The Strangest Fads Throughout History
The fad is perhaps the piece of cultural ephemera that most defies explanation. Fashion trends often have clear motivating factors: perhaps a celebrity sporting a certain style, or a TV character wearing a certain haircut that sparks imitation. Souvenirs and collectibles usually directly follow their origin: There’s no mystery where baseball cards came from, or vintage records, and so on. But a true fad — a popular behavior or interest practiced with enthusiasm that’s as strong as it is temporary — exists at the fleeting intersection of a cultural time, mood, and impulse, and some of these short-lived trends seem to outright defy logic.
While fads frequently do have a clear beginning moment (and sometimes even a person who can be named as their initiator), a precise ending moment is never as apparent; we can only know that a fad has ended retroactively, and estimate the point of its demise. And the further away we are from the time of a certain fad, the more inexplicable and strange it can seem. Let’s try to wrap our heads around some of the more bizarre fads of the past.
Flagpole Sitting
Flagpole sitting was one of the most logistically confusing fads of all time, as it involved remaining upon a flagpole for a marathon duration. The first instance of flagpole sitting was in January 1924, when former sailor and fledgling stunt performer Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly was hired to perch atop a pole outside a Hollywood movie theater for as long as he could, in order to publicize an upcoming film. Kelly stayed aloft for 13 hours and 13 minutes.
The stunt attracted an impressed crowd and media attention, and Kelly was hired by other businesses to repeat his feat. As word spread, copycats emerged and sought to outdo each other in endurance. Kelly increased his time to eight days in 1927, but Los Angeles woman Bobbie Mack bested him when she spent 21 days atop a flagpole. Kelly then recaptured the record by enduring 49 days while being spurred on by a total of 20,000 onlookers, only for Bill Penfield of Iowa to break it again with a 51-day bout. By this point, flagpole sitters were fashioning some degree of shelter atop the pole where they could eat, sleep, and use the bathroom, in order to extend their stay.
The craze fizzled in the 1930s, but it never went away entirely. Later flagpole sitters such as Richard “Dixie” Blandy, Mauri Rose Kirby, and Peggy Townsend set new records in the ’50s and ’60s, and Blandy kept at the practice into the ’70s. The current record for flagpole sitting was set by H. David Werder in 1984, for a mind-boggling 439 days, 11 hours, and 6 minutes.
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Phone Booth Stuffing
Speaking of logistically confusing fads, the phone booth stuffing craze of the 1950s had teams of participants vying to see who could cram the most people into a single phone booth. Though there are some conflicting reports as to where and when the fad began, it was popularized in Durban, South Africa, in 1959, when a group of 25 people managed to contort themselves into a booth. By March of that year, students on college campuses throughout the United States and Canada were attempting to break the record.
Students at St. Mary’s College of California achieved a count of 22 in a manner that looks legitimate, but it wasn’t long before a lack of standard criteria led to participants achieving greater numbers by dubious means. Some attempts counted people who were mostly (or entirely) outside the confines of the actual phone booth; some altered the booth itself to make it more accommodating; and others stretched the very definition of a phone booth by instead using an indoor phone room. This increasing entropy caused some existential questions about the activity. By the end of the year, the fad had seemingly died out, but anniversary reenactments still occasionally commemorate it.
Goldfish Swallowing
On March 3, 1939, Harvard University student Lothrop Withington Jr. swallowed a 3-inch goldfish, spurred by a $10 bet with his classmates. There was apparently enough buildup to the stunt that it had spectators and press coverage, and the publicity caused “goldfish gulping” to quickly spread to college campuses across the United States. The stunt almost immediately changed in nature, too — while Withington’s initial bet was about whether or not he could swallow a whole goldfish, goldfish gulping became about how many whole goldfish someone could swallow in a single session.
The fad was competitive. Just shy of a month later, the goldfish-swallowing record was 25. Then a record of 36 stood for a day, until MIT student Albert E. Hayes Jr. set a new record of 42. By the time Clark University’s Joseph Deliberato set an unthinkable record of 89, all kinds of concern was building among adults. College administrators considered the trend a breach of proper student conduct, animal rescue organizations thought it cruel, the U.S. Public Health Service warned against health risks, and a Massachusetts state senator even wanted to outlaw it, drafting a bill to do just that. The variety of opposition expedited the fad running its course; by the end of the year, the trend was history.
Ostentatious Hairpieces
Wigs were seen as status symbols among Western aristocracies starting with the reign of Louis XIII of France, who popularized long dark wigs in the 17th century. But by the 18th century, increasingly elaborate and more vertically oriented hairpieces came into fashion. This culminated in a tall and ostentatiously decorated style called a “pouf,” where layers of hair and additional hairpieces were amassed and pinned atop pads, and adorned with unusual decorative elements such as feathers, figurines, and more.
The pouf was created by Marie Antoinette’s dressmaker Marie-Jeanne “Rose” Bertin and hairdresser Léondard Autié, though it was first worn by the Duchess of Chartres in 1774. Her wig was made from 14 yards of gauze and included a tower with plumes, multiple figurines, and a parrot. Not to be outdone, Marie Antoinette commissioned a series of poufs herself, sparking imitation throughout the French aristocracy. The style’s flamboyance increased throughout the decade and prompted criticism from both nobility and the populace. The peak of extravagance may have been what Marie Antoinette wore in celebration of a French naval victory over the British: a wig topped by a full replica of the victorious warship Belle Poule, blurring the lines between reality and caricature.
The Pet Rock
The Pet Rock seems, on its surface, like the most frivolous fad on record. This simple Mexican beach stone was sold in a box (with air holes!) that included a satirical-sounding manual with instructions on what to do if the rock "appears to be excited." Created by California advertising professional Gary Dahl in August 1975, the rock was an instant hit as a fuss-free pet.
In reality, the product wasn’t meant to be taken literally, but more as a multimedia gag. After all, Dahl paid great attention to detail in cheekily fashioning the box as a pet carrier, and filled the “instruction manual” with tongue-in-cheek tricks to teach the rock. The entire phenomenon might make much more sense to us today if the manual had appeared on the New York Times bestsellers list under “humor.” As Dahl later explained it, “At the time, the Vietnam War was winding down; Watergate had just started up. There was a whole lot of bad news going on… It wasn't a real good time for the national psyche. I think the Pet Rock was just a good giggle. Everybody needed a good laugh and the media ate it up."
The media attention was the driving factor in the rock’s popularity. As Dahl wrote, “During its five month retailing life span, the Pet Rock was referenced in nearly every daily newspaper in the country, most major magazines, all national network news programs, The Tonight Show and other late-night talk shows, most radio talk shows, and international media, such as the BBC. I was personally interviewed hundreds of times.” The relentless publicity led to the sale of more than a million Pet Rocks by Christmas of 1975. Even still, jokes don’t have a long shelf life under repetition: The fad was essentially over by 1976.
