90s Fads We Totally Forgot
There’s something particular about digging through old boxes in your parents’ basement and finding that one random item that sends you straight back to 1997. Maybe it’s a battered Tamagotchi with a dead screen, or a slap bracelet that still works perfectly after decades tucked away.
The 90s produced an astounding number of brief but brilliant obsessions — things that consumed entire school playgrounds for months before vanishing as quickly as they appeared. Something about the ’90s made it a golden era for brief, explosive crazes that swept through schoolyards, malls, and pop culture before vanishing almost as quickly as they’d appeared.
While some of these fads endured, many exist now only as relics of a bygone era. Each one of these forgotten trends tells its own weird little story about a decade caught between analog and digital, between childhood innocence and the approaching millennium.
Tamagotchis
The palm-sized virtual animal device was such a hit when it debuted in 1997 that kids everywhere became obsessed with caring for their own Tamagotchi. The game required that players feed and tend to their digital pet, lest it expire.
The digital display showed a tiny creature that you had to feed, play with, and otherwise nurture. As long as you checked on your pet every five or six hours during the day, it’d be totally fine (although it wouldn’t do much—Tamagotchis demanded a lot of attention, but other than looking vaguely cute, they weren’t really entertaining).
But here’s the thing that made these digital creatures genuinely stressful: they could die. If you didn’t check in with your pet regularly, it would die.
Well, Tamagotchis didn’t die, per se, but if ignored long enough, they’d sprout wings and “return to their home planet,” according to the packaging. Many of us even snuck them into school, hoping our teachers wouldn’t notice the occasional beeping.
The constant anxiety of keeping a digital pet alive while sitting through algebra class was real (and completely ridiculous in hindsight).
Slap Bracelets
A simple piece of spring steel wrapped in colorful fabric, the slap bracelet was a pure ’90s fashion craze. All you had to do was slap it on your wrist and it would curl into place — but kids also learned that you could smack your friends pretty hard with them, leading to them being banned in many schools.
There was something deeply satisfying about the snap as the metal strip curled perfectly around your wrist. It was invented in 1983 by a high school shop teacher from Wisconsin named Stuart Anders, and the craze over them spread like the plague.
Slap bracelets were embraced by kids on the verge of adulthood and stacked on their arms like bangles. But the fun didn’t last long — knockoff versions started breaking apart and cutting kids, which gave schools the perfect excuse to ban them.
Nothing kills a playground trend quite like a safety hazard.
Pogs
Pogs were simple cardboard discs with flashy designs that became an obsession in the mid ’90s. Some kids had massive binders of pogs, and slammers (heavier discs) became highly sought after.
There was also a game element to pogs, and a relatively simple one at that: Stack them, slam them, and keep what flipped. Originally from Hawaii, these tiny cardboard discs went viral across the country in 1994.
Stacking the POGs and flipping as many as you could with a heavier “slammer” were the rules of the game. Every kid had theories about the perfect slammer technique.
The metallic ones were prized above all others, and there were endless debates about which pogs were “keepers” versus which ones you could afford to lose. Like many fads, the hype around pogs quickly died, but for a brief, fleeting moment, they ruled the playground.
JNCO Jeans
These extraordinarily wide-legged jeans epitomized 1990s counterculture fashion with some pairs featuring leg openings up to 50 inches wide. JNCO (Judge None Choose One) jeans peaked in 1997 among skateboarders, ravers, and alternative teens seeking to reject mainstream fashion.
The extreme silhouette made them instantly recognizable but ultimately impractical. You could fit an entire person inside one leg of these jeans (and people probably tried).
Wearers constantly battled frayed hems from dragging on the ground and struggled to keep them dry in wet weather. By 1998, the trend had largely fizzled as fashion shifted toward cargo pants and more moderate styles that didn’t require specialized storage due to their enormous size.
The bigger question isn’t why they went out of style, but how anyone managed to walk in them without tripping constantly.
Beanie Babies
No discussion of ’90s fads would be complete without mentioning Beanie Babies. These plush toys were more than just toys; they were collectibles.
Beanie Babies were the ultimate treasure for 90s kids. Each Beanie had its own personality and “birthday,” making it feel more like a friend than a toy.
Collecting them became a schoolyard obsession, with kids trading Princess the bear or Peanut the royal blue elephant, hoping to score one of the rare finds. Adults got swept up in the madness too, convinced they were sitting on goldmines.
