There is nothing like a good fad, something that comes pretty much out of nowhere, dominates an aspect of our world for a spell, costs us a packet and then either disappears or becomes the thing of marginal interest it was always destined to be. Here are just some of the fads we have bought into over the past century or so.
1. Extra protein
There’s so much extra protein swirling around these days that it surely can’t be long before Tayto and TK Red Lemonade come enhanced with the stuff.
And for the sake of full disclosure, Pricewatch would probably buy it.
There have been times – as recently as last week – when we have been suckered into buying things that are clearly no good for us because the makers have highlighted how much extra protein they have added to help us build muscle tone, lose weight, slow the march of time and develop the physique of a Marvel superhero.
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Not Ant Man, obviously, although what we wouldn’t give for Paul Rudd’s eternal youth. But that is a story for a different day.
Even as we spend extra for the extra protein we can’t help but wonder if is a fad and one the world will look back in with scorn in the years ahead.
2. Diets
There can’t be many areas where fads thrive more than in the dieting arena where an endless stream of faddy nonsense promises to keep us leaner and more beautiful for longer. Diet fads go right back to 1558 when Luigi Cornaro published the Art of Living Long in which he recommended people eat one egg a and a litre of wine.
[ ‘High protein’ fad sounds like repackaged diet culture to meOpens in new window ]
Fast forward to the early part of the last century to Horace Fletcher who reckoned the secret to slimness was chewing every mouthful of every meal exactly 32 times. It was complete nonsense of course but no more so than far more modern notions like detox diets or carb free diets or cabbage diets or paleo diet. Can something that is based around what our ancestors ate during the Paleolithic era really be good for us?
3. Fondue
While fondue was a long-time Swiss treat, it only made its way to this part of the world in the 1970s when people briefly passed the time burning the roofs off their mouths by eating molten cheese.
4. Deep fat fryers
The world is going mad these days for air fryers – and far be it from us to suggest that they are a fad, although we do have our suspicions. There is no doubting that deep fat fryers were faddy, mind you. Way back in the 1980s, before we knew what our hearts were, we all fell in love with large and potentially deadly machines filled with cooking oil that replicated the chipper chip experience.
[ Heart disease in women: ‘I was so shocked by news of my artery blockage’Opens in new window ]
While they were great for chips they weren’t great for our hearts, waistlines or skin, They were a nightmare to clean and made our homes smell like a late on Saturday night Supermacs but not as tasty or tempting. You can still buy them but they are not nearly as popular as they once were.
5. SodaStreams
SodaStreams were the dream of children everywhere when they were launched in the 1970s. They allowed people to make fizzy cola drinks at home at a fraction of the cost of the real thing. They weren’t cheap, mind you – machines cost around £50, which is more than €400 in the new money. They are still on the market – costing €70 or so – and have been joined in the space by fancy shimmering chrome carbonators from the likes of Aarke- which cost close to €150 – but they are nowhere near as desirable as they used to be.
6. TV dinners
From fizzy water to fast food in front of the telly. The TV dinner sold itself as the future of food and promised a hot and healthy meal within minutes with absolutely no washing up. And as if all that wasn’t fabulous enough, the food came helpfully divvied up so your peas didn’t have to touch your potatoes or meat. The quality was not great and TV dinner plates quickly disappeared. We still have ready meals but we are – generally speaking – expected to decant them on to plates now.
7. Doughnuts
There can’t be much that has epitomised the madness of the Irish crowd than doughnuts. Back in 2017 thousands of probably sensible people lost the run of themselves in the race to join the queue outside a Krispy Kreme shop in Blanchardstown. Around 600,000 people bought close to seven million doughnuts from the shop in its first year of trading, making it the brand’s most successful store opening internationally.
Krispy Kreme wasn’t the only show in town, though, and doughnut shops seemed to be opening on virtually every street corner. There are still doughnut shops, obviously, but you’d not queue for an hour outside one now. Cupcakes, cronuts and crookies have also come and gone in recent years.
8. Pulled pork
Pulled pork was not really a thing in Ireland or anywhere outside of North Carolina 20 years ago. But in the time it would take to shout “Piper Noooooo” it was everything and everywhere. The mushy mess of meat was on sale in every sandwich bar and high-end deli the land over, even pushing out the breakfast roll in some delis.
9. Fingerless gloves
But fads aren’t just for food. Remember fingerless gloves? They were all the rage in the 1980s thanks to – and we’re guessing here – the film Oliver, Madonna and all the army surplus stores that sold them.
10. Legwarmers
Another incomplete piece of clothing that had its day was the legwarmer – a sock without the foot part by any other name. Fame, Flashdance and home workouts made them wildly popular for a time in the late 1970s and early 1980s. You still see them around betimes but rarely outside the confines of a professional dance studio.
