But will they outperform the kids’ crazes of the past?
Fidget spinners! A month ago, those words didn’t mean a thing to most people (except to professionals who use fiddle toys like fidget spinners for children with ADHD or Autism) but now they are all the kids talk about. The rest of the world seems to be similarly obsessed, because your hands on a fidget spinner is next to impossible. YouTube is full of fidget spinner tutorials and when they can find them, children are spending their pocket money collecting as many as they can get. However, as these crazes usually go, a month from now fidget spinners will likely be forgotten; abandoned to the junk drawer alongside a few loom bands and broken kinder egg toys, as the impressionable youngsters move on to the next big thing.
This latest craze got me thinking, it’s hardly a new concept to have a kid-led fad sweep the nation. Looking back on our own childhoods, we can practically mark the decades by playground crazes. Is the rise of crazes like fidget spinners any different from the Rubik’s Cube of the 80’s or the Tamagotchi’s of the 90’s?
Crazes are often kid-led because the playground network, with its peer pressure and the desire to collect and trade, is so strong. Forget social media, there’s nothing like a playground environment to get a new product launched! Small things that can fit in a school uniform pocket and purchased with pocket money are most popular. Add the fact that such things could be banned by a teacher for being disruptive, and you can almost guarantee that a new craze will be born!
Children of the 50’s and 60’s kicked off what seems to be the first kid-led craze with marbles. School children collected and played with (or polished and treasured) marbles of different sizes, material and designs. The more complicated and rare the design, the more treasured the marble.
Marbles made way for Army men and Dinky Cars as the crazes of the late 1950’s. Then, Jacks and Cats Cradle appeared in the 60’s and 70’s. As with today’s popular kid-led trends, the jacks with the bouncy ball, and the Cats Cradle loop could easily be put in pockets for anytime fun. Then, Hula Hoops (introduced in 1958 but really popular in the late 1970’s) became the must-have hip-wriggling toy. Although Hula Hoops were too big for pockets, the rise of Hula Hoop games and tricks made them a firm favourite for 1970’s children (and their appeal is still as strong today!)
Who remembers Panini Football stickers from the 1980s? That “got, got, need, got, got” chant from the playground is still firm in my memory! Kids bought packs of cards with their pocket money, some put the cards in albums, and others traded them. Kids would come to school with piles of stickers, ready to negotiate. It wasn’t long before letters came home advising parents to keep the stickers at home, but that only made them more attractive. Based on the success of football cards, the Panini brand branched out and soon 80’s kids were collecting anything from the Royal Family to My Little Pony stickers. And parents of young children today, be prepared because stickers are having a resurgence. Disney, Lego and FIFA stickers are becoming more and more popular with this decade’s children.
The 1980s also brought us the Rubik’s Cube. The iconic 3x3x3 inch cube is listed on Wikapedia as the world’s best selling toy- and every kid on the playground in the 80’s tried to master it by getting all the colours sorted on each side. Every school seemed to have its expert who could solve the puzzle in record time.
Rubik’s and stickers weren’t the only fad of the 1980s, that was also the decade of the candy bracelet craze, when for as little as 10p, kids could eat, flick, and even trade candy sweets on the playground. Candy bracelets are still available, and sometimes I’m tempted to buy one just to have a nostalgic moment.
The 1990s gave birth to a new decade of kid-led crazes. First came Alien Birth Pods. The plastic aliens in egg-shaped pods of green slime were supposed to give birth to baby aliens. (Ours never did!) Not only were they easy to put in your pocket but they were inexpensive and rather disgusting. Aliens led to footballers, as kids moved on to Corinthian’s football figures which followed on from the football stickers craze. The plastic figures with big heads and tiny bodies were collected and traded on playgrounds all over the country.
The end of the 1990s was when one of the biggest fads hit the playground- the Tamagotchi craze. These small keyring-sized “pets” got kids to manage their lives from feeding, exercising to cleaning up after them. Once they were banned from school, their popularity soared- making them the must-have gadget for every schoolkid. Unfortunately, not bringing them to school meant that mums up and down the country were forced to cater to their children’s precious Tamagotchis all day, so that they didn’t die before the children got home from school! Tamagotchis were annoying but they were revolutionary because they inspired a whole new generation of games consoles and mobile electronic toys.
On the back of Tamagotchi’s success, Furby was introduced to 1990s kids. This owl/hamster/Yoda robot critter spoke Furby language and demanded care and attention. Because he was bigger and more expensive, Furby didn’t make it to the playground, but he was still a massive trend of the late 1990s. (And he’s still around today.)
The millennium dawned with a new set of kid-led crazes. Pokemon cards were new to the kids of the 2000’s but familiar to the parents of the 1980’s who loved football stickers. The cards were so popular that there were reports of playground fights breaking out over who had what cards, leading to them being banned in some schools. Like all good trends, though, Pokemon has had a resurgence in recent years with the rise of mobile Pokemon hunting.
From 2000 to now, recent kid-led crazes have been crafts like Scoubidous and loom bands. Who didn’t have a Scoubidou, a keyring or a tassel made of plastic strips that were twisted and over-lapped, hanging from their bag? More recently loom bands were a massive kid-led trend that brought millions of mini coloured rubber bands to homes (and schools) across the world. I personally like these crazes because they encouraged kids to be creative. Some enterprising schools even got kids to make loom band creations and sell them at summer fairs!
Children of today will look back on fidget spinners and the many crazes to come, and be able to mark their own childhood by the trends that they remember. If only we knew what to invest in! My advice is to buy a fidget spinner now, keep it in its box in pristine condition and lock it away for 40 years. Then, in 2057 sell it to a collector and live a life of luxury off the profit!
Lisa is the managing director of what2buy4kids. Lisa’s wish is to make your job of finding a gift for the children in your life easier, or help you to take some of the time and frustration out of the search for that special gift for kids.