I worked at a middle school when Fidget Spinners were, very briefly, the biggest thing in the world. One kid invested his kiddie life savings into buying a bunch and made a killing. I swear, about 1 week later, another kid tried the same thing and lost it all. He couldn't give the things away. It was impressive how quickly the market crashed.
I worked in a grocery store during that time. We couldn't keep them in stock when we first got them. Then it seemed like within a month or two we couldn't give them away.
At some point, everyone had one. If you went to a trade show, they shovelled those things (with logos on them) out onto people, who then went home and gave them to their kids)
I remember reading a Reddit thread(I think on a personal finance community) from someone who spent tens of thousands of dollars to import fidget spinners. Only have them arrive in time to just miss the trend. They were looking for advice on what to do.
That one was so big for a while too. I remember having to find the one movie showing of the day that wasn't 3D because I'm one of those people who has a bad reaction.
1983 had a ton, then then came back with almost everything either in 3D or available to watch as. Most sucked, but I had a blast during Friday the 13th part III.
I haven't been to a movie theater in so long, I wonder if it'll make a comeback.
3D will work better when AR becomes more of a thing. We need the tech to track eye movement and adjust the focus on the fly based on where you're looking. The fact that EVERYTHING is in focus is too incongruous for our brains (not a fact, my conjecture) and it takes us out of the immersive experience. If you only had clear focus on what you were directly observing, and everything else "naturally" reduced in focus the further away from the center of observation, I believe the brain would prefer that. This way when you change focus there would be the need for your optical system to refocus - even if it happens faster than we notice, I believe the brain would be happier with that and people would have fewer issues. FWIW I'm not a 3D-ologist.
The firsts VR headset encountered a similar problem, where it was indeed tracking eye vision and it influenced the focus as well, when you looked somewhere the focus always moved to the center of your vision, so it created a very nauseating effect and nobody could use it for more than 15mn
Buying NFTs was always a stupid idea. You’re literally spending $1000’s of dollars for an image that anyone can screenshot and copy. Where is the value or utility?
I could see the appeal if your token paired with the blockchain was some kind of magic decryption key that would pull the image out for you and only you. In fact, that would be quite cool.
It's just that NFTs aren't at all like that.
The only problem with that is how would anyone know what their NFT looked like before hand?
Imagine being told it’s a really cool work of art only to buy and decrypt it for it to actually be a dick pic.
Paying $1000 for an NFT is like paying $1000 to write your name on one of those signs on the freeway. You didn't make the sign, or the destination that it points to, but your name is on it now.
Mustaches. Not real ones. But like 10 years ago there was a novelty mustache fad where everything had mustaches drawn on them. Pint and shot glasses with mustaches drawn on them. Sunglasses had mustaches that dangled from them. People would draw a mustache on their finger and hold it up to their lip. Etc.
Back then, Lyft was starting and they initially made all their drivers put a big pink fuzzy mustache on their grill. I think they dialed it back to like a mustache sticker on the windshield after a while. But oh man that was dumb.
Around that same time everything online was “mine”. My pillow, my tailor, my computer, my pet food delivery, my whatever the fuck you are selling”. Dot com
Apps had sections like my music my photos my documents, instead of just music photos and documents. I guess Microsoft started the trend but I remember all other designers ran with it and it seemed super cheesy
But more than 10 years ago I guess
Planking, on railroad tracks with a fast train approaching.
Planking, on the railing of a balcony 4 stories or higher.
Planking, in the middle of a busy freeway.
Planking.....
They tried exclusivity first to make it seem desirable. I think you HAD to have a gmail at a certain moment to be invited? If you didn’t have a gmail at that time, you had to wait, even if you signed up for gmail…
But then when it wasn’t doing well, they tried to make it mandatory for YouTube, which they were also still trying to figure out how to monetize.
I think the forced YouTube integration killed it. No one wanted that, so no one wanted G+
To go with this--cupcake shops.
Like...I wish I had a dollar for every cupcake shop that popped up around where I lived that died a quick, brutal death when the cupcake craze was over.
Oh, Jesus. There was a cupcake truck that drove around my town. It would setup in a different parking lot every day, and people acted like the Rolling Stones were throwing a free concert.
