I didn’t intend to include gag fads such as pet rocks and such but rather things which were more substantial.
A separate thread for short lived fads would be better.
The fad lasted a lot longer than just fifteen minutes.
Not much, actually. Pet rocks were introduced at a trade show in August of 1975, and were pretty much done by February of 1976.
Although they were revived and are still a thing in South Korea.
I still use my iPod Touch regularly. The only problem is that the battery is on its last legs, so I have to keep it plugged in while playing.
As I said in the post immediately proceeding your, I wasn’t intended the thread to be about fads, especially short term gags.
Although I didn’t say anything, I wasn’t really thinking about fashion or hairstyles, as the nature of them is that they tend to be relatively short term fads.
Or Donald
Automatic seatbelts in cars, the kind that ran on a track above the door. I hated those things.
Ford Escorts in the early 90ies… Say no more.
… And you still had to buckle up.
I am old enough to live through the heyday and decline of the large(8 to 10 foot) home satellite dishes…
Last year, I dug out my old iPod, charged it up, and started using it for when I’m on the treadmill. The playlists are still great, even if they are missing the few recent songs I’ve downloaded. I look like a complete dinosaur to the kiddies working out around me. And the iPod only adds to that.
This thread reminds me I threw out my dot matrix printer that I have had at the bottom of my closet for near 20 years a few months ago…
well, we still have the Mall of America, 5.6 million square feet
I’m glad my CDs never went away. My PC died and I spent much of the weekend re-importing them into my new PC. Had to buy an external CD-drive (because hey, although built-in CD drives were once ubiquitous, they’ve since gone away), but still saved hundreds of dollars not having to pay for downloads. Now, if I could just find my copy of “Mesopotamia.” Maybe it’s near the rabbit-ears on the TV.
Don’t want to hijack, but I sometimes have a need for one of these, and when I look online I am amazed at how cheap they are (less than 20 bucks at WalMart). Is yours a USB device, and was it as cheap as those I see online?
About $23. It needs a longer USB cord to be truly convenient, but still worth the money. I suppose I could get an extension cord somewhere, but it’s not important enough to bother.
Thank you!
I came in to say “bookstores”
When I was a kid, you bought books at newsstands, department stores, pharmacies, hardware stores (true!) and the very rare bookstore. The bookstores were either on college campuses, or were tiny, cramped places filled with shelves. If I wanted to go to a bookstore, I had to go several towns over. Or to New York City.
Then circa 1970 Waldenbooks opened up in a not-so-local shopping mall, and I was blown away. Lots of room. HUGE numbers of books, on all subjects. It was Great! A couple of years later a new indoor mall grew up attached to an existing Bambergers, and it included a Waldenbooks. Finally, a bookstore close enough to bicycle to! Several years later a second bookstore, a Lauriat’s, also went in to our not-so-big mall. The mall where I first encountered the Waldenbooks then had FOUR bookstores.
Bookstores continued to multiply and appear all over. They even opened up a Borders in the old strip mall near my home – finally, a bookstore I could WALK to from my parent’s house.
Then along came the internet, and the bookstores disapeared. The three and a half story Waterstone’s in Boston’s Back Bay went first. Then man of the others, and all the used bookstores that swarmed in Boston and Cambridge. Then Borders went. Only Barnes and Noble was left as a chain (although Books a Million was in existence, but nowhere near me. And the one in Dupont Circle in Washington DC closed).
The Barnes and Nobles are on shaky ground, too. The landlords pushed up the rent for the ones on Route 1 north of Boston and in the Prudential Center in Back Bay Boston and drove them out of business (I suspect Amazon for this). For the first time since it went up, the Prudential Center has no bookstore.
Some Barnes and Nobles remain. There’s a Books a Million in Concord NH. And there are some feisty independent bookstores around. It’s hard as hell to get my books into them, though.
Late night real estate infomercials showing various ways to buy property with “No money down!”
Columbia House and Time/Life clubs.
You know you still owe them some money, don’t lie.
Department stores are still around, if declining, but what has vanished is the true old style department stores with lots of odd departments, like books and food. The Macy’s on 34th street in NY had a magic store inside. The last time I was in Europe the department stores were still that kind, with examples I went to in London, Paris, Berlin and Helsinki.
My example, which I haven’t noticed in this thread, is the video game arcade. I’m sure there are some still around, but they used to be in every mall.