Introduction Would you ever Swallow a live goldfish Spend a whopping 10,000 on a stuffed ZZZ animal Dance for nine hundred hours 6 straight Pour a bucketful of ice water over your head Eat nothing but cabbage soup for weeks Run naked through a crowd of complete strangers You’re probably shaking your head There’s no way you’d ever do any of those things Who the heck would Yet for centuries regular people just like you have made some pretty irregular decisions in order to follow the latest craze or fad All of these ones really did happen by the way Even the one involving the ill-fated goldfish Gulp But here’s the thing While most fads might seem just silly or trivial on the surface dig a little deeper and you’ll see they can have major far-reaching and long-term impacts on our lives and even on those who live far away Here’s a classic example ripped straight from the history books beaver felt hats Leave It to Beavers Hats crafted from felted beaver pelts skins once swept across Europe as the latest fashion craze By the 17th century everybody had to have them
FOR SALE Only one problem Nearly all the beavers in Europe had already been hunted to extinction In order to keep up with growing demand trappers set off for North America Things just got worse for beavers So many were ten to fifteen million in killed in North America the 1700s alone that they were nearly wiped out Without beavers to dam waterways many ponds and marshes dried up Ducks flew away Muskrat and otter homes froze or flooded Marshes became meadows and minks and raccoons no longer had tasty water-loving frogs and snakes to eat Ecosystems went belly-up When the traders ran low on their furry supply they pushed farther and farther into the territories of North America’s Indigenous people Traders from France and Great Britain allied themselves at various times with the Wendat the Algonquian and the Haudenosaunee among other groups Fighting broke out in the 17th century over the best beaver-filled lands what’s now known as the Beaver Wars It became one of the bloodiest conflicts in North American history Between war and diseases introduced by the settlers entire Indigenous communities were wiped out See One fashion fad in faraway Europe changed ecosystems shaped the creation of new countries started wars and disrupted even destroyed communities and traditional ways of life Fads trends and crazes have existed throughout our history well up until today But how exactly do they spread from person to person town to town and even country to country we follow the herd in the first place and why do
CHAPTER 1 What Makes a Fad a Fad You probably know one when you see one a seemingly random toy game fashion or song that suddenly becomes the NEXT BIG THING But what exactly makes it a fad and not something else What characteristics do fads have This chapter gives the lowdown on their defining features so you’ll be able to spot them a mile away
1 BUT FIRST Featuring The Thing You've Always Wanted Since Last Week Raj has one So does Ava You want one too Only one teensy weensy problem Some say kids in Japan were doing it first but others are sure they saw it pop up in Sweden ages ago Wherever it came from it's taking your country by storm Some people are fighting over it Even your grandma wants to give it a whirl This thing is Sooo great Now a brand new industry is cashing in on the craze But some experts are skeptical it's here to stay Can you guess which fad this is A Does it matter Nearly every craze fad rage or obsession follows a similar pattern that lifts it from obscurity and slingshots it to stardom So what exactly does a fad's life cycle look like Turn the page to find out it serves no purpose It even tastes bad I give it another couple of months until the next hot thing comes along