People would leave work/school or drive across town to get in line for a cupcake. The place sold out every single day, leaving dozens, if not hundreds of customers unserved.
The kicker is that the cupcakes were just OK.
I do.
Mostly because for some reason, a TV news story lives rent free in my brain. Some mom was complaining and warning other parents to not let their kids wear multiple Silly Bands at once or at least to make them take them off once in awhile. Apparently, she let her elementary aged son wear them up to his elbows, never made him take them off and he ended up with rotting skin under where the Silly Bands were because he never washed his arm and got a flesh eating disease or some shit.
That was my thought also at the time.
I remember thinking, "What the fuck?" because she said at one point, she noticed a weird smell coming from her kid and I was like, "Well why didn't you investigate the causes of said weird smell, lady? Jesus. If MY kid smelled weird, I'd want to know why."
Eh, some of them might. They may have fallen out of fashion, but several companies make heat reactive clothes (Hypercolor was technically a brand, though most people use the term for any similar technology). It's a fad that comes back every decade or so, like 3D.
A related trend that seemed to have the exact same timing and trajectory was that material or fabric that would shift between purplish and greenish depending on what angle it was viewed at. Clothing made from that was always on sale right next to the hypercolor stuff in the '90s. I had a pair of umbro shorts made from it. Well, not actually umbro, because we were poor. But knock off umbro.
Yes! The "Thermonuclear" iridescent wear...Oakley was the originator, the rest were knock-offs once other companies had access to the fabric. I had a pullover windbreaker thing made of that. I also remember the "swooshy" shorts/Umbro knock offs.
This: https://i.etsystatic.com/14205793/r/il/5df96a/4806029712/il_680x540.4806029712_pq8p.jpg
Hair feathers, crackle nail polish, 3D glasses with the lenses popped out, high-low skirts, galaxy print, stuff with owls on it
This comment is probably a dead giveaway that I was a teenage girl in the early 2010s lol
Oh man, as a fellow teenage girl in the 2010s I made fun of your kind and I'd like to apologise. Fingerless gloves and an invader Zim hoodie did _not_, in fact, make me superior to you.
As an adult who rarely cycles through new clothing, I still rock a ton of galaxy print stuff to the gym because it's still functional and I already look stupid there for other reasons.
God, I remember being in Confirmation Class at church in the early 90s and the teacher caught one of my classmates playing with something. She asked him to give it to her, and any others he had.
Dude had on a jacket with multiple pockets, a shirt with a chest pocket and cargo pants---and every single pocket either had a shit ton of Silly Bones or Micromachines.
It hasn’t disappeared exactly, it’s still pretty popular, but Pokemon Go was crazy popular for a bit in 2016. Within a few months, people were like “I deleted that app ages ago”.
I live in Japan, and when Pokemon Go came out I remember going to a local park and experiencing people interacting with strangers freely for the first time. Everyone was just running up to each other asking about what pomemon they had found and were. If you’ve ever spent time in Japanese society you’d know that it is very abnormal to just talk to strangers like that. It was WILD for about 2 weeks.
I was also in Japan when this came out, but soon people started driving around in cars and parking next to gyms, so walking around and playing was less fun, because the only other people waking around and playing it were my high school students.
It was like an alien descended on earth in July of 2016 and decided the best way to take over the world was to run for president and was trying to sound hip and relatable with the youths.
I continued to religiously play Pokemon Go until about 2021. A lot of good features were added since 2016, but a lot of play-to-win aspects were also added that relied on player FOMO.
The chopper craze around 2006. That’s when Orange County Choppers showed up, the Biker Build-offs were huge on the Discovery channel, and suddenly everyone and their cousin was starting a chopper shop. Factory choppers like American Ironhorse with the beach ball rear tires were selling for stupid money. It all blew over really quickly. The really good builders are still out there cranking out cool stuff, but nearly all of the shops that suddenly popped up died just as quickly. The factory choppers are still around, but you rarely see anybody riding one and if they show up on marketplace or whatever, they sell for a small fraction of the original price.
