20 Once-Huge Trends and Fads That Everyone Totally Forgot About

Robin Zlotnick - Author
By

Sep. 19 2019, Updated 10:48 a.m. ET

featured fads
Source: YouTube / Instagram

Remember not too long ago when everyone and their mother were walking around with fidget spinners? Yeah, we forgot about that too! So many things that were once a huge deal completely vanished from public life as quickly as they were ushered in. The people of Reddit came together to remind each other of the trends and fads that used to be everywhere that people have just seemed to totally forget about. These will all make you say, "Oh yeahhhhh!" 

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"Gangnam Style" by Psy

This song used to be everywhere. I mean everywhere. And you know what? I watched the video again for the first time in a few years, and it's still completely delightful. I suggest you do the same, as long as you're OK with having it stuck in your head for the next possibly forever.

California Raisins

In the late '80s and early '90s, the California Raisins were huge! These little turd-looking dried fruits crooned their way into our hearts, and then, they simply disappeared. I think it was probably because everyone came to their senses and realized that raisins are disgusting. 

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Blackberries

Remember these tiny little inconvenient smartphones?! I remember when I got my first one, eons after everybody else, but I loved it. You would share your long, random PIN with people so you could message Blackberry to Blackberry. Not going to lie; my dad might still have his.

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Water beds

Water beds are one of those things that seems like it would be great in theory, but it's actually extremely dumb, like, maybe the worst idea ever. I feel like there were more water beds in movies in the '80s and '90s than there were in real life. They led you to believe water beds were the way of the future. They decidedly were not. 

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Guitar Hero

Oh gosh. I remember being at friends' houses in college and after and all everyone wanted to do was play Guitar Hero. If you weren't playing, you sat there and watched, hypnotized by those little buttons lighting up. It was not that fun! I don't know why it became such a huge deal. 

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FarmVille

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Source: Zynga

My only memory of FarmVille was getting those requests from my Facebook friends all the time. When I think about the amount of time I spent denying FarmVille requests, I get sad. I could have used that time to develop a cure for cancer or something. 

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Planking

This was truly one of the dumbest fads of the last few decades, but now, in 2019, it seems so innocent and endearing. People would just lie completely flat on different objects and take a picture. That was it! What a simpler time. 

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Crackle nail polish

In middle school, all the "bad girls" wore crackle nail polish. That's how you knew someone was not to be messed with. It looked super cool, which means that I didn't use it because I was not that cool. 

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Power beads

Everyone who was anyone had a bunch of different "power beads," elastic bracelets with round, different-colored beads on it that supposedly meant different things and had different "healing" powers. I remember having a green one and a purple one. I don't know what they meant, but I'm sure my life is better for having worn them.

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"Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye

It's a bizarre music video and a weird song, but it was all over the radio for a hot minute, and I have to admit, I kind of like it. We decided that this is my dog's favorite song for no particular reason, so this song holds a special place in my heart.

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Segways

fads
Source: 20th Century Fox

When Segways first hit the market, they were going to transform transportation. But then people actually saw them in action and realized how dumb you look when you're on one. Then, the Segway company owner died in a Segway accident, and that was the end of the Segway.

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Potholder Looms

Remember these kits? Some crazy person was like, "I know what children want! They want to weave potholders." And in the '90s, we were all like, "Yes, that makes sense!" I made so many of these stretchy potholders when I was a kid that my mom had to pretend to like. 

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Cabbage Patch Kids

I definitely had a few Cabbage Patch Kids growing up. But I understand why they fell out of fashion. The whole conceit is that these human babies grew out of a literal cabbage patch. We couldn't be expected to go along with that forever.

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Custom ringtones

The years of my life I wasted recording songs to make custom ring tones for my old cell phones! So much time for something that ultimately mattered so little. But at the time, if you didn't have an appropriately personal ring tine for every one of your friends, you were pretty much ostracized from society. 

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Hypercolor shirts

Remember these shirts?! They changed color in the heat. These totally disappeared from the racks probably because whatever material they used to make them is radioactive or toxic or something. 

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Flappy Bird

Flappy Bird, the simple smartphone game, exploded onto the scene in 2013 and then disappeared just as quickly. It became so insanely popular that the game's creator got overwhelmed and shut the whole thing down by 2014. What a time to be alive.

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Jetman

OK, Jetman was basically the same game as Flappy Bird, but you played it on Facebook, and you could challenge your friends, and everyone I knew was obsessed with it. You had to use the arrow keys to keep the jetman floating and not crashing into the blue blocks. Freshman year of college, I think this is all I did. 

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Snake

In the days before mobile games, the way we occupied our time in math class was with Snake, the game that came on your TI-83 graphing calculator. You remember, don't you? You had to navigate the snake and eat as many of those little crosses as possible. This is why I didn't learn any of the calculus I was supposed to. 

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Livestrong bracelets

If you didn't have a Livestrong bracelet in the mid-2000s, you didn't even exist. That yellow piece of rubber was a status symbol. Also, it was like, a foundation that supported people with cancer and stuff, but once Livestrong bracelets became popular, the actual mission was beside the point. 

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Fidget spinners

Remember fidget spinners?! It wasn't that long ago that they were everywhere. They were causing problems in schools. The news coverage was endless. And then...they just kind of spun out of fashion, I guess. Not going to lie, they're still kind of fun to use!

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