If you’re a parent -— actually, even if you’re not -— you have probably seen those colorful little rubber bracelets accessorizing teens nationwide. It’s the latest superfad: rubber band-like figures shaped like anything from monkeys to faces to stars.
Silly Bandz (and their imitators) are a booming business. Silly Bandz alone sells over $100 million worth of product each year. They come in a pack of 24 for about $5, and they are everywhere, from the malls to the classrooms (some schools are even considering banning the bands for creating a nuisance).
Fads are nothing new; they have always been with us. For an earlier generation the hula hoop obsessed countless Americans. Pet rocks later took hold, then parachute pants, Cabbage Patch dolls, Beanie Babies, wheeled shoes, Twitter, the list goes on.
The structure of fads is essentially identical regardless of the product, and phase through a predictable cycle. In his book Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads, Joel Best describes three phases of a fad cycle: emerging (the fad starts small and is picked up by “early adopters”), surging (the fad quickly gains momentum as promoters rush to exploit the fad and more people see it) and purging (the “early adopters” tire of the fad and look for the next new thing, and the public gradually loses interest).
Just because the bubble bursts doesn’t mean the fad completely disappears; hula hoops, for example, are still popular decades after their popularity peaked.
But not all fads are made the same; those that appeal to kids are especially likely to go viral as schoolkids rush to be cool and adopt new fashions. And, of course, Silly Bandz has something that hula hoops and parachute pants never did: the Internet.
For fads to catch on, new people must of course be exposed to the novelty. Today, innovations and fads spread via Facebook and email, texts and pictures. Advertising and word of mouth that would have taken months to build up just a few years ago can be generated in days or weeks with the help of modern technology.
And it’s not just advertising, schools, and social networking sites. The media plays an important part of this cycle; Joel Best notes that the media have a built-in bias in favor of novel claims and fads: “The expansion of media coverage, particularly the emergence of such around-the-clock venues as the Internet and 24-hour cable television networks... means that there is an insatiable media appetite for fresh stories. In fact, the media’s eagerness to report on the newest, most cutting-edge novelties leads to media coverage regularly preceding -— and -- widespread adoption of the innovation; by the time the novelty is actually spreading, the media already are looking for some newer news to report.”
So, in a way, the fact that you’re reading this blog suggests that Silly Bandz may have already jumped the shark... Just don’t tell the kidz.
Image credit: AP Photo
Tags: Current Events, Fads
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