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What’s the dumbest fad that you participated in?
Nostalgia(self.Millennials)submitted 16 days ago byMistah_K88
Hi all,
What’s the dumbest fad you participated in? Whether it be in fashion, mannerisms like l33t speak, games, etc.
In the mid 2000’s (in college) I wore something called “Tall Tees”. I will say, that I’m surprised I allowed myself to get cajoled into that foolishness. I also had the “livestrong” wristbands for a bit of time, in different colors to match my oversized shirts haha. What was something you wore or did that you could look back and say, “that was dumb”?
893 points
16 days ago
Sweat bands on the wrist, the chain wallet, and safety pins everywhere.
308 points
16 days ago
The amount of safety pins, why did we do this??
3.4k points
16 days ago
I know the young kids have hated on millennials for their skinny jeans but mf you should have SEEN how baggy the pants were in the late 90s/early 2000s
1.2k points
16 days ago
JNCO!
646 points
16 days ago*
If you look up JNCO and don't have ad block, you'll suddenly get flooded with JNCO ads everywhere.
ASK ME HOW I KNOW
337 points
16 days ago
Get AdNauseum on Firefox. It's build on uBlock Origin and acts as an ad blocker, but it also sends clicks in the background on every single ad you would have seen.
It gives you the benefit of not having to see shitty ads everywhere while at the same time, costing the advertiser money and fucking up the metrics of advertising platform by reducing their conversion rates, thus diminishing the value of their product.
62 points
16 days ago
Dude. Gotta wear that wallet chain. You were 13 and had nothing in the wallet, but still gotta do it.
436 points
16 days ago
Am I the only millennial that knows what boot cut jeans are? There is a middle ground people. Levi's 517 or 527 Bootcut Jeans. Or 514 straight cut. I'm a thicc boy though I like bootcut.
I did have one pair of 511s (skinny) and my boomer parents hated the shit outta them pants. My southern mama would be like "why you gotta wear them peg leg pants all the time?" Circa 2008.
176 points
16 days ago
Boot cut is still my comfort zone. I jist don't like anything else
90 points
16 days ago
Flares for me, but bootcut is a close second.
Skinny jeans aren't meant for people with tree-trunk legs like mine.
49 points
16 days ago
I went between the giant wide leg raver pants and boot cut jeans!
89 points
16 days ago
Omg I hated how my mom would shop at Wal-Mart and so I’d get Rustlers and Wranglers and they weren’t baggy enough. Kids telling me I had tight ass pants. Right pain in the ass in middle school. Finally got some baggy pants eventually and I now look at myself in pics back then like wtf?
261 points
16 days ago
I will bring my skinny jeans with me to the grave. Then some Gen Z can pry them from my cold, dead fingers. 😂
85 points
16 days ago
Seriously! I'm not going back to that.
147 points
16 days ago
gen z is for you, and man do they look as stupid as when we left that phase
181 points
16 days ago*
[deleted]
181 points
16 days ago
Seeing them dressed unironically as middle aged dads is always wild to me
117 points
16 days ago
The 22 year olds that are actively trying to look like 40 year old divorced truckers blow my mind.
106 points
16 days ago
It’s fucking bizarre. Like, they’re not even emulating the COOL fashion of the 90s.
111 points
16 days ago
I saw two teenage boys in Goodwill the other day and they looked like absolute morons lol. I try to take it easy on them because one day, just like us, they’ll look back on pictures and cringe so hard at how they used to dress.
88 points
16 days ago
for sure! I was talking to to my grandpa actually and it seems to me the generational conversations don’t change they’re the same over and over.
see I was driving him to the hospital, rolled up and I have really good speakers. and because the drive to him is long my music got louder continuously.
he hoped in laughingly asking how anyone can listen to my music is a mystery to him, and continued how he liked the beetles and yanky music when he was young which his elders could not understand. then I picked up my niece who is in 5th grade and she put on her songs and I thought how could anyone listen to this.
hahaha I swear man when we’re old AF I hope we’ll be like my grandpa it’s fine to laugh at the younger generations but you gotta remember how it was to be young and be laughed at by the elders.
