What's the most stupid trend (or fad) you participated in yourself?

I have to admit, I did buy a nice fidget spinner. ;)
- Mid-20s today? Yeah. Ok.
  In your 40s today? Welp...
  
  It still makes a great cat toy!
  
  I'm 40+ and still love spinners :)
  
  I’m 48 and just bought a fancy one from Etsy.
- I was so furious that my fidget spinner started to graze insanely after 3 days. I liked that trend ngl.
- Got one after the craze had died down and they're surprisingly fun - just a good quality desk toy
- I had 6, and today I have 0. Yep, I lost all my fidget spinners.
- I did not buy any, but got one as a gift. Was embarrassed to use it in public, but genuinely enjoyed. All because since earlier than I can remember, I require keeping my hands busy with something.
- I recently bought a nice hand machined metal one. It helps me focus when doing email

Bro when I was a kid I was into it all. Tamagotchi, hyper colors everything, Pogs, Beanie Babies, Slap bracelets, scooters (not the razors scooters the earlier BMX scooters), friendship bracelets, that kickball with the plastic ring you bounced on, moon shoes, Jams, Big Dog, I'm a dude that loved him some Polly Pockets, windbreakers, bomber jackets, M.U.S.C.L.E, G.I. Joe, Pound Puppies, Garbage Pale Kids, those puffy monster balls you squeezed and their eyes popped out, Shrinky Dinks, and then by the late 90s I was walking around with 30" cuffs in my Kikwear and a Kangol.
Edit: Big Dawg changed to Big Dog, changed 80s to BMX.
I showed this to my friend and he reminded me of the time we got really into Swatch Watches but our parents wouldn't buy them for us so we stole one and passed it back and forth until we got caught.
- Your parents must've been wealthy because those are all the fun toys I remember in my childhood that all the other kids had. I didn't have.
  
  We were 80s middle class both parents worked. My dad sold insurance and my mom was a nurse.
- Oh man this just awakened the memory of the "Big Dawg" stores. Actual stores that were ONLY big dawg merch shirts, hats, and pants.
  
  If you can't run with the big dog stay on the porch.
- Holy shit, most of that list covers me and I'm just now appreciating how dramatically much stuff counts as fads.
  Bro, yo-yos, beyblade, robot dogs, Pokemon at school, pencil toppers, pop-its, razor scooters, and more!
- “that kickball with the plastic ring you bounced on“
  It was called a pogo-ball. I loved mine. I remember doing skate grabs etc with it. I also remember a trick where you spun it like a top with your feet, jumped up so your feet were disconnected from it, and then landed back on it to continue pogo balling. It was a weird but fun toy.
- Remember those metal tubes with liquid plastic in them and came with a straw to blow balloons? (Super eleastic bubble plastic)
  They're back. Bought a tube of Bloonies for my daughter the other day.
  
  Skidz, Z Cavarici, IOU
  middle school fashion was so dumb

those old Harlem Shake videos from 2013... and I was in two of em
- Found the HR woman from 2013 who thought she was being cool.....or possibly someone employed by a minor league hockey team.
- CON LOS TERRORISTAS
  
  Tra
  Tra
  Tra
- Here's a funny one: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4zecxd
  An anti-Harlem shake Harlem shake video.
  
  Wow, Dailymotion still exists! And they redesigned their website!

Bitcoin. I mined some (might've even been on my CPU at the time) back when it was easy to mine it. Not a ton, but enough that now I have to explain that despite thinking blockchain is just straight up a scam, I do have some Bitcoin in a wallet on my hard drive somewhere. (That I've never done anything with.)
- Can you get to that wallet? A Bitcoin is worth $60k now.
  
  Yup. I can. I have around 1/20 of a Bitcoin, so the amount I have should be worth about $3,000 USD (unless the price has crashed since I started writing this post. 😈)
  Cashing it in would make me feel dirty. It's basically just handing the bag to the next bagholder. (Though, I'm not really a baholder per se. I'm not really invested to speak of. The only investment I made to get this Bitcoin is to leave my computer on for like a month or less.) Feeding the ponzi monster, as it were.
  But then again, it's $3,000.
  As much as I hate myself for admitting it, the possibility that the price will climb a little higher is probably part of why I didn't trade it for real money back in late 2021 when the price of a Bitcoin was so high.
  But, yeah, you're probably right I should just sell it. Maybe I'll just make whoever I sell it to promise they're not giving me next month's rent or their kids' college fund. Lol.
  Edit: Ok. You've inspired me to make a post asking other crypto-skeptics what I should do with it.

