# What were you wrong and right about - predicting future trends in fashion, music, etc.? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 15, 2022, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589 "2022-12-15T14:56:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**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:** [December 18, 2022, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/41 "2022-12-18T16:44:18Z")
I predicted that the original Amazon kindle would evolve into a device that showed videos. It would not remain text-only. I also figured disco would die out because it had nowhere to evolve to. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2022, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/42 "2022-12-18T22:14:55Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > Music: I was right about: Alice in Chains You need to get a three-legged dog avatar if that’s the case😁 ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2022, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/43 "2022-12-18T22:38:14Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I also figured disco would die out because it had nowhere to evolve to. Just to clarify – does that mean that your prediction was wrong (because dance music is still alive and well) or right (because we no longer call dance music “disco”)? ---
**Author:** ![Mortimus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Mortimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mortimus)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2022, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/44 "2022-12-18T23:25:43Z")
> [@Tibby](#): > > 1970s fashions were the pinnacle of haute couture, particularly for men. Garish 3-piece leisure suits, platform shoes, ruffled shirts, wide lapels, plunging necklines, mullet hairdos, mutton chop sideburns… I instinctively knew there was something intrinsically wrong with leisure suits. I was more of a untucked flannel shirt/logo t-shirt/jeans guy. I was ‘grunge’ way before it was cool. But my mom insisted that I have a leisure suit for my HS graduation picture. I managed to talk her out of the powder blue one in favor a the bit more subdued brown polyester. I wore that leisure suit for the picture, packed it away with the assumption I’d never wear it again. I was wrong. Fast forward two years. I’m working as a studio camera guy at a TV station. Weather guy calls in sick, we’ve got nobody to replace him. Director tells me to go back home, put on a suit because I have to do weather that night. I balked, protesting that I don’t have a suit to put on. That and I’ve never done weather before. But I wanted to keep my job so I went home, put on the horrid suit, came back and did the weather. Fortunately the suit was still kinda/sorta in fashion, that wasn’t a problem. The much bigger problem is that I never did the weather before. My on-air performance was much more dismal than my fashion statement. That is probably a more amusing story than the story of my suit but I don’t want to thread jack any more than I have 😉 ---
**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:** [December 18, 2022, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/45 "2022-12-18T23:37:00Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > > [@RealityChuck](#): > > > > I also figured disco would die out because it had nowhere to evolve to. > > Just to clarify – does that mean that your prediction was wrong (because dance music is still alive and well) or right (because we no longer call dance music “disco”)? It was right. Dance music isn’t Disco. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2022, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/46 "2022-12-19T00:58:10Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If you had asked me back in the eighties, I would have told you the Soviet Union was stable and would exist for decades into the future. I never would have predicted that the Soviet regime was on the verge of disappearing. In the late 1970’s my parents were part of a group of American journalists who, not sure how this was managed, went to Soviet Russia on a guided tour. Despite being watched every moment, and a clearly large effort was being made to impress them, the consensus of the group was that Russia was close to a being a disaster zone. Everything was poorly made, poorly run, or just unavailable. It was more like a third world country than a major world power. Journalists are of course trained to be difficult to impress. I remember my father saying that the West had little to fear from the Soviet Union. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2022, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/47 "2022-12-19T02:13:30Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Decades ago we had a local newspaper columnist who would solicit musings from readers and publish a select few every week. Sort of a “shower thoughts” thing. > > Some time in the early 1980s I mailed in a list of my thoughts, which I was pleased to find was published. My list was titled something like “shower thoughts from 1990”. > > First item: Remember rap music? > > mmm I was born in 1977, and apparently my recollections of rap don’t match reality. I thought rap started in the mid to late 80s with artists like Tone Loc, MC Hammer, and Run DMC. The big change. as I remember it, happened around 1994 when Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG became popular, pushing aside the 80s / early 90s style rap, and that since then it’s been a matter of small incremental changes but no major paradigm shifts. It sounds like the idea I had in my head doesn’t conform with reality. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2022, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/48 "2022-12-19T04:41:48Z")
I’ve been wrong about pretty much everything in my life. I stopped keeping track a long time ago. So, if I think it’s cool, stay the fuck away from it. Rare exception being pre-'75 BMW e10’s. They worth bank now! And ones that don’t run are sought after for electric conversion. Just a great car. ---
**Author:** ![phs3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8491ac/32.png) [@phs3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phs3)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2022, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/49 "2022-12-19T14:08:38Z")
Can we ask how you know…nevermind, I don’t actually want to know. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2022, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/50 "2022-12-19T17:42:35Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > the consensus of the group was that Russia was close to a being a disaster zone. Everything was poorly made, poorly run, or just unavailable. It was more like a third world country than a major world power. The old cliche was that the Soviet Union was “Upper Volta with rockets.” The expression was coined back in the sixties so the failings in the Soviet regime were apparent that far back. That said, the Soviet Union didn’t collapse in the sixties. Or the seventies or the eighties. If you had asked me around 1985, I would have observed that the Soviets have muddled along despite all their problems for sixty years and they would most likely muddle along with those same problems for another sixty years. ---