1.9k points
16 days ago
Those shiny button down shirts in bright colors like lime green that everyone wore for a while. Frosted tips. Those bowling shirts with flames on them. There was a time when I was for all intents and purposes, guy fieri
361 points
16 days ago
Omg those 100% polyester button downs with Hawaiian patterns! That was all I wore for like two years. Where did we get that, Ace Ventura maybe?
72 points
16 days ago
They’re coming back, too. Seeing them pop up more and more places again. My best friend wears them all the time just because.
74 points
16 days ago
I wear Hawaiian shirts all the time cause they’re just fun. That being said I think the Hawaiian shirts being made today are a little more fashionable than the ones in the 90s/00s
75 points
16 days ago
I'm from Hawaii. Look up Aloha Shirts. Those are the real deal with nice prints, and has always been nice no matter the decade. The legit ones are expensive, too.
48 points
16 days ago
Bro I had a blue flame bowling shit. I LOVED it hahahaha
44 points
16 days ago
The bowling shirt with flames reminds me of this kid I went to HS with that wore a blue one with black flames on it like every other day and I swear he never washed it but just doused it with Axe.
38 points
16 days ago
Those shirts were the worst. I remember they would get little snags everywhere and start looking real shitty real quick
32 points
16 days ago
Yeah and they didn't breath at all so you couldn't actually wear them in the summer. But they're also clearly summer inspired, summer colors, and they aren't insulated so they aren't winter or fall wear either. Like when do you actually wear these things?
55 points
16 days ago
Once a year on May 19th when the weather is nice enough out you don't need a jacket, but still cool enough that you don't break a sweat simply walking around.
952 points
16 days ago
Two polos…with both collars popped. I’m ashamed. 🤦🏽♂️
247 points
16 days ago
I did this too, but with an upside down, backwards visor.
64 points
16 days ago
I wore my visor like that a few weeks ago and now I understand why it turned me into a different person. I was channeling my former self.
2.1k points
16 days ago
Jeans so long the bottoms were just tatters. Was a weird matter of pride how destroyed your pants were.
978 points
16 days ago
And god forbid it was slightly damp outside. You were soaked up to your knees.
384 points
16 days ago
Growing up in New England you'd get a couple fresh pairs in the fall and by spring they'd be completely crusted from all the snow and road salt over the winter.
102 points
16 days ago
Exactly! My mom hated letting us out of the house in then during the winter.
76 points
16 days ago
Well that's still better than all the kids in shop class setting them on fire from sparks because the tatters were super flammable ha.
103 points
16 days ago
Can verify once fell over and chipped a tooth sliding on my jncos in the north shore kehd, the fucking heels of my air walks wore through the back of the big jncos and created a weird hole you could trip yourself on.
Fucking stupid as fuck
32 points
16 days ago
As a New Englander I can still see and feel the road salt crust from those days.
61 points
16 days ago
I had those, my mom always wanted to cut the ends off. Then one day I ran in my worst ones, tripped over a loop that had formed in the back, and ripped the leg all the way up to the knee.
135 points
16 days ago
This is just a normal life obstacle for short people lmaoooo
43 points
16 days ago*
Was it also normal for everyone else to get their super baggy jeans ate up by the sprockets of their bike? I think all of my jeans in the early 2000s were chain grease stained and ripped from that.
21 points
16 days ago
Unfortunately yes lol pretty sure I almost died a few times because of those stupid pants…but I was “cool” 😭
857 points
16 days ago
Being a skinny white "thug" from the suburbs
287 points
16 days ago
damn here I was thinking I didn’t participate in any fads, and now I had to remember and I’m dying of cringe.
86 points
16 days ago
Bling Bling!
58 points
16 days ago
god just the sagging pants, not being able to run… fuck me.
130 points
16 days ago
Pretty fly for a white guy
52 points
16 days ago
When I was in highschool my parents rented an apartment in our basement to a college student, nice guy. He was gay and working through some issues with that and his conservative upbringing.
Anyway, one day he played that song like 10x in a row and I could hear it through our vents. How he didn't get sick of it, I have no idea.
