Do
any of you remember a show on television called "Dr. Fad"?
I
know I certainly do. It used to air on
quite a few television stations in the early 1990s, and it was a game show
where kids competed against each other to create wacky new inventions that could
potentially become a brand new product.
The show was hosted by Ken Hakuta, who had success as an inventor
himself. If you recall playing with a
Wacky Wall Walker during the 1980s, you can thank him for it. He invented it, and it became one of the biggest
fads of that decade.
You
know, fads are interesting things.
Sometimes, a fad starts up, and quickly becomes a cultural phenomenon,
like "Beatlemania" or Pokemon.
Sometimes they pop up out of nowhere and stick around for a year or two
(Skip-Its, Pet Rocks, and those velcro hand shields that allow tennis balls to
stick to them). And sometimes they die
out as quickly as they came (and to this day, I'll never understand the appeal
of dying your hair with Kool-Aid).
Well,
in this retrospective of 2015, I am going to take a look at some of the biggest
fads to come out of the toy, book, video game, and fashion scenes to create
a list of the biggest trends of the year.
Some of them I could see lasting a long time, while others were starting
to become stale by March.
So,
what was 2015 the year of?
LEGO DIMENSIONS
You
could easily say that Lego has experienced a bit of a renaissance period during
the last couple of years. With the Lego
Movie being one of the biggest (pardon the pun) blockbusters over the last
couple of years, and Simpsons and Scooby-Doo Lego Playsets being sold on store
shelves, Lego has never been cooler (or more expensive)!
So,
what happens when you combine the love of Lego with the love of video
games? Well, you get Lego Dimensions,
the hottest new toy/video game of the year.
Released
on September 27, 2015, the game (which is available for PlayStation 3/4, XBOX
360, XBOX One, and Nintendo Wii U), allows you to play with your favourite Lego
characters in fourteen different Lego themed worlds based off of your favourite
films and comic books. It truly is a
game in which you can never get bored, and you can buy additional character
pieces you can use to play with in the game.
There
is a catch though. You have to build
the characters yourself. What fun would
it be if it came already assembled?
PIE FACE
Would
you believe that THIS was the game that everyone wanted this Christmas? And would you believe that the store I work
at could never keep enough of it in stock?
And really, the way you play the game is simple. You crank some sort of lever that is
attached to a pie plate covered in whipped cream (which you have to buy
separately, might I add), and the goal is to not get hit in the face with the
pie. Seriously? You could play the game a lot cheaper by
just using the whipped cream. I bet a
year from now, this game will be forgotten about.
PAW PATROL
Okay,
so this fad isn't exactly new. It's a
television show that has aired on Nickelodeon since August 2013, and it
features a little boy and his team of seven pups who go around Adventure City
and use their skills to save the lives of everyone around. In preparation for this blog entry, I
watched a couple of episodes of the show, and I can definitely understand why
so many like it. It also explains why
our store was completely devoid of Paw Patrol merchandise the week before
Christmas. It seems like the longer Paw
Patrol stays, the more popular it gets.
THE "MAN BUN"
If
there is one hairstyle that makes me cringe every time I see it, it's the
stupid man bun that celebrities such as Chris Hemsworth and David Beckham have
rocked over the years. 2015 seemed to
be the year in which the style (hopefully) peaks. A lot of guys have purposely let their hair grow out so they can
pull the hair up in a bun and wear it that way. You know what, why not just cut the thing out and wear your hair
short. The only people who can rock the
bun hairstyle are librarians, food service workers, and possibly Marge
Simpson. Enough with the man bun
already!
THE BLACK/BLUE or GOLD/WHITE DRESS
Remember
that picture of that dress that nearly broke the Internet earlier this
year? The one that some people argued
about for days? Yeah, that was kind of
entertaining for all of a minute. For
what it is worth, the dress is supposed to be black and blue.
GETTING GREY THE ARTIFICIAL WAY
So,
Kelly Osbourne bucked the trend in 2013 when she started wearing her hair in a
purplish-grey colour. At the time, she
was a standout. But now that a lot of
A-list talent seem to be going towards the silver hair dye to turn their hair
into the same colour as their grandmother's, it's starting to become a little
boring.
PINK HAIR IS TRULY
OUTRAGEOUS
Another
colour that seems to be in for hair colour is pink - likely inspired by the
resurgence of Jem and the Holograms for the cartoon's 30th anniversary. Though, I see the pink hair making more of
an impact than the lacklustre movie.
GLITTER BEARDS
Okay,
I don't mind the fact that the beard is one of the trends of 2015. If you can grow one (I can't), I say rock
it. But glitter? No.
Just no.
NETFLIX AND CHILL
Definition
of Netflix: An online based television
and film database that you can watch at your disposal - for about nine bucks a
month.
Definition
of Chill: Another word for rest and
relaxation. Sometimes with a special
friend, it can mean so much more than that...if you get what I mean.
Therefore,
Netflix and Chill means going over to a special friend's house to watch movies
and do things that can mean so much more than that...if you get what I mean.
STAR WARS ANYTHING
From
lightsabres to action figures to video games to even Star Wars cereal, the
release of the seventh Star Wars film certainly has piqued people's interest in
grabbing as much Star Wars memorabilia as they possibly can.
MINIONS ANYTHING
2015
is the year of the minion. Seriously,
look around any toy store and you'll see it.
And
finally...
ADULT COLOURING BOOKS
I
should clarify that I mean adult as in adults can use them, not adult as in
"published by Playboy".
No
longer are Crayola crayons and colouring books restricted to children any
longer. Several companies have now
issued colouring books for adults as a stress-reliever. The pictures that have to be coloured are a
lot more complex than the pictures you might see in a Paw Patrol or Minion
colouring book, mainly because the book printers assume that most adults have
the motor skills necessary to stay inside the lines. That said, some of the designs in these books are absolutely
beautiful, and it makes me want to buy one of these books so I can relieve my
stress. Which at times can be a lot.
Those
are just a few of the fads of 2015. Are
you guilty of taking part in any of them?
Or are there any that I've missed?
Tomorrow,
we take a look at the news stories that defined 2015, as well as remembering
all the famous faces we lost this past year.
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