The Coolest Thing Ever for the Next 11 Minutes
At a glance, I can't really argue with the seven stages of the pop culture phenomenon life-cycle. There's almost always that time when said phenomenon has not yet become so and is only acknowledge by a handful of people. Once mainstream grabs a hold of it, it blows up and unless it has any natural staying power, it will probably crash and burn as quickly as it was picked up.
I think the media can create sensations, but because so many of them don't have any staying power, they fade away not just from overkill, but from the lack of many redeeming qualities. When it comes to celebrities of any kind that refuse to fade away, we usally get things like tell-all books, degrading "reality" TV shows, or attention-grabbing antics.
We covered quite a few of the biggest offenders of the life-cycle in class. Boy bands as a whole fit the bill for this series of phases. Although it's been around in various incarnations, most of us are probably best familiar with the last round, which encompassed the mid-to-late '90s.
Since I try to avoid the flavor of the month actors, musicians and entertainers, I want to focus on a few trends and fads that I recall from my childhood slash teenage years. Most of these fit all of the stages, with the possible exception of the final one:
- Beanie Babies: I hated these damn things. Before I was fully clear on what one was, they had already blown up and become such a hit amongst collectors that people were shelling out hundreds of their presumably hard-earned dollars for a stupid limited edition moose. I don't think they went through much a maturation process. They had a few different lines before the majority of the collectors realized how stupid the whole idea was and abandoned them for something of substance. Like Furbies. Last I recall, there was another attempt at making Beanie Babies popular, but since I haven't heard anyone talk about them in a while, I'll assume it didn't go well.
- Pogs: One of the shining examples of stupid fads for my generation. I was in the fourth grade when these things took off. Before they become the obsession of dumb kids across the collective playground of America, there were a few kids carrying around these cardboard discs no bigger than a half-dollar. They had various images on them ranging from generic patterns to TV and cartoon characters. Before we knew what hit us, we all came to the conclusion that life would not be worth living without a pocket full of these cardboard discs.
Within weeks, almost every kid had at least a few of these things. Their inexpensive nature made it possible for even the free lunch kids to get in on the stupidity. Apparently there was actually an organized game complete with rules for using these discs for purposes other than looking like a tool. No one I knew ever played it. I actually gave it a shot one night, but quickly realize why no one I knew ever played it. I think that's when I realized I had made my mom waste countless dollars on a lot of colorful pieces of cardboard. Anyway, in a series of shocking events, the bottom fell out of the Pog craze and just as quickly as they had hit us, only the losers were still walking around showing off their Pogs.
- Virtual Pets: One trend I was lucky enough to see through from the outset. The first couple weeks of middle school, I saw a few of my classmates focused on these electronic gadgets, no bigger than a keychain. Actually, I think it double as a keychain, not that anyone stupid enough to own and operate one of these things should have been allowed to operate anything that required a key.
I was informed that these keychains were virtual pets. They had a more technical, Japanese-sounding name, which I believed translated into "waste of money." The whole idea behind these things was to feed and care for the "pet" that appeared on the LCD screen. By Halloween, it seemed like I was the only kid in the seventh grade without the responsibility of caring for an electronic life. We 12 and 13-year-olds had terrible attention spans, though. So as per the usual, the craze died down and with it, a lot of virtual pets did, too, thus proving why middle schoolers shouldn't be in charge of any sort of life.
I think the media can create sensations, but because so many of them don't have any staying power, they fade away not just from overkill, but from the lack of many redeeming qualities. When it comes to celebrities of any kind that refuse to fade away, we usally get things like tell-all books, degrading "reality" TV shows, or attention-grabbing antics.
We covered quite a few of the biggest offenders of the life-cycle in class. Boy bands as a whole fit the bill for this series of phases. Although it's been around in various incarnations, most of us are probably best familiar with the last round, which encompassed the mid-to-late '90s.
Since I try to avoid the flavor of the month actors, musicians and entertainers, I want to focus on a few trends and fads that I recall from my childhood slash teenage years. Most of these fit all of the stages, with the possible exception of the final one:
- Beanie Babies: I hated these damn things. Before I was fully clear on what one was, they had already blown up and become such a hit amongst collectors that people were shelling out hundreds of their presumably hard-earned dollars for a stupid limited edition moose. I don't think they went through much a maturation process. They had a few different lines before the majority of the collectors realized how stupid the whole idea was and abandoned them for something of substance. Like Furbies. Last I recall, there was another attempt at making Beanie Babies popular, but since I haven't heard anyone talk about them in a while, I'll assume it didn't go well.
- Pogs: One of the shining examples of stupid fads for my generation. I was in the fourth grade when these things took off. Before they become the obsession of dumb kids across the collective playground of America, there were a few kids carrying around these cardboard discs no bigger than a half-dollar. They had various images on them ranging from generic patterns to TV and cartoon characters. Before we knew what hit us, we all came to the conclusion that life would not be worth living without a pocket full of these cardboard discs.
Within weeks, almost every kid had at least a few of these things. Their inexpensive nature made it possible for even the free lunch kids to get in on the stupidity. Apparently there was actually an organized game complete with rules for using these discs for purposes other than looking like a tool. No one I knew ever played it. I actually gave it a shot one night, but quickly realize why no one I knew ever played it. I think that's when I realized I had made my mom waste countless dollars on a lot of colorful pieces of cardboard. Anyway, in a series of shocking events, the bottom fell out of the Pog craze and just as quickly as they had hit us, only the losers were still walking around showing off their Pogs.
- Virtual Pets: One trend I was lucky enough to see through from the outset. The first couple weeks of middle school, I saw a few of my classmates focused on these electronic gadgets, no bigger than a keychain. Actually, I think it double as a keychain, not that anyone stupid enough to own and operate one of these things should have been allowed to operate anything that required a key.
I was informed that these keychains were virtual pets. They had a more technical, Japanese-sounding name, which I believed translated into "waste of money." The whole idea behind these things was to feed and care for the "pet" that appeared on the LCD screen. By Halloween, it seemed like I was the only kid in the seventh grade without the responsibility of caring for an electronic life. We 12 and 13-year-olds had terrible attention spans, though. So as per the usual, the craze died down and with it, a lot of virtual pets did, too, thus proving why middle schoolers shouldn't be in charge of any sort of life.
posted by Alex at 11:04 AM
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