jane Fonda have a lot to answer for!
The things we do to be trendy. The exposed thong and the “tramp stamp”. I’ve always thought these made women look trashy. I’ve always hated sagging, never understood why showing your underwear is cool. Myspace doesn’t bother me as much as the poor typing. Sorry, but I find phrases like LOL,FTW, and using r and u instead of are and you annoying.
hmm…i think the twilight series should be on this.
The word “cool” is a fad that I thought would go away… My new word is ridonculous …
Add wearing baseball caps backward or to one side. That looks cute until you’re 5 or 6. After that, it just looks like you’re too stupid to know which way your cap goes on. What? They are? Well OK, then. Their guardians or caretakers have my sympathy.
I am not so sure that the baggy pant trend started in prison. I recall in 1968 visiting my Aunt in her new hood in Baltimore as a kid and seeing the guys in the neighborhood wearing baggy pants that hung below their waists and brightly colored polyester boxer shorts that resembled silk (they were called silks). This trend then caught on all over Baltimore about a year later and lasted several more. Someone also mentioned MC Hammer pants. I bought two pair for my daughter for back to school. I thought they were cool and she never complained until this year when she told me that no one else in her school wore them! We laughed about that until we cried. I thought I was a cool mom! My teens let me pick out all of their clothes, but I quess this was just too fashion forward!
Thank you!! THE BOB stickers always rubbed me the wrong way-big time.
Tanslation: I’m a self-important ***** b/c I’ve reproduced. I’m a hazard on four wheels, and I’mgoing to keep driving and endangering others as a self-important *****-however I want everybody else to make special exceptions for me, to make up for it.
While I drive carefully, I bet there are a lot of people who rebel against those stupid signs, and drive deliberately recklessly around those cars. I can see the temptation. And I too hate the idea that because you have a family you’re suddenly more valuable. LOVED the Simpsons quote.
If it was safe, I’d put an I don’t care if you have a baby on board sticker on my car.
Is the retarded ghetto spelling for ridiculous going to go away any time soon? (You know the “rediculous” or “ridonculous” – or whatever.)
It just struck me, how often do babies even need to be in the car? Seriously, if it’s so damn dangerous, then don’t drive them anywhere unless you really need to.
(A baby is way too young for day care. How many vaccinations and doctors visits do they really need? And they sure as hell don’t need to be in movie theatres. Be a good parent stay home, have your neighbours and family babysit, and raise your damn kid at home.)
I’m back. Love the site. Have to share my most hated trend that won’t go away. Absolutely #1. Men who don’t shave everyday. The homeless man stubble. Please please make it go away! The plumber’s crack was bad enough, but seriously, was gen y exposed to crack in the womb? Even Kurt Cobain shaved. Either shave or grow a beard already-one or the other. And I hate beards. I have to laugh every time I hear about some hot new actor. Honestly how can I tell under all the stubble, and usually greasy skin too. (I could grease my pan with Justin Timberlake’s face, and clean it up too, with just the bristles on hs face.) These trashy celebs just look like bums in suits to me.
And it’s not some return to masculinity. They’re usually the most effeminate, spoiled, narcissistic metro*****uals.
Honestly we need to start discriminating against men who don’t shave. Or maybe spank their skanky exposed low rider butts to death with BOB signs. I have no patience with these apathetic slackers. If women have to shave everything, and I mean everything, shave your g-damn face now and then.
Sorry I just can’t resist. Forgive the length, but I need to know there are others out there like me. For women, maternity tunics. Honestly what is the point of a celebrity weighing ninety pounds, if they go around looking like they reside in a retirement village. UGH!
“It’s amazing how crazy drivers are, and how ignorant they are of the fact that my 6-month-old son could very well be killed by said morons. It’s unbelievable, and scary, really.”
What so drivers should only be careful around you?! What’s offensive is the idea that you’re uniquely precious and others aren’t, just because you reproduced. Given the distraction that babies are in a moving vehicle, you are the hazard on the road. And YOU should be the one driving defensively. Notice how all the people here have made the universally true observation that people with these signs are the most endangering of drivers. And why shouldn’t such self-important fecund twits be terrible inconsiderate drivers, since they clearly believe their safety matters more than others. Moreover your sense of entitlement most likely creates hazards that don’t concern you at all, such as blocking your vision with this stupid sign (which also distracts drivers)and driving minivans and SUVs that no one else can see around, especially when trying to turn into traffic. In addition, when you leave that idiotic sign in during an accident when your baby is at home, rescue worker waste time looking for a baby; Time wasted they could have been helping those non infantile humans that apparently don’t merit as much consideration. BTW, if you live in CA, that illegal alien behind you probably doesn’t care if you have a brat on board, if they can read the sign at all. And just a warning, while I drive safely regardless, you really are tempting the rebels and the sadistic with your irritating sign.
You and your family are not the only people in the world. Honestly how often does your baby even need to go anywhere. This is another argument for one parent staying home and raising their damn baby.