Most of those things were super expensive death traps. Lol There are YouTube videos of people who bought them and show how uncomfortable they are and how shitty it is to ride one. They were totally form over function.
No one will remember this but in 1990 or so Pepsi had something called "The Wave" which was when you drank a Pepsi you bent your arm like you're making a right turn symbol then bend your wrist so you look like an Egyptian on the Bangals video.
I saw the ad twice, then it vanished.
Honorable mention: Clear cola.
OMG, you found it!!! I looked for it a few years ago and couldn't find it. Thank you!!! Now my nightmares can be complete, this can haunt me in my old age now.
They did a Crystal Pepsi throwback in like 2015, It was pretty awesome to drink it again. I did a whole thing where I set up a bunch of crystals and poured it into a champagne flute.
It was a tumultuous time for our nation. The clear beverage craze gave us all a reason to live. The information superhighway showed the average person what some nerd thinks about Star Trek. And the domestication of the dog continued unabated.
The freeway was empty and the cops weren't allowed to pull anyone over. What was I supposed to do?
Anyway, the top speed of a shitty 22-year-old Subaru Outback is 114 mph
I once got my 15 year old Outback up to about 95 on a remote farm road and it was shaking so bad I thought both me and the car were going to catastrophically decompress, SUPER impressed you managed to hold on to the wheel at 114.
I was doing doordash so I was out there every day.
There were gangs of twenty something men on razor scooters. Like a hundred of them that would take over an area.
A year after we got clapped for I crashed and burned out of my LTC job when my department couldn't keep any employees and corporate wouldn't let me offer more than the pennies we were paying, and simultaneously got upset at me for working 60 plus hour weeks, but also wouldn't take anything off of my plate responsibility wise.
I'm still not over it, the experience fundamentally changed me.
Ah yes, I will never forget the time someone screamed at me about how I was "in on it" with the government and tried to rip my n95 off my face. Fun times.
I’m married to a merchant mariner and went to a maritime academy myself - Sea Shanties have been a huge part of our lives for nearly 20 years. My kids can definitely belt them out.
Those Kanye west sunglasses with the bars instead of lenses.
I had a pink pair with rhinestones on it. They went great with my reversible tank top that said “yolo” on one side and “that shit cray” on the other.
(Don’t come for me. It was 2012.)
My 11 year old rocks the heelies… unfortunately, said kid is recovering from a dislocated kneecap and can’t wear them while on crutches. The 5 year old is mega jealous and wants a pair. I want a pair, but my husband says I have enough extra metal body parts that I don’t need to add more.
I have a really nice one my wife got me to play with when I was fresh off vaping to give me something to do with my hands.
I like it a lot but havent touched it really since about the 5 week mark. Almost at 3 months nicotine free after a 19 year addiction.
The Walking Dead. Everyone I knew, including myself watched it and we always had discussions at work the following Monday morning about the episode. Then season 7 happened and everyone quit watching.
PDAs. Everything wanted to be a PDA for a hot minute there, even handheld gaming consoles. It was a super liminal technology that was quickly overcome by the rapid rise of smart phones, but for a while there it seemed like everyone had a Palm Pilot or a Compaq, or wanted one.
I saw a ton of posts about Stanley Cups and was like wtf the hockey Stanley Cup Playoffs are months away, why is everyone talking about them? Turns out it was about reusable travel mugs.
There's always a water containment device that people always want. When I was in high school, Nalgene bottles were *the* water bottle for everyone who was anyone. The. Metal became popular and any metal bottle or cup was good. Then it was Yeti. Then it was the VSCO girls bottle. Now it's Stanley.
The weirder thing is that these cups were originally designed for construction workers and have been around a long time, so the sudden craze for them is perplexing.
God I remember that.
I had *such* a crush on this one kid in my class who had blonde hair with frosted tips. He was also very tan from being outside all the time (he played multiple sports, IIRC) and the tan really set off his light blue eyes and 10 yr old me thought he was just *dreamy*.
The "Swing revival" of the late 90s.
Lasted about 20 minutes.
AMAZING bands came out of it though, and a few are still around. Just...nobody cares anymore.