Pump-up sneakers
- Better run better run
  
  Faster than my bullet
  (Pumped Up Kicks - Foster The People)

The internet.
In all seriousness though, the World Wide Web.
Ok for reals, there was a time where cool kids wore their pants backwards.
- Kriss-Kross will make ya JUMP! JUMP!
  
  Mac Daddy will make ya—

I used to wear a short-sleeve shirt over a long-sleeve shirt
- gasps Stupid trend?!?
  
  Laundry detergent economy is more efficient if your bottom-layer clothing items have lower mass. You can fit more short-sleeve shirts in the washer than long-sleeve shirts. So it's better to have thin, short-sleeve t-shirts as the bottom layer and thick sweatshirts for the outer layer.
- Is this not cool anymore??
- I mean... I still do in the winter...
- People still do this and it was never a trend. It’s classical style.

I got some parachute pants when I was around 11 or 12 because I thought they were cool, and were the only fad I actually got excited about. Those were some comfy pants!
In high school grunge got popular, which worked out for since I was already wearing worn out jeans, tshirts, and flannel shirts due to living in a rural area. Not sure if trends catching up with me counts as being part of the fad, but I did like the music.
- I wear parachute pants when I can, although I usually just wear a sarong, as those are even more comfortable than pants.
- Remember that nirvana came from a rural area.

Wearing super preppy clothes to school/college. I was mistaken for a teacher in 11th grade. In college, I once wore a pencil skirt, black tights, white sweater, and high heels... to a regular Tuesday afternoon class, just because I wanted to.
- Doing something because you wanted to makes you way more grown up than the clothes.
  
  Aw, thank you. I appreciate it but let's be real: I know it was stupid. Like, I thought that dressing smart means I'm smart. I did enjoy the feeling of being put together, but wearing my heavy backpack with heels was atrociously stupid.
- I love this and wish people would still get more dressed up to do random stuff.
  
  If I had time and money I would invent dressy clothes that are practical, long-lasting and comfortable!
  The problem was that I adopted the trend without thinking about my poor college student lifestyle (LOTS of bus-metro-walk and carrying heavy books). By the end of that day, the tights had runs, the heels were dirty and scuffed, and my feet were killing me. I looked and felt like crap.
- That college outfit doesn't sound weird to me at all, but I went to college in Portland, so maybe I'm used to weird.
- You looked nice and took pride in yourself. You should remember this time fondly.

JNCO
- YOU TAKE THAT BACK
- Q
- I'll go one even further. Before JNCO existed we'd just go to the thrift store and buy the largest size pants we could find. Pair a 48" waist pant with a XXL tshirt when you were 28" and youth large and you were at the height of skate fashion.

POGs. I don't think anything is ever going to out stupid POGs
- You shut your pretty whore mouth!!!
  POG's were, and always be, awesome!
- At least they were cheap enough that every kid could feel like a pogillianaire.
  
  I had so many from just eating chips as a kid in Mexico. They still make em, my ex brought me a couple dragon ball super ones from when she went on vacation to Mexico to cheat on me.
- NFTs are digital POGs with no slammer to gamble them with. That’s way, way more stupid.
  
  Pog NFTs exist! Issued by the actual company. Glorious.
  
  Well... I'm old so I didn't get into it.
- Don’t kids still play them?
- I still don’t even know where they came from or why they existed but I did have a big tube of them and a nice brass slammer. Clearly I needed to fit in with my older brothers and that’s basically all I know about them.
  
  They came from Hawaii, milk bottles or containers of some kind had the cardboard circle under the cap, and kid's made up this game with them at the breakfast table

I had a WWJD bracelet at one point in time. The late 90s were weird like that.

Lolcats. I even dabbled in lolcode for no good reason.
- I can has cheezburger

I don't usually go along with trends, so my worst one is the starbucks planner thing where you collect stickers for every coffee you buy and you get a planner notebook for the coming year. Most expensive notebook I ever bought, and a waste of money. Also feels disgusting giving all that money to starbucks. This was like15 years ago though.

Atkins. The 00s low carb diet. How did people do it?
When I finally broke, I put steamed rice and French fries on a cheese pizza and rolled it up and ate it.
- There's a "modern" version of the Atkins diet, the keto diet. Same rules as far as I can tell, just rebranded. I went nuts. I couldn't stop thinking about bread. Sound of it, smell of it, taste of it... It haunted me day and night. I'd often find myself looking up bread maker reviews, comparing different bread makers on Amazon... Don't remember what I had when I finally gave up, wasn't nearly as awesome what you did. But I can tell you I did not buy a bread maker afterwards.

Wore my mother's bell bottoms to school and they fell apart while I was at school. Everyone got to see my undies q.q
- Did you have boots with the fur?
  