Hmmm, who’s the clueless “moron”?
excuse me what is this list? insult the English? sod off
and i do hate the saggy pant thing looks like they ***** themselves b.t.w did you know that fad started in u.s prisons as they wasn`t allowed belts there trousers slipped and i guess it the cons continued it on the “outside” bloody losers. oh yes and nothing wrong with the English and my 2 kids (9 and 13) are very well behaved thanks
this Twitter fad is annoying as all hell….especially the “celebrity” twittering
160. jussayin – “this Twitter fad is annoying as all hell….especially the “celebrity” twittering”
I concur. One of my friends was talking so excitedly about it and at one point he was like “…and Shaq twitters that he’s going to such and such restaurant and for all the other twitter people to meet up with him!” ….I was like…and then what?
Seems stalker-ish and voyeuristic to me, imo.
Baby on board.
I agree these look silly, but I have heard that they are designed to alert emergency services that there is a child in the vechicle in the event of an accident.
Whether this is an effective thing I don’t know, but parents of young children are easy to market to when the safety of their children are involved.
I am guilty of Tamagotchi, Sea Monkies, Smily face pins, lava lamps, cabbage patch kids, and I have three bouncing pet rocks. Never had a myspace, never wanted one. Though, I still have my tamagotchi, right now, I can see it on the table….the battery died ~.~,,,
I’d just like to add:
leg warmers, New Kids on the Block, reality TV and corporate fascism.
4 things that have been blindly accepted, but done nothing but cause misery over the long haul.
“Baby on board…something something Burt Ward.”
On the baggy pants issue…I have to say there are a couple different stages. One which was popular when I was in high school the guys would literally wear their pants so their entire butts (fortunately covered by boxers) would hang out. Oddly enough, they’d then wear a belt to make sure the pants stayed put. The second is how my OH wears his pants, just a little bit of boxers hanging out. I don’t really mind as I’ve been told it’s a comfort thing and I’ve also noticed that he doesn’t do it all the time.
SallySweet: The trim is alright. It’s like the male equivalent of the “whale tail”. Some men can pull it off, others not so much. Once you get into the fabric or see sponge bob, it’s a problem.
The link is a bit risque http://whaletailworld.com/ so if you are easily offended just google it.
Also, ugg boots, blackberries, beanie babies, erasers that are shaped like inanimate objects, peek-a-poohs, gameboy, iPhone, FML…all equally suck.
I can’t believe after 160 odd comments that no one mentioned HyperColour T-Shirts. They worked fine until your mother put them through a warm wash. And Cross-Colour Pants, giant pants that came in the most obscene coulours imaginable. I can’t believe I wore them. But my number one hated was Pink Polo shirts, especially with the collar popped up. Even girls thought guys who wore them were gay. I can honestly say I never fell for that one.
Ugh, I don’t get Twitter. I mean, it’s popular, but I use my account rarely, and even then, it’s to comment on recent events, not give stupid blow-by-blow accounts on the ‘Net.
That’s what blogs are for.
i still have my cabbage patch kid!
Shrinky dinks.
Btw, check out crazyfads.com
Oh man. You shouldn’t have put mood rings on there. I bought one the last time I saw my cousin and then when he died a year later I put put it in his casket with him. I was 13 and he was 14. =/
OH!! You forgot Twitter, WoW, and scene kids.
With #10 strangely enough the FAD comes (apparently) from black americans who were in poverty. Pairs of trousers (pants to some) were passed down the generations, often being a few sizes too big for the younger siblings, meaning they were baggy.
Some how that’s become a fashion.
OMG the BOB signs are everywhere, and annoying. The worst I’ve seen is “Princess on board”…
Who cares? Seriously, they’re NOT gonna save you. They just cost you money and bad impression. The rest of the world do not care about you or you baby. It may sound curel but it’s true. who cares if someone else’s baby dies?
Well, it’s biological that parent’s think their kids are the best treasure in the world. That’s what makes them seem proud and annoying…Can’t hlp it…
Baggy pants have been going strong for over ten years. Did you call Rock-n-roll fad ten years after it started? As much as I hate it you can call it a lifestyle.
4 the no 10 ***** you bastards. who made this list can suck my dick
baggy pants….. hahahahahaha u all look stupid!! i dont wanna see ur dirty skid marked under wear!
i have a baby on board sign in my car,as if it will actually make other drivers safer…. waste of time i suppose.
the bonus pic sums up the town i live in. disgusting ‘chavs’ lol
@porkicecream (176): dont have kids do u?
it shows.
no the signs will not save ur child’s life in the event of some idiot crashing into ur car. but just to advertise the fact that we have a baby in our car does at least say ‘please drive carefully’.
and if someone else’s baby were to die(be it car crash or something else) then u do feel their parents’ pain what with also having kids ur self.
perhaps u should think before opening ur mouth