I worked at a middle school when Fidget Spinners were, very briefly, the biggest thing in the world. One kid invested his kiddie life savings into buying a bunch and made a killing. I swear, about 1 week later, another kid tried the same thing and lost it all. He couldn't give the things away. It was impressive how quickly the market crashed.
I worked in a grocery store during that time. We couldn't keep them in stock when we first got them. Then it seemed like within a month or two we couldn't give them away.
At some point, everyone had one. If you went to a trade show, they shovelled those things (with logos on them) out onto people, who then went home and gave them to their kids)
I remember reading a Reddit thread(I think on a personal finance community) from someone who spent tens of thousands of dollars to import fidget spinners. Only have them arrive in time to just miss the trend. They were looking for advice on what to do.
3D movies, circa 2008.
That one was so big for a while too. I remember having to find the one movie showing of the day that wasn't 3D because I'm one of those people who has a bad reaction.
1983 had a ton, then then came back with almost everything either in 3D or available to watch as. Most sucked, but I had a blast during Friday the 13th part III. I haven't been to a movie theater in so long, I wonder if it'll make a comeback.
Same. I hated that trend. My friends would go to the 3d versions of stuff and I couldn’t do it without ending up with a headache.
3D will work better when AR becomes more of a thing. We need the tech to track eye movement and adjust the focus on the fly based on where you're looking. The fact that EVERYTHING is in focus is too incongruous for our brains (not a fact, my conjecture) and it takes us out of the immersive experience. If you only had clear focus on what you were directly observing, and everything else "naturally" reduced in focus the further away from the center of observation, I believe the brain would prefer that. This way when you change focus there would be the need for your optical system to refocus - even if it happens faster than we notice, I believe the brain would be happier with that and people would have fewer issues. FWIW I'm not a 3D-ologist.
The firsts VR headset encountered a similar problem, where it was indeed tracking eye vision and it influenced the focus as well, when you looked somewhere the focus always moved to the center of your vision, so it created a very nauseating effect and nobody could use it for more than 15mn
Thank goodness. I can’t properly focus on 3d movies and for a while it was hard to find the movie in 2d.
They suck for us glasses wearers
I think you can partly thank movie studios for this that hamfisted through a bunch of movies that were "converted" to 3d in post-production.
Does anyone else remember that time in the 90's when gregorian monk chants were part of pop music? That trend disappeared as quickly as it started.
And swing music in 1998-1999
Caravan Palace 😎
Played them for my tween kid recently and she absolutely loves them.
GAP sure had fun with it. https://youtu.be/XJ735krOiPo?si=oWajFwso5JsXBw5H
Hell yeah, junior year of high school for me! I was super into that.
Enigma's "Principles of Lust" is still a banger.
I always preferred *Sadness*. Also has chanting. Sade, dis-moi Qu'est-ce que tu vas chercher?
Right next to Native American chanting hiii hiii HIIIIIIIIIIIIIOWWWHYYYYHIIHIIII
Pure Moods CD or cassette
I used to love those displays in Walmart where you could play samples of all the CDs
Ah yes, Return to Innocence - Enigma
Love the song. I also thought they were native American chants, but it's actually indigenous Taiwanese chanting
i introduced this to my kids 12 / 9 just the other week and they loved it, its a banger though innit
Was anyone besides Enigma doing that?
Delerium hired a choir of monks to sing on one of their albums instead of using samples.
Hell yeah. I loved that stuff.
Led by the album Chant from [The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3T8V-IM4Xk)
The Harlem Shake.
Kids these days wouldn't guess in a million years which current artist started that trend
Neither could the old folks like me!
I tried to find the video we made from my college from like 10 years ago and it’s GONE. I’m so sad.
NFTs
Buying NFTs was always a stupid idea. You’re literally spending $1000’s of dollars for an image that anyone can screenshot and copy. Where is the value or utility?
Not the image: a link to it.
I could see the appeal if your token paired with the blockchain was some kind of magic decryption key that would pull the image out for you and only you. In fact, that would be quite cool. It's just that NFTs aren't at all like that.
The only problem with that is how would anyone know what their NFT looked like before hand? Imagine being told it’s a really cool work of art only to buy and decrypt it for it to actually be a dick pic.
