Memorable Fads of the Decade

The past decade has really flown by, and there have been a countless number of fads that we've endured. Some of these fads still positively impact our lives today, but we can all remember one or two of those infamous fads that we jumped for joy when they faded into nothingness.

The new millennium has brought forth an abundance of technology, with television arguably being at the forefront of it. The introduction of high-definition, plasma, and LED televisions has really revolutionized entertainment as we know it. It's almost hard to remember how we got by watching TV before these modern marvels were brought to us some several years ago. This is undoubtedly an ever-improving industry, and a fad that has quickly become a staple of our society. Staying within this field, how can we forget the iPods? Making the leap from listening to one CD at a time with a walkman to having hundreds, or sometimes even thousands of songs at your fingertips, the iPod changed how we listen to music forever. Just as with HDTV's it has become hard to imagine life without the iPods we love so dearly. For better or worse, we have also witnessed fads such as installing TV's and DVD players within vehicles. While this may be an excellent idea for children riding in the backseat, we all know that this innovation can be a major hazard to drivers. And who can forget Bluetooth headsets? For those of us that don't mind using our hand to use the phone, the Bluetooth fad became a quick nuisance. Although these were introduced a relatively short time ago, you don't see many people using them these days at all...thankfully.

This era has also brought us several fads within the health and dieting portions of our lives. I mean, everyone wants to be healthy, right? So in come the hoards of ads promoting such things as the Atkins diet, South Beach diet, and of course, Jared from Subway, and we have slowly watched them fall by the wayside over time, despite their humongous popularity when the general public caught wind of them. We've also seen energy drink supplements, such as Monster, Red Bull, and Rockstar enter the American mainstay. Such products are an example of a fad that has withstood the test of time, and will remain in existence despite their controversial attributes. And finally, we've all seen an enormous amount of ads for weight loss products this past decade. With almost all of them proving to be pointless and ineffective supplements, the rise and fall of the "lose weight quick" fad has all but come and gone.

On to some entertainment, we have been witness to both an explosion of new material on the web, sports, and television. Where were we before MySpace was launched in 2003 or Facebook in 2004? These sites have allowed us to meet and interact with an unlimited number of people, and seem to be one of those fads that will never fade away. Texas Hold 'Em Poker has been around longer than any of us care to remember, but in the early 2000's it really exploded, causing a spike in the gambling industry and being broadcast all over TV, with ESPN airing the "World Series" annual event. Some television shows such as "Survivor", "Big Brother", and "American Idol" have experienced faddish times this decade as reality TV really struck big.

This was surely a decade to remember, and for just about every helpful or progressive fad that we saw, there was usually an equally negative one, many of which we look back on and laugh at for actually using. You can bet your bottom dollar that starting at the turn of 2010, we will be ushering in an even more outlandish and absurd series of fads. Check out some more fads from this past decade at sybil-gothgirl.blogspot.com/2009/04/fads-of-2000s.html.