Hello,
everyone, and welcome to the third part of a seven part series in this blog for
the last week of 2014. It's a little
something that I like to call "2014 IN POP CULTURE".
And,
I will be completely up front with you.
I am purposely making this blog entry on the short side because my
computer has decided that it hates me this week, and my Internet connection
keeps kicking me off. I hope that it
stays on long enough for me to post this piece. Fingers crossed.
Anyway,
for today's posting, I have decided that I am going to talk about some of the
trends, fads, games, and toys that seemed to dominate 2014. In fact, I have selected ten in all that I
think got the world's attention over the course of the year. The list includes a certain type of challenge,
a word that has a double meaning, and a hashtag that causes people to go back
in time...quite literally.
Shall
we begin? We'll go in alphabetical
order...
THE WORD "BAE"
Okay,
so we can thank Pharrell Williams in part for this latest trend, as his single
"Come Get It Bae" introduced everyone to the term.
So,
what do you think the word "bae" means? Well, it's got a double meaning, and depending on who you ask, it
can be a very sweet meaning, or a very disgusting meaning.
The
sweet meaning is supposed to be a slang term for "baby". Granted, I am not one who appreciates the
shortening of legitimate English words into nonsensical gibberish. Maybe I am a little bit old school here, but
the only time I prefer shortening words is if I am using it as an abbreviation,
or if I am going to use a contraction such as shouldn't, don't, or can't. To me, using bae instead of baby just
screams laziness.
Or,
if you're Danish, you could consider it to be a show of disgust. After all, in the Dutch language,
"bae" is reportedly a slang term for feces. What a touching sentiment.
CANDY CRUSH SODA
Just
when you thought that Candy Crush Saga wasn't addictive enough, they released
"Candy Crush Soda" in 2014.
It plays out almost exactly the same way that the original game plays,
but with a twist. Whether it is making
soda rise to save a small bear, breaking jelly blocks to find hidden gummi
bears, or eating all the chocolate in a level, the game will allow you to visit
hundreds of new levels, and is one of the most downloaded games on Google Play
and iTunes.
Or,
at least in theory, it will allow you to visit hundreds of levels. I have been stuck on level 55 for two weeks
now...
FITBIT
Okay,
so technically, Fitbit has been around for a couple of years now, but 2014
seems to be the year that it has exploded in popularity. And Fitbit bracelets seem to do almost
everything. It measures your heart
rate, measures how many steps you take, measures how many floors you climb, and
even monitors how many times you wake up during the night! Now if it can tell you when you are losing
weight as you move, that would be absolutely perfect!
FROZEN EVERYTHING!
It
was inevitable that when "Frozen" was released in November 2013, that
2014 would be a year in which none of us would be able to "let it go"
no matter how hard we tried. Not only
did we have the original movie released on DVD and Blu-Ray, but we also had the
Sing-Along edition. Not to mention the
CD soundtracks (and karaoke albums), karaoke machines, dolls, stuffed animals,
Christmas cards, inflatable decorations, gift bags, sweatshirts, T-shirts,
underwear, socks, cookies, etc...
ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE
This
past summer, thousands of people all over the world took part in this charity
challenge to raise money for ALS. It
was really simple to do too. All you
had to do was grab a plastic bucket filled with water and ice cubes, and douse
yourself with it. The reason why the
water was ice cold was so we could understand somewhat what ALS felt like (ALS
being a disease that affects mobility).
And for what it is worth, not only did people douse themselves with
frigid water, but the campaign raised millions of dollars.
For
what it was worth, most of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenges were fun to
watch. But some were just painful like
the one below.
And
some were just beyond words...like this one posted below. I sure hope this was a spoof...because if
not, lord help her.
INSTAX MINI CAMERAS
Did
you ever think that in a world in which you can take photos with a cell phone
and print them off at a photo kiosk or in the comfort of home that the hottest
gadget of 2014 would be a pastel coloured camera that takes Polaroid style
pictures? Well, believe it! This camera made by Fujifilm was so popular at my workplace
this holiday season that we could not keep it, or the replacement film in
stock!
There's
just one catch. The photos are about
the same size as the ones you might get at a shopping mall photo booth, and the
film costs exactly one quarter the cost of the whole camera. But, who can understand fads, right?
iPHONE 6
The
September release of the latest iPhone model certainly caused a lot of mixed
reaction. It still caused a lot of
people to line up at Apple stores to pick one up, and apparently one poor soul
in Australia dropped their phone immediately after getting it. But the con is that the phone is larger than
the previous iPhone 5, 5C, or 5S, and reportedly some people found that the
phone is a lot more...flexible than previous models. It is hard to say whether the iPhone 6 will remain popular, but
enough people seemed to go for it in 2014 that it deserves a mention.
MINECRAFT
Okay,
so granted, Minecraft is not a new thing.
This block based video game has been around for at least three or four
years now. But when the game was expanded
to include console releases for PlayStation and XBOX, its popularity grew, and
millions of people all over the world have played the game at least a few
minutes a day. It is absolutely amazing
how creative people have gotten with Minecraft, and I can only imagine that its
popularity will grow over 2015 as well.
I often wonder if Nintendo will jump in and join the Minecraft
bandwagon.
SKYLANDERS TRAP TEAM
2014
was a rather weak year in the video game industry. No new consoles were released this year at all. But the latest edition of Skylanders came
out this year which allowed gamers to trap enemies, rehabilitate them, and
convince them to fight on their side.
Or, at least, that's what the seven year olds who have bought Skylanders
action figures from me at work tell me, anyway. Skylanders have always been a popular game for younger gamers, so
it isn't too surprising that the latest version would also be popular.
THROWBACK THURSDAY
Have
you ever seen those old photos of your Facebook friends or Twitter followers
that have the hashtag #TBT attached to them?
TBT stands for "Throwback Thursday", and it seems to have
taken off this past year. I see a lot
of people posting old photos on Thursdays in an effort to generate
discussion. And, well, technically
today isn't Thursday, but here's an old photo of me with the Easter bunny circa
1987 in the spirit of it all.
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