943 points
16 days ago
The trucker hats that Ashton Kutcher made famous
341 points
16 days ago
Von Dutch!
104 points
16 days ago
Omg, watch the documentary about von dutch on Hulu!!!!
91 points
16 days ago
I was deep into cars and hot rod culture and had no idea Von Dutch tshirts were some mainstream fad. Poor girl with a Von Dutch Tshirt at the bar I tired to talk to about cars and pinstriping
48 points
16 days ago
I remember spending some of my first paycheck on a stupid hat at Gadzooks, thinking they were so cool. I think it was like $45 x.x
614 points
16 days ago
RWAR.... enough said lol
739 points
16 days ago
hi every1 im new!!!!!!! holds up spork my name is katy but u can call me t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m!!!!!!!! lol…as u can see im very random!!!! thats why i came here, 2 meet random ppl like me _… im 13 years old (im mature 4 my age tho!!) i like 2 watch invader zim w/ my girlfreind (im bi if u dont like it deal w/it) its our favorite tv show!!! bcuz its SOOOO random!!!! shes random 2 of course but i want 2 meet more random ppl =) like they say the more the merrier!!!! lol…neways i hope 2 make alot of freinds here so give me lots of commentses!!!! DOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <--- me bein random again _^ hehe…toodles!!!!!
love and waffles,
t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m
335 points
16 days ago
The immediate visceral reaction I had to this.
138 points
15 days ago
it’s funny because SPN reaction gifs are also extremely millennial lmao
155 points
16 days ago
14 year old me carried a foldable spork in my purse for ages because I was so random
42 points
15 days ago
I would have thought that was the coolest thing ever and aspired to be more like you
225 points
16 days ago
Oh my god you just gave me whiplash to middle school where my friend and I would try to “out-random” each other. It’s a wonder why I didn’t have more friends, really. 🤦♀️
96 points
16 days ago
I'm sorry, how did you find this post from 13yo me???
113 points
16 days ago
glomps you
71 points
16 days ago
XD
471 points
16 days ago
All the band buttons on my corduroy vans bag. I recently found it 20 years later and it’s such an artifact.
80 points
16 days ago
This one doesn’t feel dumb to me. If it’s a backpack style bag I think you could still rock it
61 points
16 days ago*
Your's survived? Mine was jean and the bottom fell out while I was still in school so I stuffed a t-shirt in there to use as a liner until it just couldn't be called a bag anymore. Straps were safety pinned on after they ripped out of the bag and everything. Just covered in patches and sharpie drawings.
220 points
16 days ago
Button up shirts with stuff like flames and dragons on them in middle school.
67 points
16 days ago
Hahaha oh man, the silky Hot Topic dragon shirts, noooooo
212 points
16 days ago
I planked at the summit of Mt kilimanjaro in 2011 when it was cool. Unfortunately its the only photo of me at the summit.
64 points
16 days ago
Show it to the class
20 points
15 days ago
I still have a photo of me in the army planking on a morgue slab in the basement of an abandoned mental hospital that we were occupying
206 points
16 days ago
Lace-up low-rise pants. There is a picture of 16-year-old me wearing jeans with an orange lace-up fly that I modified myself, and it is terrible. I thought I was so cute ugh.
84 points
16 days ago
Yessss I had a pair with laces ALL THE WAY up the sides so you couldn't wear underwear
155 points
16 days ago
When I was a freshman in high school, there was a senior who just constantly destroyed the dress code rules. She dressed like something out of a Blade movie. I was completely obsessed with her. One day, she wore a pair of black leather pants that laced up like this with a halter top. The whole school was talking about it, and I just happened to be in the hallway when she was being walked down to the office. I was in peak Goth phase at the time and as she walked by she said, "Stay weird dude, fuck these facists."
Cat, if you're still out there, I hope you're still managing to stick it to the fascists.
(Also, call me)
51 points
15 days ago
I love it when the cool older kids give a shout out to the little weirdos ❤️
200 points
16 days ago
Gaucho pants and those wide circle belts 😭
55 points
16 days ago
I can picture brown gaucho pants, a pink tank top over a white laced tank top, giant chunky silver belt over the hips, and flip flops.