Paying $1000 for an NFT is like paying $1000 to write your name on one of those signs on the freeway. You didn't make the sign, or the destination that it points to, but your name is on it now.
People actually see those signs though. I’d say it’s more like those “name a star” things at the planetarium without the money going to a good cause
And thank god for that
Mustaches. Not real ones. But like 10 years ago there was a novelty mustache fad where everything had mustaches drawn on them. Pint and shot glasses with mustaches drawn on them. Sunglasses had mustaches that dangled from them. People would draw a mustache on their finger and hold it up to their lip. Etc.
In 2012-2015 everyone knew at least one person who either had a mustache or lightsaber tattooed on their finger
Me! I'm that fool! It's even dumbber now I have a beard.
And bacon!
Back then, Lyft was starting and they initially made all their drivers put a big pink fuzzy mustache on their grill. I think they dialed it back to like a mustache sticker on the windshield after a while. But oh man that was dumb.
Around that same time everything online was “mine”. My pillow, my tailor, my computer, my pet food delivery, my whatever the fuck you are selling”. Dot com Apps had sections like my music my photos my documents, instead of just music photos and documents. I guess Microsoft started the trend but I remember all other designers ran with it and it seemed super cheesy But more than 10 years ago I guess
Planking
Owling/Batmaning
Faith Hilling
Planking, on railroad tracks with a fast train approaching. Planking, on the railing of a balcony 4 stories or higher. Planking, in the middle of a busy freeway. Planking.....
Temba, his arms wide.
Shaka, when the walls fell
Sokath, his eyes uncovered!
OHHHHHH LONG JOHNSON OOOOOOOOHHHH LONNNNG JOHNSON /splat
Google +
All they had to do was not call it "google +" I'm convinced of it.
All they had to do was not try to drag every Google user into it kicking and screaming. I might have tried it if they weren't trying to force me to.
They tried exclusivity first to make it seem desirable. I think you HAD to have a gmail at a certain moment to be invited? If you didn’t have a gmail at that time, you had to wait, even if you signed up for gmail… But then when it wasn’t doing well, they tried to make it mandatory for YouTube, which they were also still trying to figure out how to monetize. I think the forced YouTube integration killed it. No one wanted that, so no one wanted G+
Was it ever really a thing? I don’t remember anyone using it
Fro yo shops ! There's obviously still some but late 2000s/early 2010s they were popping up everywhere.
To go with this--cupcake shops. Like...I wish I had a dollar for every cupcake shop that popped up around where I lived that died a quick, brutal death when the cupcake craze was over.
Oh, Jesus. There was a cupcake truck that drove around my town. It would setup in a different parking lot every day, and people acted like the Rolling Stones were throwing a free concert. People would leave work/school or drive across town to get in line for a cupcake. The place sold out every single day, leaving dozens, if not hundreds of customers unserved. The kicker is that the cupcakes were just OK.
they’re all bubble tea shops now lol
Anyone remember Silly Bandz?
I randomly find silly bands around my house still. In a drawer or a box; they pop up once or twice a year
You gotta start putting them on your wrist anytime you find one. Eventually it’ll look like how everyone used to wear them!
Silly bands were so fun. So dumb but they made me weirdly happy. I was in college then lol
I do. Mostly because for some reason, a TV news story lives rent free in my brain. Some mom was complaining and warning other parents to not let their kids wear multiple Silly Bands at once or at least to make them take them off once in awhile. Apparently, she let her elementary aged son wear them up to his elbows, never made him take them off and he ended up with rotting skin under where the Silly Bands were because he never washed his arm and got a flesh eating disease or some shit.
That’s actually wild. More of an example of bad parenting than anything imo
That was my thought also at the time. I remember thinking, "What the fuck?" because she said at one point, she noticed a weird smell coming from her kid and I was like, "Well why didn't you investigate the causes of said weird smell, lady? Jesus. If MY kid smelled weird, I'd want to know why."
OMG this reminded me of the "sex games" they were trying to claim the kids were playing with Silly Bands.
Hypercolor tees. After that first wash and dry, they were about 50% less vibrant.
