"Everybody Thought It Was The Future": People Are Recalling The "Quick-to-Die" Trends That Vanished In The Blink Of An Eye
While it's natural for trends to come and go, sometimes a trend dies so fast that you forget it even existed. So when Reddit user u/Express_Ant7480 asked: "What trend died so fast that you can hardly call it a trend?" close to 10 thousand people provided their answers. Here's what they said below.
1."That moment when Google really tried to make Google+ happen."
"They forced it onto everyone with a YouTube account. Nobody asked for it. Like, how brain-dead do you have to be this late in the digital age to realize people don’t like new products forced onto them, especially when they never solve a problem?"
2."I mean, it’s pretty appropriate that, as a trend, flash mobs came out of nowhere and then immediately disappeared."
"Not gonna lie, I kinda liked the flash mob thing. I mean, some were dumb, but I thought the whole idea was pretty fun overall. I participated in one in like 2011. It wasn't anything wild, just a marketing stunt for a Seattle Tour company. A couple of hundred people got pink umbrellas in the alley behind Pike Place Market, assigned an area around the market to go to, and then everyone opened up their pink umbrellas at the same time and walked around with them for about five minutes."
3."Silly Bands. I worked retail at the time, and after they sold out, by the time we got stock to replace them, no one wanted them anymore, and they all got cleared out. Probably because all the schools immediately banned them."
4."Remember that week everyone was into sea shanties for some reason?"
5."The whole 3D craze back in like 2010. Everybody thought it was the future after Avatar came out in theaters. EVERY movie tried to be 3D. After that, there were 3D TVs, 3D phones, and the Nintendo 3DS. And I think the craze disappeared in like a year because it gave people headaches."
"I don’t think headaches were the reason. Most of it was that it made movies look like shit. Too dark, and everything looked like a toy."
6."The summer of Pokemon Go was awesome. People were up and outside, walking around and getting exercise. Strangers met and talked, and for a brief moment, it was cool to be social. Then, if I remember correctly, an app update broke the game, and it fell off wildly in popularity. Ironically, four-ish years later, we had COVID, social distancing, and spent all our time indoors. A complete polar opposite from that one wonderful summer of Pokemon Go."
"My son (now 22) and his girlfriend still play. They actually use the game as an excuse to go on a road trip to different places. They even went to a big meetup in NYC. I love that they are still involved, and it gives them a reason to get out of the house and explore."
"That game came out during the peak of my depression, and most days, it was the only thing that could get me to leave the house."
7."I got married in December of 2013. Our wedding video will always have us dancing around like idiots to 'Gangnam Style.'"
8."Remember planking?"
"I worked in retail at the time, and there were like five dudes who got fired for planking on shelves while on the clock and posting it on Facebook. A couple of them had been working there for five-plus years and were trying to move up to management."
9."Those heat-sensitive color-changing shirts that made it extra obvious when someone was a sweaty mess. Hypercolor. I think."
"This was a wild month.
For the first two weeks, everybody at school had these awesome color-changing shirts that you could put handprints on.
In the last two weeks, everybody had these weird, bright, orangish-pink shirts that didn't do shit because all our moms put them in the dryer."
10."NFTs."
"People still fall for it, though — but now, it seems it's more of a flex of disposable money for rich people."
11."Does the existence of the Segway count as a trend?"
"My roommate in college had one in our third-floor walk-up. He claimed the stair assist feature was convenient, but it did not look convenient."
12."That weird poo thing, where every other accessory was covered in the poo emoji. Shirts, pants, stuffed toys, figures. I’m so glad that ended. I was sick as hell of seeing that dumbass grinning shit all over everything."
13."Harlem Shake. This viral dance craze was huge for a few weeks, but the hype died just as fast."
14."There was a trend when I was in middle school or high school that came and went so fast I had to convince myself it's not a fever dream. Kids were walking around with pacifiers in their mouths and hanging around their necks. Someone, please verify that this actually happened to them as well."
"It was a raver thing that got mainstreamed at one point in the '90s."
15."Those whipped coffees that everyone was making during COVID lockdowns. A Dalgona? I feel like everyone made precisely one of those to try it out, proclaimed that it was delicious, and then never made another ever again."
16."Flappy Bird game."
17."Google Glass."
"I remember I was in school at the time, and my IT teacher was talking about how much trouble the school was going to have with students using Google Glass in class in a couple of years, and then it just… didn’t happen."
18."Whatever that 'very mindful, very demure' shit was a couple of weeks ago."
19.And finally, "When people were dressing as clowns and chasing people after dark, the early 2010s."
Do you remember a trend that died so fast that wasn't mentioned above? Let us know in the comments below.
