A fad or trend or fad is any form of group behavior that develops inside a culture, a generation or social group and which impulse is followed enthusiastically by a group of people for a finite time period.
Fads are things or behaviors that achieved short lived popularity, but fade away. Fads are frequently seen as sudden, fast spreading, and short lived. Fads could include diets, clothing, hairstyles, toys, and more. Some liked fads during history are toys like yo yos and hula hoops, music genres like rock and roll music, and dances like the turn. More current fads may include memes, planking, and Tebowing.
Alike to behavior or customs but less lasting, fads frequently result from an activity or behavior being perceived as emotionally liked or thrilling inside a peer group or being deemed "cool" as frequently promoted by social networks A fad is said to "catch on" when the number of people adopting it begins to increase to the point of being noteworthy. Fads frequently fade quickly when the view of novelty is gone.
On occasion people use the words fad and trend interchangeably. Fads may be distinguished from trends in three ways: their reason for rise, their incubation period and life span, and their scope. Trends have explainable rises, and are driven by working needs. They reflect deep rooted human desires and needs, while fads are usually driven by the emotional have to buy. This emotional need can come from the hype that surrounds the product. Trends rise gradually over time, but fads popularity spike quickly and they end up dying out just as quickly. Fads may last for just weeks or months. Scope is a factor. A trend encompasses some number of brands and merchandise which can reach a big range of people. A fad usually encompasses just one brand, or product, with restricted attraction and a narrow scope.
An example of a fad could be Beanie Babies. Beanie Babies don't meet many working needs of humans, their hype is what helped to bring in more customers, not essentially their functionality. Fads tend to have a big surge in popularity, , then disappear. Beanie Babies became liked for some years in the 1990s, but then their popularity quickly dropped, and has steadily been dropping since their peak in the 1990s. Beanie Babies were made by one company and had a narrow scope. Some more examples of fads include pole sitting, dancing the Shake, and the Tamagotchi.
An example of a trend could be handbags. Trends are driven by working needs, and handbags were produced for functionality. Trends tend to rise in popularity more gradually. The demand for handbags has steadily increased over the years. As for their scope, different kinds of people use handbags for different reasons: to carry things like money, personal things, clothes, childrens things, and more. There are various brands and types of handbags available. Trends possess some dexterity, which lets them to adapt through the years. Some more examples of trends include healthy living, eco friendly cars and ebooks.
Many modern fads share alike patterns of social organization. There are some different models that may be used to look at fads and how they spread.
One way of looking at the spread of fads is through the top down model. The top down model argues that fashion is produced for the elite, and from the elite, fashion widens to lower classes. Early adopters may not essentially be those of a high position, but they have enough resources that let them to experiment with new innovations. When looking at the top down model, sociologists like to highlight the role of selection. The elite may be the ones that introduce certain fads, but other people must decide to adopt those fads.
Others may argue that not all fads begin with their adopters. Social life already gives people with ideas that may help create a base for new and groundbreaking fads. businesses can look at what people are already interested in and create something from that info. The ideas behind fads aren't generally original, they may stem from what is already liked at the time. Recreation and style faddists may attempt out variations of a basic pattern or idea already in existence.
Another way of looking at the spread of fads is through a symbolic interaction view. People learn their behaviors from the people around them. When it comes to group behavior, the emergence of these shared rules, meanings, and emotions are more reliant on the cues of the situation, rather than physiological arousal. This connection to symbolic interactionism, a hypothesis that explains peoples actions as being directed by shared meanings and assumptions, explains that fads are spread because people attach meaning and feeling to objects, and not because the object has practical use, for example. People may adopt a fad due to meanings and assumptions they share with the other people who adopted that fad. People may join other adopters of the fad because they enjoy being a part of a group and what that symbolizes. Some people may join because they want to feel like an insider. When many people adopt the same fad, they may feel like they have made the right choice because other people have made that same choice.
Never the less, here are some of the fads in search: