Do you remember when...?

 

 

Entries in bigmada (3)

Monday
Mar222010

Fads 1990-1999

1990-1999

1. Grunge

After the glitz and glamour of disco and the excess and pomp of hair bands, it was inevitable that the music pendulum would swing. That shift created grunge -- a genre of music categorized by dissonant harmony, lots of guitars, and cynical lyrics. Grunge was initially delivered by young men and women from the Pacific Northwest who dressed in flannel shirts and ripped jeans. Groups like Nirvana and Pearl Jam were the first to emerge on the scene around 1991, but when the indie scene exploded into the mainstream, groups like Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Stone Temple Pilots became household names.


2. The Macarena

"Macarena," a catchy tune from Spanish group Los del Rio, became a worldwide phenomenon in 1996, smashing records by staying at number one on Billboard's Hot 100 chart for an astonishing 14 weeks. The jovial, bouncy tune (that repeats itself over and over and over again) had its own dance, making it two fads in one. The group remains popular in their home country, but once the Macarena had played itself out a year later, the song and the two men behind it were only a distant memory in America.


3. Hypercolor T-shirts


Clothing manufacturer Generra created these fad-ready T-shirts in the late '80s, but they really caught on in the '90s. The shirts were dipped in temperature-sensitive pigment, which meant that when heat was applied to the fabric, the color would change. Shirts would turn vague shades of blue, yellow, pink, and gray depending on the level of heat they received.


4. The Waif Look

While they weren't exactly "full-figured," 1980s supermodels like Cindy Crawford were zaftig compared to the half-starved, heroin-chic look embodied by models like Kate Moss, who weighed in at barely 100 pounds. The super-skinny look was a worldwide trend in fashion and came with some serious backlash. Girls everywhere were literally starving to look like the women in the fashion magazines. The waif look garnered much criticism and controversy, but it only fueled the fire. Not until the 2000s did the pendulum begin to swing to the "real women are beautiful" direction -- in the 1990s, thin was definitely "in."



5. Tattoos and Piercing

Human beings have many pierceable body parts: ears, noses, lips, tongues, eyebrows, and bellybuttons, just to name a few. In the last decade of the 20th century, no cartilage was safe from the needle of a piercing gun. If you had your fill of metal rings and studs, you could move on to some ink and round out your counterculture look. Both tattooing and piercing were all the rage in the 1990s and many people today have the tats and scars to prove it.


6. Hip-Hop Fashion

When hip-hop music became more mainstream in the early '90s, its fashion style became a trend as well. Rappers such as The Fresh Prince, Kid 'N Play, and Left Eye of TLC sparked a trend in wearing brightly colored, baggy clothing and baseball caps. Often the jeans were so baggy that they hung down several inches below the waist, making the question, "Boxers or briefs?" irrelevant. An offshoot of the hip-hop fashion was the fad of wearing clothes backwards, which was popularized by teen rappers Kris Kross


7. Price Tags

As hip-hop music gained major ground in the '90s, the luxury lifestyle of rap artists and hit makers was emulated by the masses. Rather than assume that everyone knew how much you spent on your hat, jeans, or shoes, teens took a more obvious route -- they just left the price tag on the clothes. (Minnie Pearl did it first)




Viewer Question: What were your favorite 90's fads?

Monday
Nov162009

WWJD: What Would Jesus Do? 

WWJD: What Would Jesus Do? The slogan "WWJD" came straight from the pits of fad hell.

"What Would Jesus Do?" all started with a youth group from the Calvary Reformed Church of Holland, Michigan. As members of "Generation X," they wanted to influence their community for Christ. Inspired by the 1896 Charles Sheldon Book, "In His Steps" (which asked the same query), these youths were moved to apply this question to the daily choices that they all faced. As a tangible reminder, they had simple cloth bracelets made that used the abbreviation, WWJD. The bracelets caught the attention of friends, classmates, parents, and town's people. Soon, almost everyone was wearing one of these bracelets. As their popularity grew, the bracelets were mass-marketed, causing the retail revolution that we see today.

It's the perfect mix of the simple and the profound: encapsulating the charge to be Christ-like Christians into four little words, easy to remember and inspirational.

 

 The title track, by band Big Tent Revival.

 Sample lyric: What would Jesus do walkin' in my shoes/workin' at my job and goin' to my school?

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Viewer Question: Do you have a WWJD bracelet?

 

Monday
Nov162009

Two toys I wanted as a kid but never got.

The Furby

      The main reason for their popularity was because of apparent "intelligence", reflected in their ability to develop language skills.
Furbys can communicate with one another via an infrared port located between their eyes. Furbys start out speaking entirely Furbish, a language with short words, simple syllables, and various other sounds, but are programmed to speak less and less Furbish and more and more English as they "grow".
There was a common misconception that they repeated words that were said around them. This belief most likely stemmed from the fact that it is possible to have the Furby say certain pre-programmed words or phrases more often by petting it whenever it said these words. As a result of this myth, several intelligence agencies banned them from their offices.



Tamagotchi / Giga Pets

      Giga Pets are a series of virtual pets. They were first created and released in 1997. The first Giga Pets included the Bit Critter, Compu Kitty, Digital Doggie, and Micro Chimp. Baby T-Rex and Virtual Alien were added shortly after, with Komputer Koala and Floppy Frog following.
Virtual pets such as Tamagotchi and Giga Pets, are sold on a self-contained, palm-sized computer. The egg shaped cases of the Tamagotchi, a small screen has an image of the pet, while buttons on the case let the user perform different tasks, such as .

   Feeding the Tamagotchi a piece of food or a snack.
   Playing games with the Tamagotchi.
   Cleaning up a Tamagotchi's waste.
   Checking its age, discipline, hunger, happiness and other statistics.
   Connecting with other friends

   Dissatisfied pets can emit beeps and sometimes "die"

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Viewer Question: What are some toys you didn't get?