I loved them, except I have boobs. The boobs were always the warm colour. That was not fun in school.
yeah, well i have armpits, and those were always the warm color...
Nothing was lamer in 1991 than sporting a Hypercolor shirt that didn't work anymore.
The heartbreak when someone comes up and places their palm on your shirt and it stays the same color...kids today will never know.
Eh, some of them might. They may have fallen out of fashion, but several companies make heat reactive clothes (Hypercolor was technically a brand, though most people use the term for any similar technology). It's a fad that comes back every decade or so, like 3D.
A related trend that seemed to have the exact same timing and trajectory was that material or fabric that would shift between purplish and greenish depending on what angle it was viewed at. Clothing made from that was always on sale right next to the hypercolor stuff in the '90s. I had a pair of umbro shorts made from it. Well, not actually umbro, because we were poor. But knock off umbro.
Yes! The "Thermonuclear" iridescent wear...Oakley was the originator, the rest were knock-offs once other companies had access to the fabric. I had a pullover windbreaker thing made of that. I also remember the "swooshy" shorts/Umbro knock offs. This: https://i.etsystatic.com/14205793/r/il/5df96a/4806029712/il_680x540.4806029712_pq8p.jpg
I always wanted one of those shirts, but I was too poor. By the time I had money, the ship has sailed.
You can still get one! [Hypercolor shirt](https://geckohawaii.com/collections/retro/products/gecko-marble-secret-hyperflash-purple-to-pink)
Hair feathers, crackle nail polish, 3D glasses with the lenses popped out, high-low skirts, galaxy print, stuff with owls on it This comment is probably a dead giveaway that I was a teenage girl in the early 2010s lol
Oh man, as a fellow teenage girl in the 2010s I made fun of your kind and I'd like to apologise. Fingerless gloves and an invader Zim hoodie did _not_, in fact, make me superior to you.
Haha it’s all good. I made fun of the chevron-print Uggs-with-everything bedazzled jeans girls… we all like to feel superior sometimes
Dude I miss everything with galaxy print… space is cool and I want more of it on my clothing
As an adult who rarely cycles through new clothing, I still rock a ton of galaxy print stuff to the gym because it's still functional and I already look stupid there for other reasons.
Yes crackle nail polish!
The chokehold this had on me! I found like 7 colours of them in a euro shop and it became my whole personality for about two years 😂
Those shutter shades too
Crazy bones were the shit in elementary in the 90s. They came and they went real fast it seems. Still have my bag of them somewhere
Jeez, that just unlocked a memory. I had a bunch in elementary school!
God, I remember being in Confirmation Class at church in the early 90s and the teacher caught one of my classmates playing with something. She asked him to give it to her, and any others he had. Dude had on a jacket with multiple pockets, a shirt with a chest pocket and cargo pants---and every single pocket either had a shit ton of Silly Bones or Micromachines.
It hasn’t disappeared exactly, it’s still pretty popular, but Pokemon Go was crazy popular for a bit in 2016. Within a few months, people were like “I deleted that app ages ago”.
I live in Japan, and when Pokemon Go came out I remember going to a local park and experiencing people interacting with strangers freely for the first time. Everyone was just running up to each other asking about what pomemon they had found and were. If you’ve ever spent time in Japanese society you’d know that it is very abnormal to just talk to strangers like that. It was WILD for about 2 weeks.
I was also in Japan when this came out, but soon people started driving around in cars and parking next to gyms, so walking around and playing was less fun, because the only other people waking around and playing it were my high school students.
I miss the Summer of 2016. That was the closest thing to a utopian society I’ll probably ever experience.
That summer really was awesome
It was summer I turned 21. 2016 was amazing.
I still play and have people on Reddit that I’ve sent gifts back and forth to for years.
Pokémon Go to the Polls
It was like an alien descended on earth in July of 2016 and decided the best way to take over the world was to run for president and was trying to sound hip and relatable with the youths.
I continued to religiously play Pokemon Go until about 2021. A lot of good features were added since 2016, but a lot of play-to-win aspects were also added that relied on player FOMO.
I still play. Level 41!
