Fads and Trends, -including bad, stupid, or strange fads

I found this site while looking for a link about Beanie Babies.

Warning- their home page has some pop up ads:
Crazy Fads

On the page for the 1980s, they mention something called "Popples."

As someone who was a kid and then a teen in the 1980s, I can tell you I don't know what they're talking about. I never heard of "Popples" until I saw their site.

In the 1980s, I paid lots of attention to pop culture - MTV, the toy commercials, movies, etc., and I just don't remember these Popple thingies.

Okay, after surveying their photo gallery, these Popple toys do seem vaguely familiar to me now.

Y'all might have fun looking over the rest of their site.

Ummm, I"m a child of the 80's, and no, I never saw any of those things when I was a kid either. Maybe they are trying to capitalize on that they kinda look like Care Bears????




MH

I remember Popples when I was a kid. I didn't own one, but they were popular for awhile. I remember somebody brought theirs to school one day. I think this was around 1985-86.

I remember Popples! I never actually owned one, but I remember a bunch of girls having them.

Besides, I was more of a Cabbage Patch Kid kind of girl.

I was into cabbage patch kids, pound puppies, trolls and koosh balls. I still love playing with koosh balls -- they're awesome!

This is an opinion-poll type of thread. What do you think are the worst trends that you just wish would die? Be they fashion trends, music trends, or what have you -- if it's a trend that irks you, post about it here.

To kick things off, here's what I think are some of the worst trends to ever exist:

Baseball caps worn backwards
This just looks moronic if you're over the age of five.



Trucker hats
Unless you're a trucker, this screams "white trash".



Ties on "punk grrls"
The only chick this ever looked good on is Annie Lennox. It's not an artistic statement of rebellion, by any means. Nor is it new. Gals wore men's clothes in the Roaring Twenties too.



Shredded shirts
It's not cute, it's not sexy. It makes you look like you got into a fight with a pair of scissors and lost.



Anything involving Paris Hilton
Do I really have to explain this one?



Cut-off shorts (aka Daisy Dukes)
At best, it looks slutty and at worst it's white trash couture. The only person who could get away with this look was the original Daisy Duke, Catherine Bach.



"Thin is in"
Yes, because anorexia is so hot right now. The only bones I care to see are the ones on a dinner plate. If you think being all skin and bones is attractive, there's something seriously wrong with you.



So, who else's got bad trends to contribute?

I'm not sure if this was confined to only 1990s on up

From the 1970s:

1.- men getting perms.

It looked especially bad when you'd see baseball games on tv and the guy's long, curly hair was sticking out under his hat.

2.- leisure suits, bell bottoms. (Most 70s fashions, actually...)

1980s:

1.- "parachute pants"

Made out of this nylon type material, usually covered all over with zippers, the zippers being on the pants just for looks, they weren't functional.

2.- hard rock/heavy metal band guys who had big hair and wore eye liner
--------------
If I think of anymore, I'll add them later

Nope, there's no limit on how far back in time you can go. You could go back to the 16th century, even.

Hmmm.... boy, I could take up too much space if I made a whole list so...



*Juicy Couture clothing

the ugliest expensive crap in years, you can buy those plain track suits at JC Penneys for much cheaper than that. The only good part of that line is that her husband designs for some of the men's line (not that I"m biased or anything )

*boys wearing pants without belts, half hanging off their butts

what the heck is that all about? I know men's jeans don't fit the same way women's do, but geez, put a freakin belt on already!!! I don't want to see their underwear!

*young girls (and I mean young, as in elementary school age) wearing shorts and skirts that are TOO short, and tops that are too skimpy

doesn't this scream out to anyone else but me? Thank heavens I don't have a daughter, because she'd never wear this kind of crap. Kids grow up quickly enough as it is these days, they don't need to wear clothes to make them be Brittany's in training!!!

*coloring hair shades of blue/green/orange/purple, etc

that happened mostly back in the punk days, but I still see people dying their hair all these weird colors. I mean, dying your brown hair blonde, or redhead, or darker brunette, is one thing. But pink hair??? That's good for a girl's sleepover, but not much else

*neon spandex clothing

hmmm, is there really a need to explain this one???

Well, that's my short list of complaints, I'll spare you the long one!




MH

Oh cool, then. There are some trends from the past that I find annoying.

In the 18th century and there-abouts, men wore those dorky, white, powdered wigs (both in the USA and in Britain). Tacky!

The guys also wore capri - length pants around that time, which look ridiculous on men! (And for extra dorkiness, some of them wore the capri- length pants with white tights. I'm sorry, you're a grown man, not a five year old girl...)

The big, baggy bathing suits from around the early 20th century, and the frilly swim hats that women wore with them.

Bloomers: baggy, knee length underwear. Can't believe people thought they were a good idea. - time frame for them? Not sure, but women in the 19th century were wearing them.

Mutton chop side burns (1800s and revival in the 1970s)

Light blue eye shadow, bee hive hair styles, cats eye glasses - all circa 1950s, 1960s.

Looking morose or depressed in photographs, 19th century.