The hunt for rare editions sparked a frenzy among adults and children alike. Their popularity led to a booming resale market, with some individuals investing a small fortune into their collections.
McDonald’s made it worse by releasing miniature versions, turning Happy Meals into lottery tickets. The entire phenomenon was peak 90s capitalism disguised as childhood innocence.
Butterfly Clips
Butterfly clips, we hardly knew ye. Similar to how Lisa Frank’s bold, in-your-face, neon animals were everywhere in the ’90s, so, too, were butterfly clips.
These glittery, colorful hair clips were, naturally, shaped like butterflies, and girls often put dozens in their hair at a time. Walking through any middle school hallway in 1998 meant dodging the occasional butterfly clip that had given up its grip on someone’s hair.
Butterfly hair clips were the ultimate accessory for any ’90s girl. These colorful clips added a whimsical touch to any hairstyle and were a staple in every young girl’s fashion arsenal.
Whether coordinated with outfits or worn in a riot of colors, these clips symbolized a carefree and vibrant era. They came in every color imaginable, from metallic gold to hot pink to holographic.
Looking back at old photos, it’s hard to believe anyone thought twenty butterfly clips scattered across one head looked good.
Chain Wallets
Chain wallets, or wallet chains, were a favorite among skaters, punks, and goths. They were exactly what they sound like: chains hanging from your wallet and connecting to your belt loops.
They were equal parts fashion statement and practical theft-prevention. The logic was sound: nobody could steal your wallet if it was physically attached to your pants.
Attaching your wallet to your pants with a heavy metal chain became inexplicably popular despite its questionable practicality. These jangling accessories often extended well below the knee and could weigh several pounds in extreme cases.
The sound of thirty kids with chain wallets walking down a school hallway was like a medieval army on the march. Plus, sitting down became a geometric puzzle involving chain length and pocket placement.
Mood Rings
Mood rings were first developed in the 1970s, but they became trendy again in the ’90s. So were gel pens, mood rings, and Lisa Frank everything.
The concept was brilliantly simple: a ring that changed colors based on your body temperature, which supposedly reflected your emotional state. Purple meant you were happy, blue indicated calm, black suggested stress.
The problem was that mood rings mostly just showed whether your hands were warm or cold, not whether you were having deep feelings about your algebra test. But that didn’t stop kids from consulting their rings like tiny crystal orbs, making major life decisions based on whether the stone was showing green or yellow.
The cheap ones turned your finger green within a week, which probably wasn’t on the official mood color chart.
Lisa Frank Everything
She is known for producing whimsical commercial design for school supplies and other products that are primarily marketed to children and young adolescents. Her designs were popular in the 1980s and 1990s and experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 2010s and 2020s.
Lisa Frank wasn’t just a brand; it was an entire aesthetic philosophy based on the radical idea that everything should be covered in neon unicorns and rainbow dolphins. So were gel pens, mood rings, and Lisa Frank everything.
If it was shiny or weird, people wanted it. Trapper Keepers, folders, stickers, pencil cases — if it existed and could be decorated, Lisa Frank made a version of it.
The colors were so bright they could probably be seen from space. Having a full Lisa Frank school supply setup was like carrying a small rave around in your backpack.
Hypercolor T-Shirts
Hypercolor clothes contained a special pigment that changed color when warmed by touch or other forms of heat. Talk about a distraction!
Hypercolor t-shirts were one of the most fabulous fads of that decade. The shirts would shift from one color to another when you touched them or got warm, creating these ghost-like handprints that appeared and disappeared.
The excessive heat ruins the dye and washing it in hot water causes an un-dyed shirt. Undoubtedly, the fragility of this fad was a reason for the company’s bankruptcy.
And unfortunately, the trend faded away with its company. The novelty wore off quickly when you realized that your own body heat made permanent discolored patches, and after a few washes, most Hypercolor shirts just looked like regular shirts that had given up on life.
See-Through Electronics
See-through electronics were one of the quirkiest and most memorable trends of the 90s. These gadgets, with their transparent casings, allowed you to see all the inner components, making them look futuristic and cool.
Items like see-through phones, Game Boys, and even desktop computers became highly coveted. The clear plastic revealed the circuit boards, wires, and batteries, turning everyday devices into something extraordinary and almost magical.
For many of us, owning see-through electronics was a status symbol. There was something deeply satisfying about watching the internal mechanics of your Game Boy while playing Tetris.