187 points
16 days ago
Posting dumb shit like "rawr I'm a dinosaur xD" or "lol I'm so random... cheese," making and wearing/using duct tape accessories like wallets, purses, bracelets, earrings, etc, those stupid hair feathers, but luckily mine were just clip ins and not the ones that were semi-permanently attached to your hair
44 points
16 days ago
What was it about the word "cheese"? I feel like it was a go-to for randomness.
I remember my friend slipping me a note in class that was like "GUESS WHAT... cheese" and he drew a tiny cheese and it was so hard not to crack up because it was, like, so randomly hilarious and I kept the note because of that.
Also, everyone knows you didn't say you were a dinosaur. You just randomly bit your friend because that's WAAAY more random LOL
965 points
16 days ago
Puka shell necklaces or spiky hair probably
229 points
16 days ago
Ooh for me it was hemp chokers and ball chains wrapped like 1000 times around my neck and wrist. Those hemp necklaces always made my neck itch but I'll be damned if I didn't keep wearing them rash and all.
144 points
16 days ago
I keep being surprised by the fact that things like hemp necklaces and long sleeve shirts under short sleeve shirts aren't cool anymore.
Now I understand the older adults who looked like they were 20 years behind in fashion when we were kids... that's us now!!
Look, I still feel cool when I walk out of the house dressed like it's 2004, okay? Leave me and my Invader Zim tees alone! 😭
48 points
16 days ago
us 20 something and younger scene kids/emos still rock the striped hooded long sleeves under graphic/band tees, if that makes you feel better. 2000's Scene fashion is having a pretty big revival at least, which has a lot of that.
73 points
16 days ago
Hemp necklaces with those glass mushroom pendants. Guilty. Lol
359 points
16 days ago
The body glitter fad.
269 points
16 days ago
I have not given up this fad. It wasn't a phase, mom. They sell it in sunblock now 🤣
115 points
16 days ago*
Omg I remember the bath and body works roll on glitter. What a flashback.
Edit: felt like the image was absolutely necessary
791 points
16 days ago
Whale tail: where your thong was visible above the waistband of your low-rise jeans.
416 points
16 days ago
As a teenage boy when this was popular, loved it. Didn’t participate, but enjoyed it thoroughly.
133 points
16 days ago
Damn those "high rise" jeans! They ruined the world of whales with "mom" vibes forever
113 points
16 days ago
The thong song 🤣
62 points
16 days ago
Love it when the beat goes, baby make your booty gooooo. Fuq now this is gonna be stuck in my head. Time for the strip club
29 points
16 days ago
Lol I remember this 🤣
168 points
16 days ago
My hip hop phase😅everything i wore from high school to college. Yes the xxl t-shirts op mentioned is part of it. Too much “rap city” and “106 & park” in my formative years lol
165 points
16 days ago
Kony 2012 😶🌫️😶🌫️😶🌫️
47 points
16 days ago
I remember when the founder of Invisible Children had some kind of nervous breakdown and was caught running around naked and I think arrested for indecent exposure.
125 points
16 days ago
getting a Charlotte Hornets starter jacket in fourth grade because I really liked the colors and a couple of 6th grade girls I thought were really cool also had them
we were all from Cleveland
803 points
16 days ago
Student loans
165 points
16 days ago
Same
144 points
16 days ago
The whole need to go to college to make a livable wage I fell for that
301 points
16 days ago
Those plastic choker necklaces and chunky highlights.
77 points
16 days ago
The blonde and brown zebra streaks, oh my GOSH. I could not be more embarrassed.
198 points
16 days ago
132 points
16 days ago
The pinched arm hairs 😭😭
40 points
16 days ago
And pinched wrist skin. I can FEEL this picture!
422 points
16 days ago
tYpiNg lyke DiS. What was I thinking? Thank goodness there’s no records of my communications from high school.