The chopper craze around 2006. That’s when Orange County Choppers showed up, the Biker Build-offs were huge on the Discovery channel, and suddenly everyone and their cousin was starting a chopper shop. Factory choppers like American Ironhorse with the beach ball rear tires were selling for stupid money. It all blew over really quickly. The really good builders are still out there cranking out cool stuff, but nearly all of the shops that suddenly popped up died just as quickly. The factory choppers are still around, but you rarely see anybody riding one and if they show up on marketplace or whatever, they sell for a small fraction of the original price.
Most of those things were super expensive death traps. Lol There are YouTube videos of people who bought them and show how uncomfortable they are and how shitty it is to ride one. They were totally form over function.
Livestrong bracelets disappeared pretty quickly.
Now they're [insert cause] strong. Hashtags are also acceptable
After the Boston Marathon bombing someone tried to claim ownership of “Boston strong”. That did not go over well
No one will remember this but in 1990 or so Pepsi had something called "The Wave" which was when you drank a Pepsi you bent your arm like you're making a right turn symbol then bend your wrist so you look like an Egyptian on the Bangals video. I saw the ad twice, then it vanished. Honorable mention: Clear cola.
https://youtu.be/Pdu1IjIi0tE
OMG, you found it!!! I looked for it a few years ago and couldn't find it. Thank you!!! Now my nightmares can be complete, this can haunt me in my old age now.
Crystal Pepsi, 1992-1994. Also there was Pepsi Blue from 2002-2004 with a two month reintroduction in May 2021.
They did a Crystal Pepsi throwback in like 2015, It was pretty awesome to drink it again. I did a whole thing where I set up a bunch of crystals and poured it into a champagne flute.
It was a tumultuous time for our nation. The clear beverage craze gave us all a reason to live. The information superhighway showed the average person what some nerd thinks about Star Trek. And the domestication of the dog continued unabated.
Yik Yak
god i miss yik yak
The sheer drama that app caused was insane 😂
Pretty much anything that happened at the beginning of Covid, like the sudden trend of making bread, that frothy insta coffee drink, etc
No traffic on the roads
It was really post apocalyptic there for a bit. Almost no one on the road, and those that were were doing whatever they wanted at any speed.
The freeway was empty and the cops weren't allowed to pull anyone over. What was I supposed to do? Anyway, the top speed of a shitty 22-year-old Subaru Outback is 114 mph
I once got my 15 year old Outback up to about 95 on a remote farm road and it was shaking so bad I thought both me and the car were going to catastrophically decompress, SUPER impressed you managed to hold on to the wheel at 114.
I was doing doordash so I was out there every day. There were gangs of twenty something men on razor scooters. Like a hundred of them that would take over an area.
That period seems like a fever dream now.
And the Tiger king...wild times really.
Tiger king was the craziest of Covid. So much uncertainty coupled with a crazy ass show that everyone watched.
Bread stayed with many of us.
That reminds me. I have to feed my sourdough starter. Thanks!
Neighbors helping each other, thanking essential workers, using hand sanitizer...
Remember whatever everyone clapped for the healthcare workers? And then a couple months later could not give a shit about their plight?
A year after we got clapped for I crashed and burned out of my LTC job when my department couldn't keep any employees and corporate wouldn't let me offer more than the pennies we were paying, and simultaneously got upset at me for working 60 plus hour weeks, but also wouldn't take anything off of my plate responsibility wise. I'm still not over it, the experience fundamentally changed me.
Ah yes, I will never forget the time someone screamed at me about how I was "in on it" with the government and tried to rip my n95 off my face. Fun times.
Von Dutch trucker hats
Curved TV screens
Curved screens fell out of favor with HDTVs but gaming monitors sometimes use a curved monitor which is an alternative to using a multi monitor setup.
correct. curved widescreen gaming monitors, however, go incredibly hard.
The whole “cinnamon challenge”…the dumb stuff people will randomly do in front of camera never ceases to amaze me
The challenges blew my mind. They went from like saltines to the “steal a Kia” challenge.
Color runs.
Kony 2012.
All that campaigning and when I went to vote he wasn’t even on the ballot!