The transparent plastic made everything look like it belonged in a science fiction movie. Clear phones, pagers, even desktop computers — if it had electronic components, someone made a see-through version.
The aesthetic was pure 90s: “Let’s make technology look like the future we imagined in the 70s.”
Gel Pens
So were gel pens, mood rings, and Lisa Frank everything. Why write with real ink when you could write with gel?
As their name implies, gel pens use a thick, water-based gel to write. They’re available in a greater variety of colors than ink pens, and they look absolutely awesome.
It’s no wonder they quickly caught on with middle school kids in the late ’90s, but there was just one problem: They just weren’t very good pens. “The final product was not very neat,” one teacher told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2001.
“A lot were sloppy.” Gel pens also created distractions in classes, since they were, well, too cool for school.
But nobody cared about neat handwriting when you could write your name in glittery purple that shimmered under fluorescent lights. The more colors you have, the higher your social status.
Some kids had entire pencil cases dedicated to gel pen collections.
Pagers
Before cell phones took over, pagers weren’t just for Dr. Greene. The only problem: After that (inevitably exaggerated) 911 beep from your best friend, you had to find a pay phone and a quarter to call her back.
Fanny packs were a popular fad of the 90s because, in that era, new devices were introduced, and people needed something to keep those bulky devices in one place. It was also one of the unique celebrity fashions in 1990, and it allowed them to easily carry their bulky devices like cell phones, beepers, Discman, etc.
Pagers gave teenagers a taste of what it felt like to be important and in-demand, even when the only messages they received were numeric codes from friends (143 meant “I love you,” 911 meant “emergency” which usually meant something like “did you see what happened on Friends last night?”). The whole system was gloriously inefficient: get beeped, find a phone, call back, discover it wasn’t actually urgent.
But carrying a pager made you feel like you were part of some exclusive communication network.
The Macarena
The Macarena probably wins that one. Everyone knew it, danced it, and heard it at every school event.
The Macarena was one of the annoying songs, and then people made it more annoying with a silly dance. You couldn’t escape it — weddings, school dances, summer camps, even sporting events.
The dance was simple enough that literally anyone could do it, which meant everyone did. There was something weirdly hypnotic about watching an entire gymnasium full of people doing the same arm movements in unison.
The song itself was catchy in the most insidious way possible, designed to burrow into your brain and set up permanent residence. By 1997, hearing those opening notes was enough to make most people involuntarily start moving their arms in the prescribed sequence.
When Everything Was “Xtreme”
The 90s had a serious obsession with making everything sound more exciting by adding unnecessary X’s and Z’s to perfectly normal words. Mountain Dew wasn’t just a soft drink; it was an “Xtreme” lifestyle choice.
Regular activities became “Xplosive” experiences. Overuse Of “X and Z” on EVERYTHING Xtreme.
Every product desperately wanted to sound like it was designed for extreme sports enthusiasts, even when it was just breakfast cereal or fruit snacks. The whole Xtreme thing felt like marketing departments discovered a secret code that would make kids buy anything, and they weren’t wrong.
Slap an X on it, make the logo look like it was designed by someone who exclusively listened to heavy metal, and suddenly your product was too cool for regular spelling rules. Looking back, it’s hard to believe anyone fell for such obvious manipulation, but that neon green packaging was undeniably appealing to the 90s adolescent brain.
These forgotten fads capture something essential about growing up in the 90s
These forgotten fads capture something essential about growing up in the 90s: the strange, wonderful period when mass culture and playground culture collided in the most ridiculous ways possible. Globalized pop culture, the growth of mass consumer markets, and the rise of the internet all converged.
And at the same time, a new generation of teens and young adults were looking for connection and a way to display their identities. This need for self-expression led to near-obsessive collections and 1990s fads that came to define the era — for better or for worse.
Each of these trends burned bright and fast, creating shared experiences that united an entire generation in collective temporary obsessions. They remind us of a time when being cool was simpler, when the right accessory could transform your entire social status, and when everyone agreed that more colors, more plastic, and more attitude was always better.
More from Go2Tutors!
- The Romanov Crown Jewels and Their Tragic Fate
- 13 Historical Mysteries That Science Still Can’t Solve
- Famous Hoaxes That Fooled the World for Years
- 15 Child Stars with Tragic Adult Lives
- 16 Famous Jewelry Pieces in History
Like Go2Tutors’s content? Follow us on MSN.
