Wacky Packages was huge when I was in sixth grade.
I call it “that thing in the opening credits for Community.”
bracelets & necklaces made from wrigley’s chewing gum wrappers. Seemed like everyone was making those. Especially the girls.
Guys made braided belts from vinyl or regular string. I recall some done with different color vinyl string. I’ve forgotten how it was done. They were only about a half inch across. Square or round depending on how it was braided.
Model car and airplane kits. Many a brain cell was lost from that glue.
Ha! Like I said, looking back, it was pretty girly, but my memory is all the guys got sucked into it too.
Thanks for posting the photo…I’m gonna download it and keep it as a memory-jogger.
Puffy stickers. Little round ones that came in packs of about 40 to a sheet. They had cute little designs on them.
Roach clips (I didn’t realize their true purpose) with feathers dangling from long suede cords.
Woven ribbon barrettes in two colors with the loose ends hanging down
wearing one fake nail that was all-metal, usually silver
Anything to do with KISS
3/4 sleeve baseball tees with the iron-ons you got in the mall while you watched and hoped the guy didn’t get it all crooked
shell jewelry of all kinds
skateboards with the big red translucent wheels
ring pops
Star Wars trading cards
Why yes, I was a junior burnout, how can you tell?
(Bolding mine)
Doesn’t this kind of contradict the definition of a fad?
I had a Hyper Color shirt too. I sadly bought it at the end of the craze but managed to keep it working for nearly a year by not ever putting it in the dryer. That’s what killed them.
At my school the hot thing was to collect key fobs. Girls had key chains 3’ long because they had so many linked together, 3’ chains with three keys. Every once in a while I get a strange urge to add cute key fobs to my simple one. I have to suppress it by remembering that I like carrying a small purse and don’t want to switch to a big one just so i have room for my keys.
I was also lucky enough to be skinny during the body suit fad. I looked fabulous in them, btw. I would not look so hot now, sadly.
Just curious where the hell you went to school that cowboy hats were a fad? I grew up in Idaho and though I saw plenty of cowboy hats they were never a fad among school kids.
I not only remember clackers, I still have the original clackers that I used to bruise my forearms in junior high. They are orange just like these but mine have a metal ring:
http://www.bigredtoybox.com/articles/clackersindex.shtml
happy times…
I managed to get a Cabbage Patch Kid a year or two after they were hot…she had the same name as me, but different hair color. pout
But what about Garbage Pail Kids? Satire, card collecting, a sticker in every pack, gross-out jokes…I can still remember the pictures on the cards for my and my siblings’ names.
I don’t know if these are fads, but I know my friends all had…
Easy Bake oven? It’s still around, I know…
Shrinky-Dinks? Color the plastic, cut it out, flipping BAKE it in the oven, and then TA-DA! Uhm…2-D action figure fun!
Light Bright - until your mom gets so sick of vacuuming the pegs, she throws it all away.
Fast forward a couple years…Z Cavaricci pants, pleated to Hell and back, with more belt loops than you can shake a belt at…and they MUST be tightrolled to within an inch of your life. Starter jackets were huge, caps too…people got beat up for a Bulls Starter jacket or some such, if I remember middle school correctly.
(I still miss GPK.)
I remember the paper fortune tellers. I and one of our friends used it to tell my sister she would marry Joe Stalin (he’d been dead 25 years at that point) and be driven to the wedding in a wheelbarrow.
It took a while to make her stop crying.
Here’s one I saw yesterday, when I took mudgirl to join the park swimming pool: teenage girls, wearing tank-style bathing suits, with shorts over them. The fad is this: the waist-band of the shorts is rolled down so you can see thigh between the top of the swimsuit leg hole and the top of the waist-band of the shorts.
I saw at least five teenage girls sporting this look yesterday, so at least around here, it must be a fad.
How about sprayed on tight pants for the girls?
Get the knack t-shirts for everybody(for about 20 minutes)
Popped collars on your Izod shirts.
Trapper Keepers anyone?
yo- yo’s
skateboards
In high school you were not cool if you did not drive a Trans Am or a Camaro
smoking…on campus
Top siders no socks of course
Electronic football