Remembrance of (silly) things past
Gone but not forgotten are crazes much like the Pokemon Go that now has us in its grip
In the long tradition of history in repetition, we once again find ourselves immersed in a craze. This time, we’ve been lured into temporary insanity by cute and seemingly ubiquitous Pokemon critters, invisible to the naked eye, but … look out … there’s an Ekans on your foot right now! Egad!
More than a fad or even a mere meme, a craze is something over which we all go a little collectively coocoo-bananas. It is akin to mania, possessing an “everybody’s doing it” cachet until our moms start doing it, and then it’s no longer cool.
But even Pokemon has to Go sometime and will ultimately end up on a future list with things like streaking, the Harlem Shake and Cabbage Patch dolls. In the meantime, let’s go nuts and relive just a few of the crazy crazes of the past:
Phone booth stuffing
Long, long ago, back in the dark ages of the 20th century, there were things called phone booths — closetsized, glass-walled boxes out on public sidewalks that contained dime-operated telephones. For some unexplained reason in early 1959, college students in South Africa thought it was a good idea to see how many humans they could cram into one such booth, setting a world record with 25. This craze quickly spread around the world, challenges were made, claims were disputed, and rules were even established (all body parts inside the booth, people!). The madness even made it to St. Mary’s College in Moraga, where an iconic phone-booth-stuffing photo, above, was taken for Life Magazine. (On the 50th anniversary in 2009, St. Mary’s students tried to re-create the stunt, but didn’t break any records. They only squeezed in 22.) The craze was all but over by the end of 1959, then briefly enlivened in the ’60s, but with the stuffing of VW Beetles instead.
The Macarena
In the mid-1990s, the Macarena dance craze pranced its way into the world’s hearts and into the part of the frontal lobe that keeps playing a song over and over again until you want to punch your brain in the face. The Latin pop song, originally released by Los del Río then remixed by the Bayside Boys, was accompanied by simple, anyone-can-do-them dance moves, and pretty soon anyone and everyone was doing it — in the stands at baseball games, at every wedding reception, at bars and bar mitzvahs. Even Al Gore joked about it at the 1996 Democratic National Convention. It may have just been a flash dance in the pan, but now that we’ve mentioned it, your brain will play it for at least the next 24 hours. Sorry.
Ice Bucket Challenge
During the internet age, there have been lot of virulently viral memes. But something hits craze level when people actually get involved en masse in some sort of activity. Enter the Ice Bucket Challenge of 2014 and again in 2015, in which a bucket of ice and water would be dumped on someone’s head — self-dumping was also an accepted practice — all to promote awareness and donations for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease). The chilly trend went wackawacka on social media with people — regular people, celebrities, politicians — challenging others to do it. After awhile, it was criticized as a mere stunt rather than a fundraiser, but did raise millions for ALS, and the model morphed into challenges for other causes, from planting trees to reading books. Many are still going on, so there may be ice down your neck in the future.
Hula Hoop
In the late 1950s, there was nothing hipper than the Hula Hoop. Playing with hoops and hoop dancing had been around for centuries, of course, but when the plastic Wham-O version came out, the craze went kablammo, with 25 million hoops selling in the first four months, and hoop-a-thons quickly spreading to Europe, the Middle East, Japan and more. Even today, people still hold hoop jams in public parks or twirl flaming hoops at Burning Man or use them as exercise props in fitness classes — just without the fire. So it’s all come full circle, so to speak.
Rubik’s Cube
A mid-1970s invention by Hungarian professor Erno Rubik — to help his students understand 3D objects — went on to become one of the world’s most popular puzzle games in the 1980s and beyond. Speed solving the puzzle quickly became a badge of intelligence. Contests were held; records were set; obsessions were formed. Divorces and tendinitis were blamed on addiction to the device. Self-help books were published to kick the cubist habit. The craze died down, but never really went away. Even today, there are YouTube tutorials, and “speedcubers” still match wits and dexterity in competitions held by The World Cube Association. Yes, that’s a real thing. Because it’s still hip to be squared.