Ranking 11 Of The Best Fads Of The 90s

For many elder millennials, the 90s will always feel like it was about 10 years ago. Such is the case for anyone born in the 80s who spent their childhood raised in the 90s, the era which served as the last bridge between the pre-Internet era and modern times.

In the modern era, everything is documented online at all times. Billions of people share every minute details of daily life on social media every hour of every day. But so much of the 90s was lost due there not being a massive digital repository for daily life and that’s a shame because looking back at the best 90s fads they seem like distant memories, almost as if they were fever dreams, all because we can’t pick up our phones and search for photos from that era.

Ranking 11 Of The Best Fads of the 1990s

I’m putting this together not because we have forgotten all of the glorious fads of the 90s, it is more that modern fads are just so lame in comparison. Labubus? In my day we had troll dolls that were cuter and still relevant today. Gen Z is wearing ‘mom’ baggy jeans? Okay, let’s see them embrace JNCOs and not just ironically. Anyways, as we walk down memory lane, here are 11 of the best fads of the 90s.

1. The Macarena

If you weren’t alive in the mid-90s, or old enough to be aware of the world at that time, it is hard to comprehend how a fad like ‘The Macarena‘ could become so globally popular overnight.

This 1993 track from Spanish duo Los del Río spent 14 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1996. It was a global dance craze unlike anything the world had seen since The Beatles. ‘The Macarena’ sold millions of copies worldwide and is documented as one of the best-selling singles of all-time.

It was on the radio, in restaurants, at roller rinks… ‘The Macarena’ was EVERYWHERE and somehow everyone alive knew the dance as well. Somehow, with 438 million streams on YouTube the Los del Río YT channel only has 742 subscribers. They really were the true definition of ‘one hit wonder’ in the 90s.

2. Pogs

Pogs were far from the first toy to go viral across America but in the early-to-mid 90s they were in a league of their own. The craze originated in Hawaii in the early 90s after the game was invented from the caps of a soda called ‘POG’ but made it to the mainland by around 1993 and exploded in popularity.

Schools had to ban them. Kids were ruthless. Sellers and resellers were everywhere. Heck, I remember going to some complete stranger’s house near my elementary school to buy these out of her living room in huge boxes. What on God’s green earth were parents doing letting us kids go into stranger’s homes, with cash, to buy toys???

One of the things that kept Pogs going was how they could have virtually any design imaginable on them. They could be printed with TMNT or X-Men graphics, anything. Then the slammers came in every size, shape, and form. Whoever had the coolest slammer in class knew it and was incredibly proud of that.

3. Grunge Music and Style

Where do we even begin with Grunge? It was, first and foremost, a new musical genre that exploded in popularity with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, The Melvins, Mudhoney, and others. The music was borne out of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, and changed the lives of millions forever.

Inextricably linked to the music was the style. Clothes that looked well worn in, just shy of something a homeless person might wear. Flannels everywhere. Boots. Laying buttondown flannels over t-shirts. Baggy pants. Denim. Doc Martens and Converse. Anti-consumer style through and through.

Grunge style endures today despite many of the key figures from the early Music scene no longer being with us. But it exploded in popularity, due in large part to MTV and VH1 making these bands overnight celebrities, and hit the 90s like a bat out of hell.

4. The Super Soaker

In hindsight, it is a little wild how one squirt gun seemed to have a complete stranglehold on all of America for a few years but such was the power of the Super Soaker which exploded in popularity in 1991 and remained a cultural fad for years. To date, Super Soaker has generated over a billion dollars in sales… A squirt gun has made a billion dollars.

But that doesn’t even seem all that crazy when you ponder it because at no point in history has any other squirt gun become so popular we could all name it by name. It was created by former NASA engineer Lonnie Johnson who invented it in 1989 after building a prototype using plexiglass, PVC pipe, o-ring seals, and a 2-liter soda bottle. He would later meet the VP of Larami (toys) and the rest was history. Over 250 million Super Soakers have been sold worldwide.

5. JNCO Jeans

The number of times I’ve seen that meme of some kid posting in JNCOs with the caption “in the 90s, my mom only agreed to buy me JNCO jeans if I did a photoshoot in them so I’d remember how embarrassing they were later” is probably close to 100. And it’s true every time. JNCO jeans were everywhere but man were they hideous.

