So, are you sayin we're just a bunch of suckers!
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia......
A
fad is any form of
behavior that develops among a large population and is collectively followed enthusiastically for a period of time, generally as a result of the behavior being perceived as popular by one's peers or being deemed "cool" by social media.
[1] A fad is said to "catch on" when the number of people adopting it begins to increase rapidly. The behavior will normally fade quickly once the perception of novelty is gone.
[1]
The specific nature of the behavior associated with a fad can be of any type including language usage, apparel, financial investment, and even food. Apart from general novelty, fads may be driven by mass media programming, emotional excitement, peer pressure, or the desire of "being hip".
[2]Fads may also be set by popular celebrities.
Though the term
trend may be used interchangeably with
fad, a fad is generally considered a quick and short behavior whereas a trend is considered to be a behavior that evolves into a relatively permanent change.
[3]
In the late 1950s, the word
beatnik was a major fad after it was coined as a
portmanteau between "
beat" and "
Sputnik". The word faded away, though, as the beatniks abandoned the underlying attitudes that were supposed to go along with their
lifestyle. Although this fad was short-lived, it is credited with giving birth to the
Hippie movement in the following decade and with inspiring other social trends in the decades that followed.
[4]
In
economics, the term is used in a similar way. Fads are mean-reverting deviations from intrinsic value caused by social or psychological forces like those that cause fashions in political beliefs or consumption goods.
[5]