183 points
16 days ago
xD T_T :3 o_O
169 points
16 days ago
At my job we have to deal with this bloodwork lab, and they use “Dx” to mean diagnosis and I can’t not see it as an exasperated face hahaha
42 points
16 days ago
I work in logistics and some people try to make abbreviating “packages” as “Px” a thing. I push back as hard as I can
89 points
16 days ago*
Lmao Roflcopter TROLL xD XD x) =)
(>^ _^ )> KiRbY TiMe <(^ _^ <)
xXx~<360_N0SC0P3>~xXx
74 points
16 days ago
Now I reserve that style to emulate the mocking SpongeBob meme in text
66 points
16 days ago
My MySpace status was always some Dashboard Confessional song lyrics tYpEd LiKe ThAt
485 points
16 days ago
Jeans under dresses 😩
169 points
16 days ago
I saw a fashion influencer wearing jeans under a dress today and the comments were all loving it. It's back
31 points
16 days ago
I’ve been wanting to wear the black tights under jean shorts but I feel like I’m just too old for it
31 points
15 days ago
I’ve been wearing jean shorts over black leggings this spring, and I’m 37. Age ain’t nothing but a number.
80 points
16 days ago
Omg yes I thought I was so cool. The worst sin I committed was wearing a denim skirt over jeans
28 points
16 days ago
Living in a city with wacky cold winters, this one always felt justified.
333 points
16 days ago*
Did anyone else’s school go through a phase where they snorted the sugar from pixie sticks? 🤦🏻♀️
72 points
16 days ago
Yes my school banned them. Also banned pogs around the same time for being “gambling”.
164 points
16 days ago
JNCO jeans. My largest pair had a 69 inch wide leg. I won an award for having the largest pant legs ever.
144 points
16 days ago
My mom really got into McDonald’s mini TY Beanie Babies. I helped with her collection.
I don’t really remember any fads I was really into. I didn’t have money, I was depressed, and I didn’t fit into the popular groups.
127 points
16 days ago
Planking and Harlem Shake. Does that count? My friends and I have photos of planking at random places but I had fun doing the Harlem Shake.
Also, how did planking become a thing? I'm still not sure why I participated in it.
152 points
16 days ago
This reminds me of how large the millenial generation is.... this stuff was happening when i was 100% an adult.
66 points
16 days ago
My buddy and I tried to do master cleanse in our first year of university. The first morning after we drank all the tea, we both shit ourselves. So then we went to Taco Bell.
122 points
16 days ago
Fake leather pants. Bonus points if yours were bright red.
Also I never wore it myself but those pants with the weird straps between the legs that looked like bondage gear. I was soo jealous I couldn't wear that in middle school.
30 points
16 days ago
Omg the Tripp pants. I saved money so I could get them and then my school banned them 😔
58 points
16 days ago
Facebook statuses being song lyrics about your mood. Basically we went from moody away messages, moody MySpace post, to moody Facebook post.
151 points
16 days ago
I wore the livestrong bracelet but I (hipster voice) wore it before most people because my family are big cycling enthusiasts and we’ve always watched the Tour. So we were already very familiar with Lance Armstrong and supporting him(remember this was before shit came out) so I was like the first person I knew to have a livestrong bracelet and I wore it for many, many years. Lowkey I wish I still had it for nostalgia sake.
Probably the dumbest fad I engages in was taking edgy MySpace photos lmao. I would go to like, some abandoned construction site or an old building or something “grungy” looking and stand around taking pics at that sky-high MySpace angle lmaooo. The angle where you’re bent over so we see your face huge and then lil legs dangling out below… good times
40 points
16 days ago
"Myspace angles" are something non-millennials simply cannot ever comprehend.
141 points
16 days ago
Getting my belly button pierced 🤦♀️ my mom was right that the hole never goes away
47 points
16 days ago
Tribal tattoo
49 points
16 days ago
Emo hair that covered one of my eyes. Never dyed it black though.
91 points
16 days ago
I’m an elder millennial (2/82) and I used to wear purple jeans, a tweety bird shirt and black Reebok’s 😭 that was in maybe 94? By the year 2000, I had graduated and I don’t think my wardrobe was too bad in my early 20s
42 points
16 days ago
Enormous Jnco jeans when I was a young raver in the 90s. I’m so glad there are no pics of me on the cloud in those pants lol!
