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34 Trends That Disappeared In Mere Weeks Or Even Days After Taking The Internet By Storm
The year is gradually drawing to a close, which means that the corresponding trends are coming back into fashion: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and then Christmas is not far away. In fact, the most obvious indicator is that Mariah Carey has started to rise from the bottom of the music charts again with her immortal song, "All I Want For Christmas Is You". Trends are our everything nowadays.
However, trends change so quickly now that sometimes you don’t have time to figure out what they were all about, as everyone has already forgotten about the recent damn hot phenomenon or meme. This trending (at least for now...) thread in the Ask Reddit community is dedicated to such short-lived phenomena, and Bored Panda has made a selection of its best opinions especially for you.
More info: Reddit
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#1
I got married in December of 2013. Our wedding video will always have us dancing around like idiots to Gangnam Style.
#3
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, the Nintendo 3DS. And I think the craze disappeared in like a year because it gave people headaches.
Ace 4 weeks ago
It had already been tried and failed in the movie world on more than one occasion. Somehow the public was, briefly, persuaded that the combination of CGI and 3D would overcome all the drawbacks of having to use special glasses and expensive equipment, but failed to see that the real problem is that it doesn't actually make a bad film any better.
If we talk about trends and how they come in and out of vogue, then the modern world, of course, moves so fast that it's simply impossible to keep up with the current leaders in popularity. Just yesterday, it would seem, nothing could compare to the fame of that adorable baby hippo Moo Deng - and where is she today?
Well, she's living a happy childhood in her zoo, but she is definitely not the number one trend anymore. And unlikely to be in the top ten. And so it is with many other "kings for an hour." From the South Korean rapper PSY, who tore up YouTube twelve years ago, to NFTs (do you still remember that such a thing even exists?), this world simply moves at an incredible speed.
#4
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 right, an app update broke the game and it fell off wildly in popularity.
Iironically, 4ish 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.
and_a_touch_of_the_’tism 3 weeks ago
I got pokemon go this summer! It’s a great motivation to walk the dogs, since there’s a ton of stuff in my neighborhood.
#6
When people were dressing as clowns and chasing people after dark, early 2010s.
Jrog 4 weeks ago (edited)
It started as a publicity stunt for a low budget horror short film. It became viral for a while and quickly became a security issue when people dressed as clowns started pulling debatable "pranks", including assault and robbery. Finally, a couple of well publicized "pranks" that ended with the "clowns" having their asses rightfully handed to them with a well earned beating, and even a couple of idiots facing the wrong end of a shotgun, finally put an end to the trend.
Some trends were introduced into our lives quite artificially - for example, the boom of 3D films and TVs at the turn of the '00s and '10s turned out to be nothing more than an attempt by manufacturers to play on the stunning success of the Avatar movie. As it turned out later, there was not enough technology or content for the development of a full-scale market - and the technology itself, if overused, was quite dubious. But the trend itself took place, and that's a fact.
#7
Remember that month or so in the 90's when we were all listening to Gregorian Chants?
#8
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 s**t all over everything.
#9
Silly Bands. I worked retail at the time, and after they sold out, by the time we got stock into replace them, no one wanted them anymore and they all got clearanced out. Probably because all the schools immediately banned them.
"In fact, the world was the same a hundred or two hundred years ago - it's just that the speed at which information spread was completely different," says Valery Bolgan, a historian and editor-in-chief of Intent News Agency from Ukraine, whom Bored Panda asked for a comment on this post. "And the level of people's involvement was also significantly lower."
"That is, if something became fashionable in Paris, London or New York, let's say, at the beginning of the last century, it took days and weeks for word of mouth to spread the news. Then the newspapers wrote about it, and only after that, months later, did the popularity of the phenomenon spread to other cities and countries."
#11
Remember that week everyone was into sea shanty's for some reason?
#12
Calling someone “bae” and shutter shades.
David 3 weeks ago
Every generation comes up with shortened / slang / alternative words to make themselves sound 'cool'. People doing it at the time tend to think their own words are cool / creative while also chuckling at stuff from decades past. At some point you get old enough you just roll your eyes and ignore it, knowing it will pass and they will move on to the next word. Most of you can think of words that are stereotype 50's or 80's etc. Nothing wrong with new words, but kind of sad when people overuse them in an effort to seem cool / popular / whatever.
"Today, the life cycle of a trend is measured in days, weeks at most, and often even a few hours. If we talk about this or that meme, we laughed, forwarded it to a couple of friends in messengers - and that's it, switched to something else. This is neither good nor bad, it's just a feature of the contemporary world," Valery concludes.
#13
Those heat-sensitive colour-changing to shirts that made it extra obvious when someone was a sweaty mess. Hypercolor. I think. .