If you look at photos taken of Americans in the 19th cent., I challenege you to find one with anyone smiling. Not smiling wouldn't be so bad, but they looked very grim and way too serious.

Putting pennies in penny loafers kind of got on my nerves. I think that was an 80s fad.

We here at the board have done a few threads about that topic, most of which are in the "Global Outlook" forum (or we had some at the old board).

Here's one of them - you may find it interesting:
What's Wrong With This Outfit, Mom?

the biggest problem is parents that don't get involved, but that's another thread altogether....




MH

Worst Trends Ever? LOLZ! My number 1 is the Fannypack.

Does the Mullet or the rat tail qualify as a trend? Those are awful.

This totally slipped my mind...

Leggings! It worked in the 80's, but in 2006 they are a Hot Mess!


In the same catagory as leggings, bike shorts are attempting to make a come back.

well, there's only one man who looked hot in a mullet...








Yep, I'm biased....




MH

I wore leggings until about 1994; I found them to be really comfortable. I usually wore them under a long tunic, with jewelry. But I can't say I'm glad they're making a comeback. I kind of want to wear them again, but I think they're still kind of dated now.

One trend I hate is one that started in the early Nineties and is still going strong: androgynous (sp?) or "exotic" baby names. I'm so sick of girls with names like Ryan, Chase, or Joey, and boys with names like Sasha, Asia (Shania Twain's son). I'm especially tired of hearing the name Dakota all the time. Being named after a state is common (Georgia, Carolina), but Dakota is so overused now.

Mullets qualify, yeah.

Rat Tail - is that the hairstyle where a guy has really short hair, except for a small braided bit of hair in the back? If so, I hated that!!

In the 1990s - guys with short hair getting words and designs shaved into their hair. Started by black dudes, and then white dudes started doing it. Nobody looked good in it (IMO)!

Some of you may remember Arsenio Hall having that kind of hair style at one point, when he was hosting his talk show - he had like 3 or 4 lines shaved into either side of his head.

1970s. NOT shampooing hair. There was a gas shortage then, maybe there was a shampoo crisis, too. Seems like a lot of people had oily hair in the '70s.

1970s. Bathrooms / kitchens with avocado green, harvest gold, and orange colors. It was also pretty common to have mirrors all over the walls, I mean like large mirrored tiles, rather than the standard ceramic kind.

I agree bike shorts kind of suck rocks, (unless you're actually riding a bike while wearing them).

I still like leggings. Everyone else in this thread is a leggings-hater I feel so alone, so all alone.

*holding my head in pride anyway *

I'll still sometimes wear leggings even now, but in the winter, under long sweaters.

I sometimes wear capri-length leggings in the warmer months, under long shirts. Usually, I just wear regular shorts, though.

Mullets qualify, yeah.

Rat Tail - is that the hairstyle where a guy has really short hair, except for a small braided bit of hair in the back? If so, I hated that!!

Yes! That is a rat tail.

That reminds me, Vanilla Ice did that. He had zig zags and the word "ICE" shaved to the back of his head. I see a few guys sporting that look and it was bad then and its even worse now.

Madonna never let that "trend" down. Sadly, the world is suffering.

TBH, I really, really, really like all those funky 70's colors. Its all in how one uses them. Some of the furniture of that era is awesome.

well, there's only one man who looked hot in a mullet...








Yep, I'm biased....




MH

He can do no wrong.

I hear ya! I get tempted to buy a black pair, and then I start to worry about not really having anything that would look right with it. I'd have to get a whole new wardrobe.

I hate, hate, HATE the "whale-tail" look where chicks hike their thongs up high so they stick out of their low-rise jeans. It's nothing but obnoxious. Why would someone want to take a G-string and wear it as underwear? I also think the current obsession with Brazilian waxes is distasteful, too. I'm sure it comes from the porn/T&A industry and corrupts guys into thinking a woman's got something wrong with her if she has fully grown pubic hair.

I like the color combination (green, orange, yellow), but not necessarily for interior design.

One house we lived in when I was a kid in the '70s had the avacado green- colored oven and countertops, and we had a harvest-gold colored fridge.

Yeah, I don't like that either.

I never understood thong underwear. My sister told me she used to wear it and then stopped.

I asked her, "Why would you want to wear something that goes up your butt? Most people spend their time trying to keep their underwear from riding up their butt, and if it does, they yank it out."

Speedo-s on men with beer guts. (Actually, I don't like seeing them on guys who are young and in shape, either.)

When I was in grade school, some of the kids thought that braces were cool, so they'd put tin foil on their teeth to pretend like they had braces. I thought that was dopey, even at the time.

Oh, oh, oh, that reminds me!

In the 1980s, it became trendy with celebrities (and kids I went to high school with) to wear eye glasses, even if they had perfect eye sight!

I began to get very near-sighted around 4th grade, and I had no choice but to wear glasses for years.

I hated how I looked in glasses, I hated to wear them. They got in the way of jogging (they jiggled up and down as I ran), they'd fog up on a hot day after leaving an air conditioned place, etc.

So here you had a bunch of people who did not need glasses wearing them anyway. That made me livid.