  WITH THE FURRRRRRR
- Why you always check for moth bites folks

I did one of those Hey girls, did you know that um memes (and continued to make them) back in the day. Netted me niche internet micro celebrity status. I won't tell you which one, though.
- I made a meme too! It's "If buying isn't owning, then pirating isn't stealing."
  It's a comment I made on a Louis Rossmann video!
  I also did "capitalism doesn't return the shopping cart".

i dunno, beanie babies?

Tight-rolled jeans with rolled-down socks.
Also, aforementioned backwards clothes - even trained my Grandma to reply "jump, jump?" 😁
- Tight rolled jeans were a fad? (Looks down at his tight rolled pants)
  
  I don't know if or when it came back (there seems to be a 30 year cycle for fashion where everything old is new again) or if you are just your own individual who doesn't care if it's in, just doing it because you like it.
  Or maybe you're rockabilly. Or too punk to care.
  Or maybe I stopped noticing it and it never actually went out of fashion - it was me who went out of fashion!
  ¯(ツ)/¯
- Oh I remember that one! All over middle and high school for me.

I dunno how much I'm about to date myself with this one but I still remember the heartbreak when my favorite squid shaped silly band snapped after I'd used it enough, whoever designed those was either a complete idiot for designing something that breakable for children, or a maniacal genius for designing something that would need to be replaced that often for children.
Either way, child targeted advertising should be completely illegal, that's just hitting the parents with emotional blackmail.

As a child, [bootleg] Tamagotchi?
Buying a new (or used) phone every 1-2 years?
Nowadays, they are boring.
- I taught middle school when those came out, would confiscate them, then feel bad and feed them during the day so I didn’t kill them before school let out and they could be returned to their owners.
  
  This is so wholesome <3
- Nowadays, they are boring.
  Fr, the foldy phones have been the biggest good innovation in like a decade. Unfortunately, now I'm stuck, I've had a taste and I can't go back now. It's like moving up to multiple monitors and then trying to go back to a single monitor setup after awhile

Remember those silly rubber "Armstrong" wristbands? I had a million different ones and wore about 20 on each wrist to school and everywhere else. Yeah, I was pretty goddamn cool. 😎

Five Nights at Freddy's. So much wasted brainpower.
- My little cousin was 10 during the height of the craze. I have been regaled with hours of FNAF lore that now lives rent free in my head. My YouTube recommendations were cursed for years. I still tease him about it nowadays and he cringes hard.

The CCTV trend on imageai. Different celebrities or fictional characters stealing from target is just funny for some reason

When I was younger I fell for two - baggy jeans and llamas.
I remember in 5th grade I tried to joke about llamas with one kid and show him the llama song (because he loved llamas) and he said I was just copying him. In hindsight fuck you Hans, you didn't invent llamas, you were just copying others too, you tool!
Baggy pants were regrettable too...

I wore baggy jeans and oversized hoodies in the early 2000's. That's pretty much the last time I "followed a trend" that I can think of though there probably are other occasions too that just don't come to mind now. Most of the time I get into things either before they were cool or way after the wave has already passed.

Jams shorts in the 80s. A friend and I wore them after a wedding, with tuxedos.

Pogs, I think.

Hot metal + arm = Smiley Face

back in 2016(?) I was one of the people who had a yeti cup
- I definitely do not currently have a yeti cup and definitely do not love it and use it all the time nope nuh uh
  
  lol, I'm one step ahead of you. I've moved on to a water bottle with stickers on it. I suppose I'm still participating in more trends than I thought.
- I still use mine. The things are built to last.

Only the king of all trends.

Voting in the US with the current system and subsequent duopoly.
- Whoa! Watch out everybody! We got a badass over here!
  
  Edgy McEdgerson is checking in!
  
  Voting and not voting in this system are the same decision. Either way you’re pissing somebody off and either way you don’t get what you want. Imagine thinking not voting is rebellious rather than the default. You should want and be empowered to vote for somebody, not against.
- You can contribute toward making the duopoly lean one way or the other based on consistent voting. Or you can stop votiing and thereby disenfranchising yourself.
  
  If project 2025 gets implemented, he won't have to worry about voting again anytime soon.
  John Oliver made a funny and stomach-churning video on it, which was probably one of the most horrifying videos I think I've seen. Reminds me of some of the diseases that cause such horrible organ damage, even if you survive the disease, your organs are permanently ruined. The MILF manor parts were also...interesting, lol.
  https://youtu.be/gYwqpx6lp_s
  
  I’m exercising my right not to vote. That’s as much of a liberty as voting. Being disenfranchised is voting in a system that doesn’t work for you.