**Author:** ![Mallard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Mallard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mallard)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2022, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/51 "2022-12-19T17:43:22Z")
When I was in my early teens (I’m 70 now) I remember hearing about the future would have “pay TV” but lots of channels. Back then we had two channels (I’m in western Canada) and they were free. I “predicted” that TV’s would have coin slots on them to pay for the TV shows we were watching and then a guy with a huge heavy bag would come to your house every month and empty the coin box. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2022, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/52 "2022-12-19T17:45:03Z")
A few years ago I’d have staked my life on my belief that Missouri would be the 49th or 50th state to legalize cannabis for recreational use. Between the Old Church Lady voting bloc and the political power of a certain beverage manufacturer located here, I’d have put the odds of legal, recreational cannabis being legalized here before full federal legalization as somewhere between jack and squat. Well, whaddyaknow, [Missouri legalized recreational pot](https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/marijuana/marijuana-legalization-in-missouri-takes-effect-thursday/article_dfef851b-c4b3-5f37-b722-030d5fdb8fc0.html). I don’t have a list near me, but I’m guessing we’re 28th or 29th or so on the list, not 50th. Granted, our legalization came not from within the routine machinations of government, but from a grass-roots effort to get a constitutional amendment up for a vote. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2022, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/53 "2022-12-19T17:54:18Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > A few years ago I’d have staked my life on my belief that Missouri would be the 49th or 50th state to legalize cannabis for recreational use. I predicted a few years ago that your neighbor to the west, Kansas, would never legalize pot on its own, but would wait until it becomes legal at the federal level. Unfortunately, I’ve not yet been proven wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Mortimus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Mortimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mortimus)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2022, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/54 "2022-12-19T17:57:02Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > A few years ago I’d have staked my life on my belief that Missouri would be the 49th or 50th state to legalize cannabis for recreational use. Between the Old Church Lady voting bloc and the political power of a certain beverage manufacturer located here, I’d have put the odds of legal, recreational cannabis being legalized here before full federal legalization as somewhere between jack and squat. I’d bet that Wisconsin will be the 49th or 50th state to legalize pot. We’re certainly on track for that. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2022, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/55 "2022-12-19T18:09:17Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > Well, whaddyaknow, [Missouri legalized recreational pot](https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/marijuana/marijuana-legalization-in-missouri-takes-effect-thursday/article_dfef851b-c4b3-5f37-b722-030d5fdb8fc0.html). I don’t have a list near me, but I’m guessing we’re 28th or 29th or so on the list, not 50th. 21st plus DC and Guam. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2022, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/56 "2022-12-19T18:42:42Z")
In the early 90’s I often like to record tv programs to watch later using the VCR.one would have to program the vcr to set up it up. I mused how great it’d be if consumers had the ability to cherry pick a cable channel or program and watch it at anytime they like. I was ready for streaming and didn’t know it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/57 "2022-12-20T02:03:10Z")
Back in grad school - 1972 or so - I wrote a paper on radio predicting that stations would start specializing in non-music niches like news and sports, doing narrowcasting instead of broadcasting. FM had yet to take off in a big way, but I couldn’t see AM lasting as the primary source of music. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/58 "2022-12-20T02:40:29Z")
After the failure of low flow toilets, I predicted they would make a toilet with an adjustable flush for liquid or solid waste. I was right on that one. I predicted that nobody would want a Tamagotchi or other digital pet as they were guaranteed to die in a few days. I was very wrong on that one. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/59 "2022-12-20T19:37:32Z")
> [@Mortimus](#): > > > [@HeyHomie](#): > > > > A few years ago I’d have staked my life on my belief that Missouri would be the 49th or 50th state to legalize cannabis for recreational use. Between the Old Church Lady voting bloc and the political power of a certain beverage manufacturer located here, I’d have put the odds of legal, recreational cannabis being legalized here before full federal legalization as somewhere between jack and squat. > > I’d bet that Wisconsin will be the 49th or 50th state to legalize pot. We’re certainly on track for that I’m fairly confident that the Bible Belt Southern states - Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina - will bring up the rear. (Although Georgia’s bill to permit medical cannabis oil was sponsored and fought for by a conservative Christian Republican from a rural district, so there’s that…) ---
**Author:** ![Mortimus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Mortimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mortimus)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589/60 "2022-12-20T23:22:20Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > I’m fairly confident that the Bible Belt Southern states - Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina - will bring up the rear I’m probably myopic because of where I live. But around here a roach found in an ashtray at a traffic stop is all over the Sheriff Dept FB page as a major drug bust. The Bud Lite swilling rednecks eat that shit up and vote accordingly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-wrong-and-right-about-predicting-future-trends-in-fashion-music-etc/976589.md?page=4)