How Is A Fad Created?
Jul 26 2010

I have sometimes wondered how a fad is created.  In the tech/web world, there is all this talk about ‘viral’ this and ‘viral’ that about creating a gimmick that will cause adoption of your products/services to suddenly go through the roof.  Us consumers are fickle and trying to predict what we will like in a mass scale is much more art & luck than science from my viewpoint.

My kids came home after a birthday party with these little plastic toys that mostly look like junk and a waste of petroleum based products to me.  I asked them what they wanted to do with them and if I should recycle them or throw them away, but they both were like ‘no way, we need those!‘  Of course need and want in a child’s mind is the same thing.  My son then proceeded to take them and line them up on top of the TV.  For some reason I thought his enthusiasm and interest in doing something with them was cute so now they adorn the top of the TV and will probably be there for quite some time because that’s where they ‘need‘ to be.  I have to admit that I smile when I see them mostly because in my mind I see his excitement of finding a place for them that made sense to him, and I remember him smiling while he was putting them up there. (See photos of these little toys to the left and right in this post.)

They are also into these things called Silly Bandz, which are basically colored rubber bands in all sorts of different shapes and sizes (e.g., dinosaurs, sea animals, princesses, pets, etc.).  I don’t know where they first got them but my son just showed up with them one day and said he got them from a friend.  I think their dad bought them a bunch more.  My son is pretty good at getting more of them but my daughter ends up giving hers away to other kids and then gets upset and wants more from her brother.

They both have seemingly opposite ways of dealing with these things.  I remember my son would come home with a bunch of Pokemon cards, and I’d ask him where he got them.  He would say “they gave them to me.”  I would ask him who gave them to him and he would say some friends at school.  I would then ask him what he gave them and he said “nothing.”  I said how can that be that they just gave you these and you didn’t give them anything and he said “I dunno, they just wanted to give them to me.”  I was perplexed at that but I really couldn’t ask him anything else because I know that he gets along well with other kids.  I find myself wondering if this is a talent of his I should encourage or not!  Now my daughter is the one who wants to give her things to people and I’ve seen her give things to her brother when he asks, but I’ve also seen him give her stuff when she asks.  If someone likes her Silly Bandz and asks her for them she’ll gladly give them away, but I don’t think she really wants too but feels she has to because later (as I mentioned) she will go try to get some from her brother because she thinks it’s unfair that he now has more than she does.  I try to explain to her (she’s only 5) that it’s not her brother’s fault that she has less but she doesn’t get that and then eventually her brother will let her have a few of the ones he doesn’t want.  The end result is that I’ve decided they can’t take the Silly Bandz to summer camp.  We’ll see how long that lasts.

So I wonder how these fads are created and I wonder when these particular ones will subside.  Us humans ebb and flow in our desire for things whether they be big, life changing things or silly things like rubber bands in the shape of a dolphin. 🙂

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