SOCI201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Cabbage Patch Kids, Pocket Watch, Pet Rock

• School: University of Delaware
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOCI201
• Professor: Best Joel

Document Summary

The bottom line: short-lived phenomena can have social significance. In the summer of 1958, americans bought an estimated 25 million hula hoops: enough to give one to every child between the ages of 5 and 11. We associate fads with young people, with non-serious trivia. Toy fads (pet rock, cabbage patch kids) Phone booth stuffing: men see how many of them can be stuffed into telephone booth. We think about fads as silly stuff. Calling something a fad dismisses its importance. Duri(cid:374)g (cid:1005)95(cid:1004)"s it (cid:449)as (cid:448)ery (cid:272)o(cid:373)(cid:373)o(cid:374) for people to say ro(cid:272)k a(cid:374)d roll (cid:449)as a fad. Professor, did a study for several years around 1920. Tells stude(cid:374)ts to list 5 (cid:272)urre(cid:374)t fads, he"d (cid:272)olle(cid:272)t this list a(cid:374)d (cid:272)o(cid:373)pare the (cid:272)urre(cid:374)ts to fads from previous years. He notices very few fads make 2 lists. Me(cid:374)"s (cid:449)rist (cid:449)at(cid:272)hes (cid:449)as o(cid:374)e of these fads.