CYBERSURFER

Fads for the memory

Anyone for flagpole perching?

Review by Matt Leppard

Forget karaoke, swallow a goldfish. Now that may seem a very strange thing to start a website review with, but would you believe that in the US in the 1940s, goldfish-swallowing was something of a fad? According to www.crazyfads.com, this craze started in 1939 when a university student ate a live goldfish for a $10 bet. Of course, not all fads are quite so unpleasant and this site pretty much has the best of them, from the 1920s right though to the 1990s. Some you may know about, such as the 1990s craze for boy bands (hang on, was that a 1990s fad?). Some of you may even have heard of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (a cartoon based around pizza-munching kung fu-kicking turtle-men ruled by a giant talking rat � and no, I am not making this up).

Stupid stunts

Going back futher � way back to the 1920s � fads were no less crazy. According to the site, standing on flagpoles was a spectator sport back in the days before television was invented and people could sit and watch sweaty men grappling with each other in a square ring. In fact the 1920s was a pretty odd time by all accounts, with one man chaining himself to a car and driving continuously for 5 hours. Anyway, back to the flagpoles. In 1928, a man named Alvin Kelly stood on the top of a flagpole for 100 hours simply because he could (actually he used the stunt to advertise certain products as well).

This site has the lowdown on all these fads and plenty more including many that are always resurfacing, such as tie-dyed T-shirts, flared jeans and platform shoes. The only complaints are the lack of pictures and the occasional spelling mistake on the site. However, it's worth a visit just to read about the crazy things people used to do and perhaps get some ideas for going retro and resurrecting some of the fads and fashions of days gone by. As for me, I think my goldfish is starting to get a little worried.

Clickthroughs
If you like this site, you might like to check out these cool links as well:

Bad Fads (www.badfads.com)
Browse through fashion, activity and event fads of the 1970s.

Fads and Trends Gone By
(www.angelfire.com/fl/JackCraig/FADS.html)
A interesting list of fads and trends that have moved out of our lives.

Vocabulary

perch (v): to sit or to make somebody sit on something, especially on the edge of it
fad (n): something that people are interested in for only a short period of time
unpleasant (adj): not pleasant or comfortable
munching (v): to eat something steadily and often noisily
flagpole (n): a tall pole on which a flag is hung
grappling (v): to take a firm hold of sb/sth and struggle with them
continuously (adv): all the time
stunt (n): a dangerous and difficult action that somebody does to entertain people
retro (adj): using styles or fashions from the recent past
resurrect (v): to bring back into use something that had disappeared or been forgotten

Expressions/Idioms

spectator sport (expression): an event where a crowd gathers to watch, often used to describe non-sporting events

by all accounts (expression): a general expresssion meaning that something looks very common

the lowdown (idiom): the knowledge of a particular subject

days gone by (expression): in the past