And when they peaked in popularity I was definitely in that awkward middle school transition phase from being a little kid to an awkward teen and these MASSIVE jeans could not have looked more comical. We somehow deluded ourselves into thinking they were functional with the carpenter’s loop. WRONG.

They peaked in popularity from around 1995-1999 with nearly $200M in sales in 1998 alone. What. Were. We. Thinking??

6. Nintendo Game Boy

The Nintendo Game Boy was released in the Summer of 1989 in the U.S. and in Europe in 1990 but it took a minute before it truly exploded in popularity because, well, it wasn’t cheap. Somehow, despite barely being old enough to tie my own shoes, this was one of the first things I ever bought for myself and did so using Christmas money from my grandma but then regretted spending all my money on a single item and returned it only to regret that and buy it again. Shout out to my mom for being patient through that process.

Bundled with Tetris, the Nintendo Game Boy had every kid in the 90s playing that game so frequently it literally infected our dreams. Wild times. Nearly 60 million units were sold before Nintendo ever introduced the Game Boy Color and when it was discontinued by Nintendo it went down as the best-selling video game console of all time but has since been surpassed.

7. Starter Jackets

Starter Jackets in the early-to-mid 1990s were one of the wildest fashion fads in history because they were both hyper local, regional, national, and global. Kids in Florida who had never stepped foot in the Lone Star State or Windy City were rocking Dallas Cowboy and Chicago Bulls Starter Jackets.

These jackets piggybacked off the 90s obsession with windbreakers which was, in and of itself, one of hte biggest fads of the 90s, but they were an easy way to hype up the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL at the time. Though I rarely remember anyone wearing MLB Starter Jackets back then.

Popularity in these jackets disappeared fast. It was almost like the Summer of 1997 made everyone forget about them so when the Fall/Winter of that year rolled around they’d been forgotten.

8. Slap Bracelets

Slap bracelets certainly still exist today in the form of a renaissance but they exploded in popularity in the 1990s as a fad that came out of nowhere. They’re genius, really. It is as if someone has millions of leftover measuring tapes and didn’t know what to do with them so they covered them in fabric and sold them to kids.

Leaning into 1990s obsession with neon colors that held over from the 80s only made slap bracelets more popular. Somehow there was never a centralized retailer. They were everywhere at all times.

9. Third-Wave Ska

As a sub-genre of Reggae, and really a precursor to Reggae, Ska has had three distinct waves in popularity. First in the early 1960s, later in the 70s into the 80s, and then again in a HUGE way in third-wave ska when bands like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Reel Big Fish, No Doubt, and Less Than Jake exploded in the 90s.

Some of us, myself included, are still on board with this 90s fad. Ska’s not dead. And despite the Propagandhi song ‘Ska Sucks’ being super catchy, it does not, in fact, suck at all. Ska rocks. Ska will live forever. But it really did have a moment in the 90s.

10. Beanie Babies

All things considered, Beanie Babies were likely the biggest fad of the 90s. It predated Pokémon’s ‘Gotta Catch ‘Em All’ mentality but certainly set the stage for it because every other day there was some new incredibly rare and highly sought after Beanie Baby that dropped and they were always sold in the craziest of places.

Parents were convinced these beanbag dolls would fund their retirement. Documentaries have been made about the crazy that was Beanie Babies. My mother-in-law saved all of my wife’s and every time we go over my son comes home with a new one so at least there’s still some value because when the floor fell out on Beanie Babies they died in a hurry.

11. Rollerblades

Rollerblades were a legit 90s fad that I wish would make a comeback. Alas, the manufacturers don’t exist like they used to, nobody is making glorious movies like Airborne where Mitchell has to race down Devil’s Backbone with his cousin Seth Green who was being tormented by a young Jack Black.

All things considered, rollerblading is a great form of exercise. You get solid cardio, it’s easy on the knees, and helps develop joint stability. Rollerblade hockey was the only street hockey we had growing up in Florida when movies like The Mighty Ducks were all the rage. We’d shut down the street with our net and play for hours. Great times.

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Which of the best 90s fads do you think we missed here? Let me know in the Facebook comments or you can shoot me an email anytime to cass@brobible.com!