#14
Livestrong bracelets.
DennyS (denzoren) 4 weeks ago
I had one of these...and still have one but I don't wear it for obvious reasons.
#15
Whatever that “very mindful, very demure” s**t was a couple of weeks ago.
Why else is it important to remember half-forgotten trends? Because popularity is actually cyclical. For example, just a decade and a half ago, mustaches were perceived as an absolute anachronism, and today they are nearly at the peak of men's fashion. Who knows, maybe tomorrow the yo-yo will come back into vogue (Tamagotchi, at least, is back), we will again hunt Pokemon, and arrange wild and weird performances to the sounds of Harlem Shake?
#16
"Hover" Boards
I remember seeing some guy downtown riding one when they first came out and he had his arms crossed with this insufferably smug expression on his face as if to say 'LOOK AT ME AND HOW COOL I AM' so I intentionally looked the other way. I'm pretty sure the ones that didn't catch fire stopped working after a few weeks.
Jrog 4 weeks ago
They have been banned from public transport in many places and also several cities which didn't straight up ban them made helmet -or even insurance- mandatory, meaning they are not practical anymore. After some common models proved to be a fire hazard customs started cracking down on unckecked imports, so getting one was also not cheap or easy anymore.
#17
Fidget spinners. I still have one in my desk.
Child of the Stars 3 weeks ago
My 11yo has one. They still use it when they're feeling anxious.
#18
It's pretty crazy how vine died so quickly, especially given how successful TikTok has been.
Mäandertal 3 weeks ago
That's cause it was strictly humor and not 50% shallow creators trying to convince little girls to get plastic surgery so they can look like a filter. Capitalism for ya.
But until all of the above happens, let's just give free rein to nostalgia and dive into the past. And this post, like Professor Dumbledore's Pensieve, will take us back to the glorious (or not) times of Flappy Bird game, Gangnam Style and Google+. Or something else that you yourself remember well and want to share with others in the comments to this post.
#19
That moment when Google really tried to make Google+ happen.
Jeroen de Wijn 3 weeks ago (edited)
They did not. If they really had tried it'd had been evwrywhere today. Google had a long, long history of releasing stuff amd immmediately abandoning it. The sad reason is that within Google you get promoted for launching an app or service, not for maintaining or improving one. So as soon as something's released anyone involved with vision and talent immediately leaves the twam and starts developing something new. With 0 incentive to make anyrhing a success and no inclination by Google to invest in existing products almost all of them fail sooner or later.
#20
Those crinkly popcorn shirts from the early 2000s. They looked like doll clothes and stretched to human sized when you put them on.
#21
Harlem shake .. this viral dance craze was huge for few weeks but the hype died just as fast.
#22
Guys wearing two polo shirts and popping up both collars.
Jrog 4 weeks ago (edited)
Two polo is dumb, but the popped collar is how they were meant to be worn. The Polo was -as the name suggest- an evolution of the outfit for Polo players. It was transformed into a tennis outfit by Renée Lacoste for the 1924 Olympic games. He started using it because it was more comfortable than the cotton shirts used until then, and the pop-up collar prevented sunburns to the neck when playing long sets.
#23
Flappy Bird game.
Kenny Earthling 3 weeks ago
I got bored of this after three plays. No variety, we made better games even back in the 80s
#24
I remember yo-yos being a huge thing for like a minute when I was a kid.
Ixanga Cancun 4 weeks ago
Yoyos have been a thing on and off since they were invented in 440bce. They will have their day again .. and again ...
#25
Pet rocks?
Mood rings.
Bidango Smith 4 weeks ago
Since those are both from the '70's and they're still talked about (and still occasionally purchased) awards them the status of "trend" https://www.amazon.com/Pet-Rock-Authentic-Approved-Original/dp/B07KN9FK4B
#27
Google Glass.
Jrog 4 weeks ago (edited)
It had its good run as a technology demonstrator and development platform, i.e. the very reason it was created for. It was never meant to be a mass product, and it laid the basis for some patents and innovations that are still in use in wearable devices and VR sets. This was not the failure people think it was.
#28
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.
#29
Jeans that were more holes than jeans. It moderated back to majority jean material quite quickly.
#30
90s swing music.
Tucker Cahooter 3 weeks ago
If you like swing, go with the 30s bands (Basie, Goodman, Chick Webb etc), nothing else
#32
Remember when Garth Brooks dressed up as Chris Gaines? That didn’t last long.
#33
Strawberry dresses. They were hot for like a week max.
Mäandertal 3 weeks ago
As in dresses with a strawberry print? Or is that a type/shape of dress I'm not familiar with?
#34
Extreme Ironing. I had a flatmate that broke her ankle doing this and the thought still sends me into the beyond.
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