- No, this is not a call to bring any of this stuff back.
The ‘90s were a weird decade. You somehow had these two completely opposite views going on.
On one hand, people suddenly decided that all the cheesiness and neon colors of the ’80s were totally not cool anymore, so we got grunge and the like. On the other, we had stuff like Spice Girls.
With all that said, there was a lot more strangeness in the decade. Here are 10 weird things and trends that were really popular in the ‘90s — for some reason.
1. Slap Bracelets
Although they were invented in 1983, slap bracelets became an overnight teenage fad in the early ‘90s. In case you’re too young to remember what a slap bracelet is, it’s a thin metal spring band covered in plastic or fabric.
It stays rigid, but if you slap it against your wrist, it’ll coil around it. They were kind of therapeutic, I suppose.
There’s a good reason why you might not remember them, though. Many schools started banning these things as kids were injuring themselves and each other due to the metal coil breaking through the bracelet’s cover — or just slapping the bracelet on too hard.
2. Frosted Tips
If you wanted to be a cool dude in the ‘90s, you had to have frosted tips. Every boy band had at least one teenage heartthrob sporting hair that had been bleached just at the tips.
To complete the look, you naturally had to drench your hair in gel and shape it into those wet-looking spikes. You know, some ‘90s stuff is making a comeback, but there’s probably a reason we haven’t seen this trend return.
3. Platform Shoes
Platform shoes were the latest hotness during the ‘60s disco craze, but they came back full force in the late ‘90s. That was in large part thanks to the Spice Girls, who often wore impractically thick platforms during public appearances.
In particular, it was platform sandals that took the world by storm. You have to kind of wonder why, since we sure never heard anyone say they were comfortable to walk with.
4. See-Through Electronics
Everything from the original iMac to the Game Boy and your no-name cheap CD player was available with a see-through plastic cover. We suppose people in the ‘90s just really wanted to see the circuit boards inside their electronics.
If you had a device with a see-through case, though, you soon realized why it was a bad idea. The plastic stained and faded sometimes shockingly quickly, leaving it looking grimy and gross.
5. Pagers
Before SMS and online messengers, teens chatted through pagers. You might associate pagers with doctors, businessmen, or drug dealers, but in the ‘90s, everybody wanted one.
You can’t fit many characters on a pager’s screen, though, so kids quickly developed a form of code speech to communicate with each other. That led to a related trend, which was companies printing absolutely hilarious guidebooks to teen pager lingo for concerned parents.
6. Flip Shades
Flip shades showed up, became popular, and then disappeared completely within a few short years. They were sunglasses that had lenses that could flip up from the frame.
You know, in case you wanted to wear your sunglasses but not have the eye protection.
Flip shades weren’t the only strange sunglass fad in the ‘90s, though. We also had…
7. Colored Sunglasses
To complement your totally radical frosted tips, colored sunglasses were a must. They came in all shades, from pink to green, but yellow and orange were probably the most popular.
Actually, these sunglasses were sort of popular at the same time U2 was at its height in the ‘90s. Bono, was this all because of you?
8. Balance Birds
We don’t know where these little plastic birds balancing on their beaks came from. But they were everywhere.
You saw them at your aunt’s house, at the doctor’s office, on your coworkers’ desks, and lying abandoned on the street. And they kind of went away overnight in a bizarre plastic balance bird extinction event (although you can apparently still buy them).
9. JNCOs
The JNCO jeans are probably one of the most infamous fads from the ‘90s. We’re using the word “jeans” loosely here (pun intended) as the things were more of a denim tent you strapped to your waist.
These pants were awkward to wear, but you can’t deny they had massive amounts of storage space. You could fit 10 portable CD players in each pocket so you could not listen to your favorite tunes because the discs kept skipping.
10. Y2K Scare
The last craze of the decade wasn’t one that anyone wanted to have. Yet, a lot of people were terrified of the approaching turn of the millennium because doomsayers said most, if not all technology would break.
Somehow, the change from 1999 to 2000 was supposed to utterly confuse all computers. Bank would lose peoples’ money, planes would fall out of the sky, and the stock market would vanish into thin air.
Of course, none of that happened. But at least the fear brought the people together.