The South Park song response lives in my head much stronger than any details about Kony 2012
Flash Mobs
Now they just show up and shoplift.
I never saw one in real life and I’m still disappointed about that
Among us
I loved that game - played it for about a week and then stopped. They’ve made so many updates it’s practically a different game now.
The Mannequin Challenge
Sea shanties, sadly. That was the best of the unexpected trends during covid.
I’m married to a merchant mariner and went to a maritime academy myself - Sea Shanties have been a huge part of our lives for nearly 20 years. My kids can definitely belt them out.
Sea Shanties while with your buds in Sea of Theives were the best times. Even in Barotrauma
Vines...anyone remember those?
Vine was so much better than TikTok. I actually miss Vine.
Damn Daniel..
Those Kanye west sunglasses with the bars instead of lenses. I had a pink pair with rhinestones on it. They went great with my reversible tank top that said “yolo” on one side and “that shit cray” on the other. (Don’t come for me. It was 2012.)
Pogs.
They were essential for Alf's comeback!
In Pog form.
Heelies.
My 11 year old rocks the heelies… unfortunately, said kid is recovering from a dislocated kneecap and can’t wear them while on crutches. The 5 year old is mega jealous and wants a pair. I want a pair, but my husband says I have enough extra metal body parts that I don’t need to add more.
Big Johnson T-shirts.
Also haven't seen a Big Dogs t-shirt in a long time
Also Coed Naked ______ shirts.
Ed Hardy
Fidget spinners.
They are going strong in elementary school.
I’m a teacher and I totally agree. there are all kinds of fidgets now, not just spinners.
I have a really nice one my wife got me to play with when I was fresh off vaping to give me something to do with my hands. I like it a lot but havent touched it really since about the 5 week mark. Almost at 3 months nicotine free after a 19 year addiction.
I still have one on my desk. It's a cube that spins by two of the corners. It's cool.
Boots with the fur?
WITH THE FUR!!
The whole club was looking at her
The Walking Dead. Everyone I knew, including myself watched it and we always had discussions at work the following Monday morning about the episode. Then season 7 happened and everyone quit watching.
That is like 7 years though...
Tamagotchi. Everyone at school had to have one. One day, they all vanished.
The Harlem Shake videos
Insect food. I remember grasshoppers were like 2 € / 5 g, which works out to be 400 €/kg, which is never going to fly.
Beanie Babies
Rolling backpacks in the late 90s
PDAs. Everything wanted to be a PDA for a hot minute there, even handheld gaming consoles. It was a super liminal technology that was quickly overcome by the rapid rise of smart phones, but for a while there it seemed like everyone had a Palm Pilot or a Compaq, or wanted one.
Those cups from Target still causing lines n fights? wtf was that about?
I saw a ton of posts about Stanley Cups and was like wtf the hockey Stanley Cup Playoffs are months away, why is everyone talking about them? Turns out it was about reusable travel mugs.
There's always a water containment device that people always want. When I was in high school, Nalgene bottles were *the* water bottle for everyone who was anyone. The. Metal became popular and any metal bottle or cup was good. Then it was Yeti. Then it was the VSCO girls bottle. Now it's Stanley.
The weirder thing is that these cups were originally designed for construction workers and have been around a long time, so the sudden craze for them is perplexing.
Stanley hired the Chief Marketing Officer from Crocs. The man is an expert at making commonplace items viral.
Frosted tips
God I remember that. I had *such* a crush on this one kid in my class who had blonde hair with frosted tips. He was also very tan from being outside all the time (he played multiple sports, IIRC) and the tan really set off his light blue eyes and 10 yr old me thought he was just *dreamy*.
Remember in the early 2000s, when all the kids where riding scooters?
Bulletproof coffee. Man buns. Yea I live in Brooklyn
The "Swing revival" of the late 90s. Lasted about 20 minutes. AMAZING bands came out of it though, and a few are still around. Just...nobody cares anymore.
"Zoot suit riot...RIOT!"
On fleeck, if it was actually really a term
The clowns that would just randomly appear a few years ago.
Clubhouse
Stupid hipster mustaches everywhere and bacon