# Fads that have come back in new generations **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 19, 2017, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356 "2017-06-19T04:17:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/1 "2017-06-19T04:17:19Z")
There are plenty of examples of fads that have (briefly) consumed large swaths of people, from raccoon coats on college campuses in the 1920s to Members Only jackets in the 1980s to Pokemon Go last year. Are there examples of the same fad returning in a successive generation? I’m excluding music and dance-type things (just watched Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and my fifteen year old son is grooving to “Brandy You’re a Fine Girl,” by Looking Glass). So non-music/dance: have any fads reincarnated in a new generation? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/2 "2017-06-19T04:22:49Z")
I don’t know if it was a “fad” really, but I do recall my dad having this leather coat from the 1970s that my brother and I perceived to be godawful and horribly dated in the 1980s and 1990s. Fast forward to sometime in the early 2000s and my brother had latched onto it and was wearing it because it was in style again. Another one, this time for women, would be whatever that Farrah Fawcett hairstyle was. It had a brief renaissance a while back, so daughters might have well been wearing their mothers’ hairstyle at that age. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/3 "2017-06-19T04:47:44Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I don’t know if it was a “fad” really, but I do recall my dad having this leather coat from the 1970s that my brother and I perceived to be godawful and horribly dated in the 1980s and 1990s. > > Fast forward to sometime in the early 2000s and my brother had latched onto it and was wearing it because it was in style again. > > Another one, this time for women, would be whatever that Farrah Fawcett hairstyle was. It had a brief renaissance a while back, so daughters might have well been wearing their mothers’ hairstyle at that age. I think “fashion” is a special case of “fad,” perhaps, but not quite what I was picturing. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/4 "2017-06-19T05:16:56Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Are there examples of the same fad returning in a successive generation? I’m excluding music and dance-type things (just watched Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and my fifteen year old son is grooving to “Brandy You’re a Fine Girl,” by Looking Glass). So non-music/dance: have any fads reincarnated in a new generation? So the brief revival of swing dance in the late 1990s is right out. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/5 "2017-06-19T05:36:48Z")
> [@Terminus\_Est](#): > > So the brief revival of swing dance in the late 1990s is right out. Yup 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/6 "2017-06-19T07:15:47Z")
Do beards count as a fad? They’ve come right back - in particular, the monolithic Hipster Beard with its significant vertical axis. ---
**Author:** ![Marci\_Al](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47c2d/32.png) [@Marci\_Al](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marci_Al)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/7 "2017-06-19T07:20:03Z")
Shroud of Turin. Long proven to have been made more than 1,200 years after Jesus died. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/8 "2017-06-19T07:24:20Z")
Hm, well, at one point when my son was a teenager, and was wearing pants that virtually fell off him, so he had to make sure to wear decent looking boxers, we watched a movie (whose name escapes me) made in the year of his birth, and set in that year, where the male characters dressed exactly like that. I don’t know that 15-16 years would be considered successive generations. On the other hand, I also don’t think you can call something that lasts that long a fad. ---
**Author:** ![DeepLiquid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deepliquid/32/14893_2.png) [@DeepLiquid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeepLiquid)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/9 "2017-06-19T11:41:32Z")
Vinyl (albums), long gone and now the must have item for every hipster I know. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/10 "2017-06-19T11:45:36Z")
The neon tubes under cars from the Miami Vice era came back a few years ago (mostly LEDs now I guess). I don’t know about elsewhere, but here in Québec all public schools had eliminated school uniforms in the 1970s, and they came back (to some schools) about 10 years ago. Also here, the drive-in (human) bank teller had disappeared in the 1970s, but new banks are being built with a drive-in automatic teller. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/11 "2017-06-19T12:18:25Z")
Eyeglasses shift around in style over the years. I wore thick black frames as a child, and then when I was a teen, wire frames were all the rage. The John Lennon look. Thick black frames have come back, along with the “two-tone” style (Example bottoms of frame clear, top of frame is a dark color). ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/12 "2017-06-19T12:43:43Z")
I know that the word “cool” meaning “I like this” pretty much faded out in the 70s, to be revived in the 90s. Men’s ties went through cycles of thin ties to thick ties to thin ties over the years. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/13 "2017-06-19T12:48:07Z")
According to the back-to-school ads denim keeps coming back every few years (faster than a generation, though). For furniture like entertainment stands and such there’s a cycle thru all black, all metal, “glass”+metal. For kitchen appliances there’s a cycle thru black, beige\*, stainless steel. Sadly, harvest gold and avocado green never seem to come back. Wallpaper was out a few years ago and sort of made a comeback. - “Beige” gets replaced by “biscuit” or some near-synonym from time to time. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/14 "2017-06-19T13:10:22Z")
America Firstism, if that counts as a fad. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/15 "2017-06-19T13:17:19Z")
I wonder if it’s almost definitionally impossible. All the fads I know of have as part of their thrill that the fad is the next **new** thing, that it’s something exciting and new. If Rubik’s Cubes (for example) come back, they’ll be retro and hipster. They might be popular, but the “flavor” of their popularity will be very different. That said, one possible place to look for return fads might be in children’s items, especially toys: kids will be less aware of what was popular before and might be more susceptible to treating something old as if it’s new. Also, if you’re willing to consider “reboots”, or related products within a single brand, it becomes easier to find fads that resurface. Some possibilities: -My Little Pony dolls and (to a lesser extent) Transformer toys -Star Wars paraphernalia -Pokemon paraphernalia ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/16 "2017-06-19T13:18:31Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > There are plenty of examples of fads that have (briefly) consumed large swaths of people, from raccoon coats on college campuses in the 1920s Also, now I want Stephen King to write a short story about the raccoon coats that consumed large swaths of people on college campuses in the 1920s. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/17 "2017-06-19T13:29:16Z")
I see more peace signs now then I did in the 1960’s. And smiley faces, though they’ve been renamed and expanded. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/18 "2017-06-19T13:32:43Z")
Sagging pants aren’t a style that’s come back. They’re a style that has just never gone away, no matter how much we hope or try. And computer tech has gone through some cycles. Long before MMO games, there were MUDs. Long before The Cloud, there was mainframes. Interface with computers has gone from being linguistic to graphical and now back to linguistic, though the language is much more sophisticated now. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/19 "2017-06-19T13:39:42Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I think “fashion” is a special case of “fad,” perhaps, but not quite what I was picturing. That seems odd, since two of the three examples you gave in your OP were fashion related. So I’ll go with anther one: Shoulder pads in women’s blouses. Those were popular, IIRC, in the 1940s and then made a comeback in the 70s. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356/20 "2017-06-19T14:13:11Z")
> [@DeepLiquid](#): > > Vinyl (albums), long gone and now the must have item for every hipster I know. I’ve still got \>200 vinyl LPs dating from the 1960s through 1980s that I’ve never gotten rid of because I’ve never replaced them with CDs or MP3s, and never bothered to get one of those turntables to convert them to digital. I’d say that by some miracle I’m cool again, but that would imply that I was ever cool in the first place. 😛 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fads-that-have-come-back-in-new-generations/789356.md?page=2)