11. Jogging
Jogging took off in the 1980s. People don’t jog now though. They run. There is, of course, no difference between going for a run and going for a jog, save for the way people would look at you if you said you were going out for a jog.
12. ThighMaster
If you didn’t want to go for a jog but did want thighs of steel, there was the ThighMaster – one of the most successful products of the infomercial age. It was a pretty basic piece of exercise kit but managed to make those behind it more than €100 million before we all moved on to other things.
13. Tamagotchi
One of those things might have been an egg-shaped digital toy called the “Tamagotchi”. It was born in Toshima City, Japan, and allowed people – mainly children – to virtually care for a pet-like device. After that there were Sims and Minecraft and all the rest.
14. Hula-hoops
The hula hoop was invented in 1957 and became one of the biggest fads of all time. Within months, the simple plastic hoop had sold more than 25 million units in the US alone, meaning that every child owned at least one – even allowing for the fact that some adults would have unwisely had one too. It hasn’t gone away and parents continue to buy them for their offspring either because they remember how much fun they had with them or because they are pretty cheap and pleasingly low-tech.
15. Rubik’s Cube
Pricewatch wasn’t much good at the Rubik’s Cube (at least until we worked out how to dismantle and reassemble it) but it was a toy that was everywhere in the early 1980s. The “Magic Cube” – to give it the first name its creator, Hungarian architect Ernő Rubik went with, is still selling, although not in anywhere close to the numbers in its heyday.
16. Decking
During the boomtimes in Ireland, when some people had more money than sense, there was a spike in the sales of decking. The wooden platforms sold by the truck load despite the fact that the Irish climate – wet and miserable as it is – is not ideally suited to wooden outdoor entertainment areas.
17. 50 Shades
While poorly maintained decking quickly turned many shades of brown, the number was a long way short of 50. When EL James released the first of the 50 Shades of Grey books which delved into the racy BDSMy world of Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey – or so we are told – the world went wild for it, with the book quickly becoming the fastest-selling paperback of all time. It is not selling quite as many copies these days, is it?
18. Ghetto blasters
The sight of someone walking down a street or sitting in a park with a ghetto blaster close to hand – and closer to ear – used to be fairly common despite the impracticality of the clunky machines. They were particularly popular among the break-dancing community. We were pleasantly surprised to see that particular fad re-emerge at the Paris Olympics last year, although we can’t imagine the days of groups of lads armed with nothing more elaborate than a boombox and a roll of lino will ever return to our streets.
19. Wristbands
Before his fall from grace into a soup of performance-enhancing drugs, Lance Armstrong was the ultimate champion of plastic wrist bands for charity. Launched in 2004 by the Live Strong Foundation, yellow bands were a must-have fashion accessory for a bit and a rainbow of rivals followed in their tracks. For about 18 months people were happy to wear their hearts on their arms, if not their sleeves. They are still used by some groups as a way of fundraising but the popularity of the charitable wristband is nothing like it once was.
20. Fidget spinners
Fidget spinners came out of nowhere and in the run-up to Christmas 2016 Forbes magazine described them as the “must-have office toy for 2017”. Videos of people doing cool things with them quickly went viral and hawkers on Moore Street in Dublin were selling them by the truckload as shops struggled to keep supplies on their shelves.
21. Slankets
Blankets with sleeves? It was never going to last. Slankets shot to prominence in 2008 when people started using the newfangled social media channels to post pictures of themselves in them. Thankfully slankets quickly became an object of fun rather than comfort and disappeared.
22. Dry-robes
Dry-robes are the outdoor equivalent of slankets and while they might be useful for those who go sea swimming in the dead of winter (itself something that might turn out to be a passing fad), we can’t imagine their popularity will endure.
23. Friends Reunited
It is hard to credit it now but MySpace was the largest social networking site in the world between 2005 and 2008 and at one point even surpassed Google as the most visited website in the US. Less than 10 years later it was gone the way of Friends Reunited.
Friends Reunited appeared on the virtual landscape in 1999 and was the first big social media site that allowed people reconnect with and/or stalk old schoolfriends. It was massive. Within seven years of its birth it had more than 15 million members and sold to ITV for £120 million. Almost soon as the ink was dry on the contract, the company tanked. Bebo did pretty much the same. Which social media giant will be the next to fall? Answers in a tweet, please.
24. Poker on the telly
How did poker ever end up on the telly? Who knows but it did. In fact millions of people seemed happy to watch folk with intriguing names like Devil Fish play for big stakes through the night. Now the only Texas Hold ‘em that gets any attention is the Beyoncé tune.
25. Mullets?
We would like to include mullets in this list of fads. We really would but the troubling thing is the terrible haircut that was short at the front and long at the back is back and we might have to take it out of the list for now, confident in the knowledge that this too will pass.