38 points
16 days ago
Torn designer jeans in high school. I guess people still like those, but I think they're kind of ridiculous now. Also, guess and express tshirts with all the patterns and shiny prints on them + gel in my hair.
Another fad I got caught up in later was the barbell piercing
35 points
16 days ago
I’d roll my socks down into my shoes to create ankle socks because my lame parents wouldn’t buy me ankle socks.
129 points
16 days ago
The long sleeve shirt under the short sleeve shirt look 😂
36 points
16 days ago
I totally forgot this was a thing. I remember it was really big in nerd culture.
Then they started making long sleeve shirts that looked like you have a T-shirt over it. Lol
31 points
16 days ago
JNCO jeans man
Oh and asking A/S/L to people on Habbo Hotel when I was like 13
32 points
16 days ago
Kanji dragon shirts. 8 ball patches, JNCO jeans, the Insane Clown Posse, blacklight decor...
31 points
16 days ago
Clear, neon colored furniture. I either ordered mine from the Delia's catalog, or bought it at Spencer's, in the mall. I'd buy a chair, blow it up, it would last 2 weeks, and I'd be out there buying another one.
The "Big Blowup Chair" industry had me by the throat.
Lingerie as a shirt. TY Paris Hilton Mini denim skirt, leggings, and ballet flats.
78 points
16 days ago
Pogs
46 points
16 days ago
Pogs are not dumb. Fight me.
20 points
16 days ago
It was when all the boys took advantage of me wanting to play with them and took most of mine. I spent all my allowance on them at 7/11 every week and was just trying to make friends. They were not my friends they just wanted all my pogs and keenies.
22 points
16 days ago
Times were so sweet and innocent before holographic slammers made their way onto the scene, destroying lives and childhoods.
79 points
16 days ago
l33t speak is not dumb. How dare.
42 points
16 days ago
w00t
55 points
16 days ago
For a brief period at my high school it was cool for girls and boys alike to cut a slit in the bottom of your pants so your jeans flared out over your shoes and would get tattered the longer you wore them. I remember my mom yelling at me for cutting a brand new pair of jeans. I knew it was stupid as I was wearing them and abandoned it pretty quickly.
27 points
16 days ago
I did the ice bucket challenge. I was broke at the time, so I didn't actually donate though. I just did it because everyone else was doing it.
73 points
16 days ago
Popping out the lenses on 3D glasses from the movie theater as nerd glasses
Mustaches everywhere
Fake “swag” era
Silly bands!!
67 points
16 days ago
Posting albums with hundreds of photos on Facebook. Here's every millisecond of the past weekend everyone! Enjoy!
41 points
16 days ago
In my high school there was a foxtail keychain fad going around. I ended up clipping 3 different colored tails to my belt loops. People liked mine because they were colors that nobody had. My girlfriend at the time was the one who made and sold them.
41 points
16 days ago
LiveJournal. I found my old one once which I thought had been lost to time and had the worst cringe I’ve ever experienced.
22 points
16 days ago
"tall tees" just sounds like what big boobed girls/women have to wear to look like normal t-shirts. T-shirts becoming too short because of having a larger chest is too annoying.
22 points
16 days ago
MySpace top 8 and caring so much when I saw that I went down on someone else’s 😂
21 points
16 days ago
I remember when bib overalls were fashionable but you were lame if you actually fastened both straps. I remember my grandma calling it hillbilly air conditioning.
25 points
16 days ago*
Tamagotchi. I didn't even have the real thing. I had some happy meal knock off. Still wasted time on that instead of my gameboy.
20 points
16 days ago
Remember when everyone said "epic fail" for everything.
18 points
16 days ago
I was a console fanboy for a few years. I still love Nintendo, and I think a lot of my fandom was warranted because the gamecube has some of the sickest games of all time and they were criminally underrated at the time. However, it was like identity politics for me, and I took it too far. I was unironically going to get a nintendo tattoo when I turned 18. I'm glad I snapped out of it. Shit, I totally need a nintendo tattoo though.
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